GT: Game #42 - Charlotte @ Lakers (Mar 18th)

[Liver_Pooty]

Look at Haywards shot attempts last 4 games. Its 7, 15, 7, and 8. Dude needs to grow some balls and demand the ball, and actually shoot it.

[DY_nasty]

I think I like Devonte because he doesn't do stupid ****. He's a steady hand, he organizes the offense, and when he's in I'm not worried that he's going to do the sort of brain dead stuff we sometimes see from guys like Miles or Monk.

With that said, I don't want him taking minutes from Melo and I don't get why that happened. I also really don't understand his low FG% and see that as a huge issue with his game. I get why people wouldn't be in love with him, I just don't see him as a problem.

devonte plays so safe that its not threatening to anyone is the problem.

when he's running point, notice how he rarely leaves areas of the court for long stretches and he almost always allows defenses to sit down on everyone because he's so deliberate with the ball. that kind of pg play would be great on a team with all-nba defense and rebounding behind it, but this roster is not that.

its the biggest issue i had with the "if his shot was falling, things would be fine" stuff.

[Liver_Pooty]

Main thing that irked me is the Lakers had LeBron who wasn't going to let his team lose and Lamelos energy gave that vibe that he wanted to do the same thing. Probably would've lost regardless, but we'll never know, and thats disappointing.

[yosemiteben]

Yeah you've said that before and I just don't see it that way. He has solid assist numbers, and my eye test doesn't agree that he stalls out our offense.

You can say he's too bad of a shooter with no ability to finish inside or that he's not a tough enough defender, but I can't get with he hurts our offensive sets take.

[DY_nasty]

and i genuinely don't mind turnovers if the offense generated by a guy who's more turnover prone is substantially more than a guy's who doesn't turn it over at all...

clifford syndome and all that

[DY_nasty]

Yeah you've said that before and I just don't see it that way. He has solid assist numbers, and my eye test doesn't agree that he stalls out our offense.

You can say he's too bad of a shooter with no ability to finish inside or that he's not a tough enough defender, but I can't get with he hurts our offensive sets take.

might need to test your eye test then

[Liver_Pooty]

I bet Miles and PJ will start against the Clippers.

[CuseMayne]

So disappointed that Melo wasn't in the game from roughly 7 minutes left to 1:43 left. I don't care that he had 5 fouls. The Lakers announcers said themselves that they figured he'd only sit for a minute or two max. Melo was clearly the main catalyst that got us back in that basketball game. JB...put him back in there with 5:30 left. Let him learn how to play with 5 fouls. Those are the kind of situations that can't be taught, but JB decided he'd rather let Graham stall the offense and give him free reign to dribble up and launch when we needed a good shot more than any other point in the game. Worst case scenario Melo fouls out and learns from it.
Come the hell on man.

I definitely agree with someone else's point that we have a lot of players who need the ball in their hands and bringing Tae back into the mix has been a bit of a disruption to how we were allocating that. There was a dead ball situation with both Melo and Tae in the game, and Tae was the one who was bringing it up. Why is that EVER happening? If Melo's out there, he should be the point guard. Point blank. Tae's offensive game is 95% shooting 3s. He mine as well let Melo find him better looks by playing off-ball.

Postgame, JB legitimately sounded angry, and I've never heard him talk like that to be honest. Check it out, I feel like you guys would feel the same. The gist was that he didn't think we competed in the first half like we did in the second half, and the effort in the first half was inexcusable. Who do you think that was mainly directed towards...Zeller? Monk? It was honestly strange to me.

The beginning of the second half was awesome. The sense of urgency and purpose they played with was great to see. At least it was something to build on. I also thought that PJ played a phenomenal game. That's exactly what we need from him. He was aggressive and didn't think twice about his shots. Some spectacular defensive plays as well...seemed like he had a few blocks that he was able to control to himself to secure possession. Very happy with how he played.

Gordon...big letdown obviously. Needs to look for his shot more as of late...and that blown layup I mean my god.

Miles played his role well. That was the one positive coaching move I remember from JB tonight.

Taking the good and the bad with Melo >>>>>>>>>> taking the good and the bad with Devonte. Simple as that for me. Pretty wild that JB's blind love for Devonte could warm his seat up a bit if he keeps doing what he's doing. Ultimately, I don't think his seat is hot, but why on earth is that the hill you'd want to die on?

If we stand pat with our roster and don't address the frontcourt, I don't think we'll be able to beat anyone in the first round this year. That may be the best thing for us long term (we will probably be better served finding the solution at center in the off-season), but the need for a competant center is so blaring that it's almost a joke at this point.

GG.

[euphorbus]

This was the fifth game in eight days. The game started at 10:40 EDT. The second game of a back-to-back.

Sure, I would like to have seen better play from Hayward, Zeller, and Monk. But there are good reasons why the team as a whole looked slipshop except at the start of the second half.

[Rays Pompadour]

This team is found money. I honestly think Borrego doesn't knows what to do with it.

[BigSlam]

How clunky are those LA rims? No give in them at all.

[BigSlam]

Just wondering, how many consecutive end of quarter situations are we going to give Devonte failing to make something positive happen before we change it up?

We did, and Monk turned it over by trying to shoot, dribble, jump and pass all at the same time.

[Soul Rebel]

B2B games against last year's Western Conference Champs and the usual favorites + LBJ out west. Hayward had an off night and when you're usual C combo of Zeller/Biyombo nets you 11 points and 4 rebounds COMBINED against a Davis-less Lakers team in their house, it's going to be a long night.

The boys looked gassed last night. LAL had a crazy off night of turnovers and cold streaks that we couldn't capitalize on bc we were equally as off.

Oh well, neither of these games were expected to be wins, so..... on to the Clips on Saturday.

[yosemiteben]

Read on Twitter

JB telling Cody and Biz to either get on the bus or get run over.

[LofJ]

PJ Washington has been looking a lot better lately. He's been our most consistent player on defense for a while. We need to get more out of our other guys on D. If they can't step up we will need to look elsewhere. We can't let guys be unaccountable.

[DY_nasty]

Read on Twitter

JB telling Cody and Biz to either get on the bus or get run over.

that feels kinda off

as bad and completely inept both biz and cody both are, effort is really never the problem with those guys

i didn't see the post-game stuff tho so its hard to guess at who that's directed at specifically. also feels kinda weird to question the teams effort in general.

[yosemiteben]

That was kinda my thought, that's why it struck me as particularly "throw under the bus"-y.

JB was super pissed about first half effort, that's clear from his post game quotes.

[DY_nasty]

if jb sees effort as a problem with THIS team then idk....

[LofJ]

if jb sees effort as a problem with THIS team then idk....

There's a lot more to defense than just effort. If Borrego thinks we aren't executing on defense because of effort than we need to hire an assistant that can help us come up with better schemes. I don't think JB and the current assistants are up to the task.

We need to upgrade Cody/Biz, but there's only so much that will do when our guys are being left out to dry playing a scheme that lets teams take and make a record amount of corner 3s.

Our coaches need to hold themselves accountable, if they don't Kupchak will have to. I don't want this organization to waste LaMelo by only holding certain people accountable. Everyone needs to be accountable, the Heat have that culture and we need to have it too if we want to be consistently successful.

[Liver_Pooty]

Bonnell has incinuated since last night it was directly meant for Zeller, even saying PJ might start next game.