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First look at the Rose & Wade back court as starters.

This starting line up is as dumb as I thought it would be. Hopefully, Lue felt like he needed to show people it wouldn't work.

This second unit with Rose is soooo much better than last year's second unit.

Crowder is not a good rebounder.

Yeah cant see rebounding being a strength of this team, maybe starting Wade is more about getting Rose with JR Green TT and Korver or Shump that unit looked fantastic.

afarmenian wrote:Yeah cant see rebounding being a strength of this team, maybe starting Wade is more about getting Rose with JR Green TT and Korver or Shump that unit looked fantastic.

Yeah that second unit looked great but Rose is starting too. Between Wade & LBJ, you really don't need a PG.

Yeah Wade, Rose, LBJ, & Love is one too many guys who need the ball to be effective. JR's a better fit in that line up.

Well i think the biggest problem is love at center. I just don't see how he can handle the physical nature of playing center for the entire year with his injury history.

afarmenian wrote:Well i think the biggest problem is love at center. I just don't see how he can handle the physical nature of playing center for the entire year with his injury history.

I just don't think Wade, Rose, & LBJ should all be on the court at the same time. Every team in the league is going to pack the paint against that. Subbing out Love for TT would make it worse.

Shump playing PG on the second unit isn't going to work either.

Not too surprised by the poor play from the starting 5, this was the first game with LBJ and the chemistry is next to 0. It will get better. However, deciding to play Love at the 5 is just digging us into an even deeper hole and suppressing the real issues.
1) Love needs a rim protector beside him at all times, otherwise his sporadic offensive contributions are not worth his defensive liabilities. This has been clear as day since his first game here.
2) SG issue: Wade is not a starter anymore, JR is slowing down, and Shump has no potential left.

The sooner we come to terms with this, the better it will be come April. I would go for it, and try to get a solid big that can protect the paint in exchange for Love + 2018 pick + extras. Then hope IT comes back and plays like he did last season. Or, come to realization that Lebron is leaving next season, and brace for an early exit ala 2010

It's just 1 game. Also, LeBron was just testing himself to start the game and not very aggressive. From all the reports, Rose has really worked on his 3pt shot and it has looked pretty good in the training camp so IMO, once they start trusting each other and move the ball more accurately (had too many turnovers in the 1st qtr - mostly by LeBron and Wade), then they should be just fine.

Give them about a week or two and you will see that this lineup can cause a lot of problems for other teams. Besides, they will only be together for the first 5-6 minutes of 1st and 3rd qtrs only and not for most of the game.

bb22 wrote:Not too surprised by the poor play from the starting 5, this was the first game with LBJ and the chemistry is next to 0. It will get better. However, deciding to play Love at the 5 is just digging us into an even deeper hole and suppressing the real issues.
1) Love needs a rim protector beside him at all times, otherwise his sporadic offensive contributions are not worth his defensive liabilities. This has been clear as day since his first game here.
2) SG issue: Wade is not a starter anymore, JR is slowing down, and Shump has no potential left.

The sooner we come to terms with this, the better it will be come April. I would go for it, and try to get a solid big that can protect the paint in exchange for Love + 2018 pick + extras. Then hope IT comes back and plays like he did last season. Or, come to realization that Lebron is leaving next season, and brace for an early exit ala 2010

I don't know if you watched the game or not but it doesn't sound like it. Love was not the problem defensively and adding a rim protector w/o pulling off either Wade or Rose is going to make the offensive problems worse. Simply put, Wade, LBJ, & Rose in the same unit destroys the Cavs spacing. The Bulls packed the paint and turned the game into a jump shooting contest. Every team is going to do that. Our second unit when run by Rose was amazing. It's is my hope that Lue knows this as well but ran that starting line up to show Wade & LBJ it's not going to work.

cool007 wrote:It's just 1 game. Also, LeBron was just testing himself to start the game and not very aggressive. From all the reports, Rose has really worked on his 3pt shot and it has looked pretty good in the training camp so IMO, once they start trusting each other and move the ball more accurately (had too many turnovers in the 1st qtr - mostly by LeBron and Wade), then they should be just fine.

