GT: Charlotte Vs Phoenix Nov 7th 7:00pm

[HornetJail]

Missed the game (blame schoolwork and crap) but I gather that the defense needs a lot of work? Oh boy. Beasley, Gortat, and Brown all had monster statlines.

[amcoolio]

We seemed to have fixed one major problem from last season - turnovers. Kemba especially has been good...MKG has the most which will obviously get cut down with experience.

Our next hurdle to overcome is rebounding. We simply give up too many offensive rebounds. This should be the focus of Dunlap for the next 3 weeks.

[BigSlam]

as crap as mully was defensively, you have to give it to him on offense. he helped bring us back in the 3rd.

Give him what? He stood at the 3pt pine and bombed threes. He made 9 shots and 6 of them were from beyond the arc. The other ones were because he hung the team out to dry and leaked out for fast breaks.

16 FGA's with 10 of them from the three point line.

Zero FTA's.

[KembaWalker]

they were breaking our press/traps so easily..giving up easy dunks and wide open 3s is a formula for getting 120 points dropped on you every night at this level..figure it out Dunlap

[mrknowitall215]

Dunlap is torn between offense & defense. He want the 'Cats to be a stubborn defensive unit, but he's forced to play offensive units including Sessions & Mullens that yield towards that style of play. It appears as if they are suffering defense for offensive efforts to stay within games. I think he need to get rid of the presses, traps, & zones, and get back to the basics, man-to-man, making every player accountable for their own defensive responsibilities. That should determine who should be on the floor or not. Even with that said, the 'Cats would have won last night, barring a Shannon Brown explosion. They are most certainly improving under Dunlap as a coach.

[LamarMatic7]

I just watched the game and went through the game thread, things I'd want to say:

You just can't play the zone for so long at the pro level. You would get lit up even in most European leagues. I like the fact that Dunlap is making the guys play hard on the defensive end and press guards, however, you just can't go over the board with the zone. It's meant for short stretches to get the opposition out of their rhythms. In my opinion, you shouldn't play it more than 3 minutes in a row or at least switch up after the opponents hitting two free three pointers. Play some man and them come back to it later. Not only did we give up a bunch of free long-range shots, but we seem to have problems with rebounding after playing zone. The rotations kind of work, yet we end up with one of the bigs rotating out to a three point shooter and Phoenix had Beasley, Scola and Gortat crashing the glass against our center and a small forward or a shooting guard.

Thank god, Bismack had a decent game. It already seemed like he would have a horrible sophomore slump. I'm still not ruling it out, but at least he played a good game.

I agree with fats - Ben Gordon just looked terrible out there. Some completely ill-advised shots, don't know what that was about.

You guys went too hard at Mully. Sure he wasn't good on defense, but it's not like many guys were. The team as a whole gave up 120, not Mullens by himself. If it wasn't for him in the third quarter, this would have been another blow-out.

It had been a while since I had enjoyed a Tyrus Thomas performance. Now that is what I expect from him every game, not only did he play good D and hustle, but finally he made those jumpers.

**** you Shannon Brown.

MKG kind of runs like DJW

At first I thought that it couldn't be so, that I would have noticed during the two previous games and that something's wrong with him, but yeah he runs exactly like DJW.

[Eoghan]

Yeah, I hate the match up zone for Biz. He already likes to run and jump at every block opportunity and this is just encouraging it. I'd rather see him play in a traditional defense to learn some fundamentals in real time action like blocking out because we're gonna suck anyway.

But I thought we looked much improved these past two games, just victims of Mayo and Brown doing their best Ray Allen impressions.

[LamarMatic7]

Yeah, I hate the match up zone for Biz. He already likes to run and jump at every block opportunity and this is just encouraging it. I'd rather see him play in a traditional defense to learn some fundamentals in real time action like blocking out because we're gonna suck anyway.

But I thought we looked much improved these past two games, just victims of Mayo and Brown doing their best Ray Allen impressions.

Brown was simply bad luck, but OJ Mayo is making those threes that we gave him the most nights though.