Post Game Thoughts. At Thunder 2.

[Heimdal]

Coolcono: by the time you tuned in, Reid already had 23 points. I guess you missed that part.

Bipolar team. Gave up 83 points in the first half, 37 in the second. Can we come out ready to play?
Key to the game? Make your free throws!! 12/22. It's a constant make 1 miss 1. Inexcusable.


1 minute left, Naz with the ball, the defense collapses to him, Malik is wiiiiide open at the top of the key, Naz doesn't see it and unfortunately decides to pass it to a cutting Layman. Intercepted.


Next play, Edwards attacks the rim and perfectly passes it to a wide open Layman in the corner. That's the game right there. Missed 3. Beasley completely alone, would have had all day to shoot there.


Last play of the game, Rubio decides to pass it to Reid right when a window to pass it to Beasley opened. Sad because I'd rather Malik get the ball there for the game-winning 3. Poor Beasley just never gets the chance to make a shot late in games.


How things change: Layman looked to be out of the rotation forever and Vanderbilt was the guy everybody wanted to play (me included). Now, Layman finishes games while Vanderbilt is frustrating me a ton. Not to Okogie's level, but almost.

Edwards and McDaniels are special.

[winforlose]

I think OKC might be the only team in the league that we have some kind of height advantage against.

Sucks to lose but watching Edwards continue to develop is nice. He can basically get to the rim at will and seems to be improving his awareness of when to pass. That's big. Also nice to see him pitching in with the rebounds. He should be able to get 10+ combined rebounds, assists, steals and blocks a game.

Reid had a great game throwing his weight around in the 2nd half. Need to punish teams here where we can (like they do us).

Nowell was good, Beasley-lite. Beas himself was good. McDaniels was good, McLaughlin was good, Layman was great.

Saunders' rotations screwed us at the end though. I get, in theory, putting Rubio in to act as a calming influence but this season he hasn't been providing that. Yet Ryan keeps going to it.

I love the Beasley lite reference and if it catches on I will link back to my calling him that last year. I see Nowell as a having a bright future if he stays healthy.

[Guidus88]

Coolcono: by the time you tuned in, Reid already had 23 points. I guess you missed that part.

Bipolar team. Gave up 83 points in the first half, 37 in the second. Can we come out ready to play?
Key to the game? Make your free throws!! 12/22. It's a constant make 1 miss 1. Inexcusable.


1 minute left, Naz with the ball, the defense collapses to him, Malik is wiiiiide open at the top of the key, Naz doesn't see it and unfortunately decides to pass it to a cutting Layman. Intercepted.


Next play, Edwards attacks the rim and perfectly passes it to a wide open Layman in the corner. That's the game right there. Missed 3. Beasley completely alone, would have had all day to shoot there.


Last play of the game, Rubio decides to pass it to Reid right when a window to pass it to Beasley opened. Sad because I'd rather Malik get the ball there for the game-winning 3. Poor Beasley just never gets the chance to make a shot late in games.


How things change: Layman looked to be out of the rotation forever and Vanderbilt was the guy everybody wanted to play (me included). Now, Layman finishes games while Vanderbilt is frustrating me a ton. Not to Okogie's level, but almost.

Edwards and McDaniels are special.

Perfect analysis,I love it. Some bad decisions late in the game were brutal, but I think that FT misses cost us the win.

[Shaka_Zulu]

The FTs defenitely lost us the game, and not giving Beasley a single shot attempt in our last 2-3 minutes too. But besides the SHAMBOLIC first half (wtf were we doing?), I gotta say I was enamored with our second. Whatever Ryan said to them in half time, try instilling that into them from get go...


Because they came out HUNGRY. Energizer bunnies hunting for every scrap. Naz Reid remembered he is a big guy and just went to town on OKC rim in post ups. Layman in MVP mode suddenly, and truly I cant stress enough how special McDaniel really is. He was stopping everything, or close to it. Its no coincidence OKC fought back and got lead and kept it, when he sat down cuz he played for so long. No one could come close to slowing down Shai without Jaden out there.



That LONG stretch where we played Jmac, Ant, McDaniel, Vando, Naz was wonderful. All youth lineup, only one in that 5 I didnt like much was Vando (Jadens all encompassing presence in defense almost made Vando absolete, especially since he was nonexistent offensively), we were defenitely better when Layman came in for him.

[NebWolvesFan]

You have recency bias with Layman, Culver has had good games( much better than Layman) mixed with his bad ones.

Layman is bigger, can actually shot free throws and will take open shots. I'm not sure Culver is that much of a better defender when both a defending wings.

[Calinks]

When you have a young team, especially with guys as young and inexperienced as ours, there are going to be innumerable mistakes. KAT and DLO are pretty much our vets and even they will have mess up from time to time. Guys like Naz, Edwards, Vanderbilt, Okogie, Culver, Nowell, even Beasley who is getting major minutes consistently for the first time in his career are going to screw up a lot.

We are going to have issues as long as we have to play so many young guys for significant chunks of the game. A couple of veterans could help clean a lot of that up.

[Neeva]

You have recency bias with Layman, Culver has had good games( much better than Layman) mixed with his bad ones.

Layman is bigger, can actually shot free throws and will take open shots. I'm not sure Culver is that much of a better defender when both a defending wings.

one decent game lol, culver IS better defensively and Culver rebounds.

[Jedzz]

I'm watching on a delay, but I just saw something that... I mean it almost defies words.

J-Mac brings the ball over half court, and flips to Ant, whos on the top-right of the arc. Ant does a pivot move/pump fake, and then passes back to J-Mac who is now at the top of the arc. J-Mac passes back to Ant, and vacates. Ant dribbles to the top of the arc (where J-Mac was), and passes to McDaniels on the top-left of the arc. McDaniels passes it right back to Ant.

Now Ant is alone at the top of the arc with like 8 seconds on the clock. He dribbles twice and puts up a contested three.

No screens, no cutting, no misdirection.

What the **** are we doing?

It's basically worthless to have other point guards on the court with Edwards. This is who he ultimately is when his confidence is high as a rook. He's defaulting to the onball playmaker. Having an undrafted two-way contract guy like JMac on the court with him with zero clout on this stupid team due to Rosas means Edwards just isn't going to let him actually lead and run point. Edwards won't even let him walk the ball up all that much when together. But JMac definitely isn't leading possessions as he can once over half court even when he does. As you said, he's just bowing to this and flips the ball to someone right away because thats what the coaches are asking him to to. It's the typical two PG problem we've had here where they end up with a Point Guard sitting stationary somewhere on the Arc too often, out of the offense. That was changing a bit with Dlo/Rubio asserting their need for the ball more over the last number of weeks. But as I mentioned a week ago, Edwards and JMac really shouldn't be on the court together. Their dynamic is different. JMac is actually capable of taking a pass and hitting some threes but these guys aren't choosing him for those shots either. Edwards calls his own number mostly, or appears to be hitting McDaniels/Nowell with a pass if he does. It's not the best use of him or these players being together if you ask me. Of course it doesn't help when JMac isn't even playing for two to three games to come back and for any of us to expect them all to look gelled together.

[Dewey]

You have recency bias with Layman, Culver has had good games( much better than Layman) mixed with his bad ones.

Layman is bigger, can actually shot free throws and will take open shots. I'm not sure Culver is that much of a better defender when both a defending wings.

one decent game lol, culver IS better defensively and Culver rebounds.

I see Layman as a true role player ... “If” he was a better defender he’d have more value. “If” Culver figures out how to score with some efficiently he has a more rounded game that translates to more minutes IMO. Both need to carve out their role and just be consistent.