Give them about a week or two and you will see that this lineup can cause a lot of problems for other teams. Besides, they will only be together for the first 5-6 minutes of 1st and 3rd qtrs only and not for most of the game.

That line up is awful and it will continue to be awful because it's completely unbalanced. You can't have two guards on the floor who are negative defenders & poor jump shooters next to LBJ.

jbk1234 wrote:

bb22 wrote:Not too surprised by the poor play from the starting 5, this was the first game with LBJ and the chemistry is next to 0. It will get better. However, deciding to play Love at the 5 is just digging us into an even deeper hole and suppressing the real issues.
1) Love needs a rim protector beside him at all times, otherwise his sporadic offensive contributions are not worth his defensive liabilities. This has been clear as day since his first game here.
2) SG issue: Wade is not a starter anymore, JR is slowing down, and Shump has no potential left.

The sooner we come to terms with this, the better it will be come April. I would go for it, and try to get a solid big that can protect the paint in exchange for Love + 2018 pick + extras. Then hope IT comes back and plays like he did last season. Or, come to realization that Lebron is leaving next season, and brace for an early exit ala 2010

I don't know if you watched the game or not but it doesn't sound like it. Love was not the problem defensively and adding a rim protector w/o pulling off either Wade or Rose is going to make the offensive problems worse. Simply put, Wade, LBJ, & Rose in the same unit destroys the Cavs spacing. The Bulls packed the paint and turned the game into a jump shooting contest. Every team is going to do that. Our second unit when run by Rose was amazing. It's is my hope that Lue knows this as well but ran that starting line up to show Wade & LBJ it's not going to work.

yep and I know no one wants to hear this, but that is why Shump at the 1 with the first unit (Shump,Wade/Smith,James,Crowder,Love) makes a lot of sense or Rose/Thomas,Smith,James,Crowder,Love. I liked what I saw immediately defensively when Lue inserted Shumpert at the 1 for Rose while Wade ,James,Crowder and Love were playing,then Smith subbed in for Wade and it was still better defensively than Rose-Wade combo.
I understand people not trusting Shump on the 2nd team (without Lebron & Love) but with the first team it makes all the sense in the world if only for short spurts to clean up the mess after trading baskets or worse giving up easy transition baskets like the Rose Wade back court was doing until Shump and then Smith entered the game and started closing the gap getting stops.
Calderon too me other than hitting an occasional open 3 or finding a cutter, doesn't offer enough defensively to justify being in the rotation at all.

bb22 wrote:Not too surprised by the poor play from the starting 5, this was the first game with LBJ and the chemistry is next to 0. It will get better. However, deciding to play Love at the 5 is just digging us into an even deeper hole and suppressing the real issues.
1) Love needs a rim protector beside him at all times, otherwise his sporadic offensive contributions are not worth his defensive liabilities. This has been clear as day since his first game here.
2) SG issue: Wade is not a starter anymore, JR is slowing down, and Shump has no potential left.

The sooner we come to terms with this, the better it will be come April. I would go for it, and try to get a solid big that can protect the paint in exchange for Love + 2018 pick + extras. Then hope IT comes back and plays like he did last season. Or, come to realization that Lebron is leaving next season, and brace for an early exit ala 2010

I disagree with almost everything you said.
I do think on the defensive end it will take some time for Love to adjust to the 5. we don't need a rim protector if it causes a huge drop off on the offensive end and so I disagree in your low expectation analysis of Love at the 5 and definitely disagree with your assessment of Smith slowing down and Shump having no potential neither of which is at all accurate.
Wade probably isn't a starter in the traditional sense as far as impactful minutes, but this won't stop him from being effective in the starting line up provided a guard is in the back court with him that has a better long distance shot % than Rose & is a + defender.