Miami Vs Wizards 10/15/13 Preseason

[dobrojim]

Beal showed a couple moves off the bounce and his handle
looked reasonably good, almost certainly better than year 1.
Many more games like last night and we could be back at
debating whether BB or JW is 'the' guy on our team not
that Wall looked bad. Wall did hit a 3.

He was strokin' it last night. Looked smooooth.

[tontoz]

I missed the first 2.5 quarters. Can anyone tell me how Beal played? He obviously scored a lot with good efficiency, but was he taking anyone off the bounce? Or was it mostly just catch-and-shoot and finishing on the break?

He had one nasty move off the dribble going around his back to get by one man and then finishing high off the glass over a big. It was the kind of thing you would expect from Tony Parker but not Beal.

He didn't do a lot of moves off the dribble but that one was caught me by surprise.

[dckingsfan]

now we just need to build a team that can get there!

Is that the fine print

[nate33]

I missed the first 2.5 quarters. Can anyone tell me how Beal played? He obviously scored a lot with good efficiency, but was he taking anyone off the bounce? Or was it mostly just catch-and-shoot and finishing on the break?

He did it all. He took his man off the dribble, finished on the break, drew contact, hit contested shots at the buzzer, passed out of the PnR, and had a picture perfect escape dribble on Dwade. A+ game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LHkbS0SbQ

Thanks for posting the highlights. Very impressive. He really did show a little of everything. I really liked that pump fake and then step in for a wide open 17-footer. Wade makes a living off that move.

[MikeTheKid]

I think the best thing from BB yesterday wasn't even in the game, in postgame interviews I don't remember what he said word for word but he eluded to the fact that he basically is playing with confidence and without fear of competition or who the opponent is. Just hearing that made me really excited to see what this kid will do this season

[barelyawake]

Been in Canada. Watching pre-season for the first time. Impressions:

1) We are eventually going to have the best backcourt in the country. These two are going to get so tight that they will think two moves ahead of each other (as expected).

2) We will make the playoffs even without Okafor. Our backcourt is just too good to miss the playoffs, even with Ves getting mins.

3) AH and Booker are going to be very good for us (as expected).

4) Mostly importantly, I'm so sick of hearing expats cheer on a LeBron dunk. Can't wait until our building has more hometown fans than Heat fans.

Edit to add: Trading for Rice was genius.

[nuposse04]

Edit to add: Trading for Rice was genius.

I tend to give credit when credit is due, but for a 2nd rounder, Rice looks like semi competent rotation player, which is good for a rookie. He is an old rookie though, so maybe we shouldn't be all that surprised he looks pretty decent out there. My hope is he blossoms off the bench and we could possibly use him as trade bait for a starting quality big guy at the trade deadline (coupled with Ariza and maybe a protected '15 1st)

[TGW]

Been in Canada. Watching pre-season for the first time. Impressions:

1) We are eventually going to have the best backcourt in the country. These two are going to get so tight that they will think two moves ahead of each other (as expected).

2) We will make the playoffs even without Okafor. Our backcourt is just too good to miss the playoffs, even with Ves getting mins.

3) AH and Booker are going to be very good for us (as expected).

4) Mostly importantly, I'm so sick of hearing expats cheer on a LeBron dunk. Can't wait until our building has more hometown fans than Heat fans.

Edit to add: Trading for Rice was genius.

Bet you would change your mind if you saw the other games.

[GhostsOfGil]

[payitforward]

I wouldnt go that far. There were stretches last season where he looked pretty bad, even before his injury. But for the most part I agree. People forget how good he was during his sophomore year. The only real problem I see with him, is his awful PnR defense. I dont think I've ever seen him successfully hedge a screen once.

He was injured all last year. And he was just about as good as a rookie as he was his 2d year. In fact, his numbers didn't fall off much last year either.

