Denver at Sacramento

[King Baller]

We also made a clutch shot to finish off the Nugs. Garcia's prayer over Nene with us up 6 with around a minute was really clutch he drops one or 2 a year. He will make a good replacement for BJax of the bench. Imagine how good we will be when we get a consistent clutch presence in the draft.

JT did play like crap but did also get drilled in the teeth for the first time by Nene. Why does JT insist on continuing to make rookie mistakes? Get over dude you have only about 20 games to milk that stuff. But seriously this was the first time he had the stuff knocked out of him and he will bounce back he played good def against Nene. Again for the JT doubters he scored 10/7 in 28 min a game as a rookie while Bosh scored 12/8 in 33 minutes a game. We have a lot of scoring and when these big guys figure out how to play team def and knock people down consistently we will be a powerhouse combined with some clutchness Iike the direction we are going.

The problem with comparing Bosh rookie year and Jt is that Bosh is currently only 2 years older than JT. When Bosh was JTs age he averaged 22.5/ 9.5. Thats a big difference. JT should not be playing like a rookie, when he is years older than other rookies. What is real funny is that Dwight Howard is only 8 months older than JT right now.

The leap from the NCAA to the NBA is the greatest leap in all of sports. More than the NCAA to the NFL and way more than the minors to the Bigs in baseball.

I suspect JT is going to mature along the lines of Karl Malone. JT hit the weight room young man.

KB

[murray]

We also made a clutch shot to finish off the Nugs. Garcia's prayer over Nene with us up 6 with around a minute was really clutch he drops one or 2 a year. He will make a good replacement for BJax of the bench. Imagine how good we will be when we get a consistent clutch presence in the draft.

JT did play like crap but did also get drilled in the teeth for the first time by Nene. Why does JT insist on continuing to make rookie mistakes? Get over dude you have only about 20 games to milk that stuff. But seriously this was the first time he had the stuff knocked out of him and he will bounce back he played good def against Nene. Again for the JT doubters he scored 10/7 in 28 min a game as a rookie while Bosh scored 12/8 in 33 minutes a game. We have a lot of scoring and when these big guys figure out how to play team def and knock people down consistently we will be a powerhouse combined with some clutchness Iike the direction we are going.

The problem with comparing Bosh rookie year and Jt is that Bosh is currently only 2 years older than JT. When Bosh was JTs age he averaged 22.5/ 9.5. Thats a big difference. JT should not be playing like a rookie, when he is years older than other rookies. What is real funny is that Dwight Howard is only 8 months older than JT right now.

The leap from the NCAA to the NBA is the greatest leap in all of sports. More than the NCAA to the NFL and way more than the minors to the Bigs in baseball.

I suspect JT is going to mature along the lines of Karl Malone. JT hit the weight room young man.

KB

We hope so, but he has regressed a ton this last few weeks.

[murray]

How did you get that from what I was saying? Of course extrapolating from minutes like that is ridiculous, but you definitely have to account for minutes to a certain extent. What I would say is that Soloman gave us great production in those minutes, and I wouldn't blame any rebounding problems on him in that game. I would also, beyond everything else, think it's ridiculous to base any actual team decisions off of one game.

The important point though is that if any of those guys you listed got 44 minutes in a given game, their rebounding had better be higher.

And how can you say "the game is more than stats" when you yourself were arguing stats? You were arguing rebounds per game. That's a stat--it's just not a very precise one. And I found it rather ridiculous when one's comparing the averages of somebody who plays much fewer minutes than what Spencer played last night. You think 7RPG would be acceptable if Oden were getting more than 22 measly minutes?

Per minute stats aren't everything, but when your starting center is the only big in the game for your team for a large portion of the game, and your team is getting killed on the boards, 8 rebounds in 44 minutes is not acceptable.

You answered your own dumb question. When we go to small ball, other teams focus on the one big guy to box out. Hawes battled for rebounds and many times tipped the ball to teammates. You can't expect him to grab them all, battling all the big guys from the opposite team. Again, thats one of those things you need to play to understand Mitch.

[pillwenney]

You answered your own dumb question. When we go to small ball, other teams focus on the one big guy to box out. Hawes battled for rebounds and many times tipped the ball to teammates. You can't expect him to grab them all, battling all the big guys from the opposite team. Again, thats one of those things you need to play to understand Mitch.

If they focus on one big guy to box out, then everybody else had better crash much more effectively than they did, because then their job would be extraordinarily easy.

But that's not what happened. What happened is that Spencer came away from the basket to defend, and thus couldn't return in time for the rebound. Not to mention the fact that, as I already stated, Denver played small ball even more than we did, really (unless you consider Balkman a PF, which he's not any more than Noc is). So whatever rules applied to us should apply to them.

But man, if that's how it works, then that Dwight Howard sure is impressive. With his PF getting 5-6RPG, I can't imagine, how, being the only real rebounding threat, he manages get around an entire team boxing him out to grab the rebound 14 times a game!

But seriously, I wouldn't have a problem with the rebounding total if the numbers showed that the team was still effective on the boards, but they weren't (which they should've been if the entire Denver team was blocking Spencer out) and that has to fall on the center's shoulders when he played the kind of minutes Spencer played.

[murray]

You answered your own dumb question. When we go to small ball, other teams focus on the one big guy to box out. Hawes battled for rebounds and many times tipped the ball to teammates. You can't expect him to grab them all, battling all the big guys from the opposite team. Again, thats one of those things you need to play to understand Mitch.

If they focus on one big guy to box out, then everybody else had better crash much more effectively than they did, because then their job would be extraordinarily easy.

But that's not what happened. What happened is that Spencer came away from the basket to defend, and thus couldn't return in time for the rebound. Not to mention the fact that, as I already stated, Denver played small ball even more than we did, really (unless you consider Balkman a PF, which he's not any more than Noc is). So whatever rules applied to us should apply to them.

But man, if that's how it works, then that Dwight Howard sure is impressive. With his PF getting 5-6RPG, I can't imagine, how, being the only real rebounding threat, he manages get around an entire team boxing him out to grab the rebound 14 times a game!

But seriously, I wouldn't have a problem with the rebounding total if the numbers showed that the team was still effective on the boards, but they weren't (which they should've been if the entire Denver team was blocking Spencer out) and that has to fall on the center's shoulders when he played the kind of minutes Spencer played.

DId you watch the game, or just a stat guy? Hawes works hard for the boards, and gets little help in that small ball set. Many of the offensive rebounds (important stat) came from players that Hawes was not guarding. So who is boxing out the Balkmans or the Kliezas when Hawes is boxing out his man? JT was strait overpowered by Nene all night, and lead to his benching. Enough blame to go around on the boards, but a wins a win.

[pillwenney]

DId you watch the game, or just a stat guy? Hawes works hard for the boards, and gets little help in that small ball set. Many of the offensive rebounds (important stat) came from players that Hawes was not guarding. So who is boxing out the Balkmans or the Kliezas when Hawes is boxing out his man? JT was strait overpowered by Nene all night, and lead to his benching. Enough blame to go around on the boards, but a wins a win.

I was at the game, and that's largely what my analysis is based on. I'm not saying Spencer wasn't working, I'm saying he was often out-positioned, which he was, usually because he either was playing too high out on the perimeter, or because he was getting outmuscled.

And if you'll read my original post on the matter, I very clearly said there was blame to go around. You were the one that specifically brought Spencer out of my post.