Baddy Chuck wrote:We looked really good.
Monta looked great early passing but fell to the long twos later in the game. Fortunatly at the end they fell.
Brandon IMO was the clear POG. We clearly played our best ball by far when he was in and the +/- proved it.
The +/- delta for Monta was because he was in with the 2nd unit that lost a big lead once if not twice. He was on the floor with no offensive threat other than himself. He was out there with Beno, Daniels, etc. Just couldn't score and lost the lead. I hate the +/- stat and tonight is a great example as to why. Ellis played a pretty good game if you ask me and was easily one of the main reasons we won the game. They should really ISO him more when he in on the floor with the 2nd unit and our team offense sputters.
No question however that Jennings was fantastic and Dunleavy and Sanders had big impact.
This team is very fun to watch and I cannot wait for Henson to push Dalembert out of the starting line up outside of big body matchups. I can honestly see Udoh (whom I think works well with Sanders) getting squeezed out too, by either Henson or Sanders if he can earn more PT by getting less ticky tack fouls. Sanders is by far and above our best FC player right now and only his fouls keep him from getting 30 plus minutes.
For this team to succeed we needed several things to fall into place.
We needed Jennings to take a step. He has and will likely earn a big contract. Win win for the Bucks and Jennings.
We needed Ellis to perform within the offense and be more efficient. I think he has clearly done the former, but the latter still requires some more effort/coaching. He is an outstanding offensive talent and is almost impossible to guard when he ISO's. Just wish he would take less unbalanced shots.
We needed at least one, better yet two of Sanders, Udoh, Harris or Henson to be an impact player. Well Sanders has taken a couple of steps and is just that for us, Harris and Udoh look to be effective rotation players and Henson still looks very promising.
We needed the team to buy into Skiles in general being a lame duck coach who appeared to have wanted out. Check. You wouldn't know by how this team is responding and how he is coaching that there was ever a concern. Defensively we are rotating and helping each other and the balance of rim protection to a gambling backcourt is working well. Bogut who? Offensively the team leads the league in assists so his sharing offense is working well and I think we lead the league in pace too, which is perfect for this group.
Quite a few things are falling into place for this relatively low talent team coming into this season. It looks like a ton of crow may be eaten around here. Our tiny backcourt is working. Ellis isn't someone you just cut and in fact is quite a good player and is helping this team win. Skiles isn't a moron and somehow figured out that Gooden isn't a good long term solution for this team. Maybe just maybe Hammond isn't a moron either. At just 8 games in still a work in progress, but so far so good.