You can find flaws in his game, but overall he produces at a pretty high level. People are very high on Taj Gibson, but in fact year on year Booker has out-produced Gibson. His PER is a little lower (PER over-values scoring at any level of efficiency) than Gibson's but his WS40 is higher. He's also 2.5 years younger than Gibson, btw.

All Trevor needs to do is stay healthy.

He needs to do more than that. Like defending the P&R. Gibson's value is mainly on the defensive end, where Booker doesn't measure up. Also a reliable mid-range jumper would be nice.

Be great if he could shoot the three as well. Be great if he....

Thing is, you understand how good a player a guy is by looking at what he *does* not what he doesn't do. Don't you think rebounding is a useful quality in a 4? Booker is a better rebounder than Gibson. How about steals? If a guy has more steals isn't that better than if he has fewer steals? Booker better. Are turnovers good or bad? Gibson turns it over more. Offensive boards are particularly important, aren't they? 3 guesses who's a 30% better offensive rebounder than the other guy.

Etc. etc. etc. Oh... and why don't you give me some actual data to indicate that Booker "doesn't measure up" to Gibson in particular on the defensive end?

Trevor Booker is quite a good NBA 4. Just needs to stay healthy. Like I said.

Oh... and it would be better if he defended the p/r better. As it would be w/ any player. Anything he does better makes him better -- that's obvious. Most things, Trevor does them better than Gibson (except stay healthy).

[hands11]

I missed the first 2.5 quarters. Can anyone tell me how Beal played? He obviously scored a lot with good efficiency, but was he taking anyone off the bounce? Or was it mostly just catch-and-shoot and finishing on the break?

He did it all. He took his man off the dribble, finished on the break, drew contact, hit contested shots at the buzzer, passed out of the PnR, and had a picture perfect escape dribble on Dwade. A+ game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LHkbS0SbQ

Thanks for posting the highlights. Very impressive. He really did show a little of everything. I really liked that pump fake and then step in for a wide open 17-footer. Wade makes a living off that move.

I was going to post the same thing. That is a repeatable effective move that isn't hard to pull off once you know how to do it and people fear your range. Thats move opens a lot of doors. And he was smooth and patient they way he did it. In total control. Just used Wade on it.

[payitforward]

Been in Canada. Watching pre-season for the first time. Impressions:

1) We are eventually going to have the best backcourt in the country. These two are going to get so tight that they will think two moves ahead of each other (as expected).

2) We will make the playoffs even without Okafor. Our backcourt is just too good to miss the playoffs, even with Ves getting mins.

3) AH and Booker are going to be very good for us (as expected).

4) Mostly importantly, I'm so sick of hearing expats cheer on a LeBron dunk. Can't wait until our building has more hometown fans than Heat fans.

Edit to add: Trading for Rice was genius.

As I posted somewhere above, if Booker/Harrington gave us 33 combined minutes every night at the level they were vs. Miami, we could be a 50-win team. Asking a lot....

Rice: off one game you say that? You really do know how to turn hope into belief, man!

[Rafael122]

Been in Canada. Watching pre-season for the first time. Impressions:

1) We are eventually going to have the best backcourt in the country. These two are going to get so tight that they will think two moves ahead of each other (as expected).

2) We will make the playoffs even without Okafor. Our backcourt is just too good to miss the playoffs, even with Ves getting mins.

3) AH and Booker are going to be very good for us (as expected).

4) Mostly importantly, I'm so sick of hearing expats cheer on a LeBron dunk. Can't wait until our building has more hometown fans than Heat fans.

Edit to add: Trading for Rice was genius.

As I posted somewhere above, if Booker/Harrington gave us 33 combined minutes every night at the level they were vs. Miami, we could be a 50-win team. Asking a lot....

Rice: off one game you say that? You really do know how to turn hope into belief, man!

Not sure about 50, but at least seeded higher than 8th.

[dckingsfan]

I am interested to see what happens against NY and Detroit... how we do against the bigger lineups.

[nuposse04]

Would be sweet if they wore the Baltimore bullets jerseys tonight.