5 in a row

[amcoolio]

Can we do it. If we do we'll end up at 10-11 before playing New Orleans again. That, with Dallas and Detroit are very hard games before we start a pretty simple and easy stretch. Could we be near .500 by the end of the month?

Wed 03 vs Oklahoma City
Fri 05 @ Milwaukee
Sat 06 vs Cleveland
Mon 08 @ Miami
Wed 10 @ New Orleans
Thu 11 @ Dallas
Sat 13 vs Detroit
Mon 15 @ Atlanta
Tue 16 vs Chicago
Fri 19 @ Memphis
Sat 20 vs Golden State
Tue 23 vs Washington
Fri 26 @ New Jersey
Sat 27 vs New Jersey
Tue 30 vs New York

[W_HAMILTON]

Shrug, it's always up and down with this team. I was looking today, and I think we are now 4-6 with Richardson, and that includes games against some pretty good teams: Cleveland, Miami, Detroit, New York, New Orleans, Toronto, Denver, and Boston all teams .500 or better.

Just when you think they are about to turn the corner, they suck and take a few steps back. So, I don't know what to think.

There's at least cause for some optimism.

[Felton for Pres]

I am not going to look past the game tomorrow. I am very nervous about looking as good as they did on Monday and then laying an egg against an even worse team. Consistency is not this teams strongsuit, as we all know.

[ohara]

I am not going to look past the game tomorrow. I am very nervous about looking as good as they did on Monday and then laying an egg against an even worse team. Consistency is not this teams strongsuit, as we all know.

5 in a row is a bit much to expect from the Cats. Tho 2 in a row is do-able with Minn and then OKC. I would not bet on the Bucks game tho. How many times have we won 3 in a row? I bet you can count our 3 game winning streaks on 1 hand.

[fatlever]

despite playing a lot of home games, we had a tough schedule in terms of the talent level of our opponents. our goal should be to get to .500 by the all-star break. 10-5 in december may be a bit much to ask, but .500 by mid-feb is doable, imo.

our defense is looking solid and the offense is slowly coming around, esp w/ jrich back.

[e4Nf6]

I'm usually pretty optimistic but, I would be shocked if we beat Cleveland. They are a much better team than they have been in years past. Best offense in the league and a very good defense.

[Rich4114]

We're not beating Cleveland, but this is the portion of our schedule we would have to do well on in order to have a distant shot at the playoffs.

[BigSlam]

There is no doubt we are improving as a team. Our defensive is getting better and better and our execution on offensive improving (although we still take too long to get a lot of sets going). Having Swish back is a huge help.

If we could get consistency out of 3 or 4 guys every night we would be a lock.

[fluffernutter]

Well, if you give us a 40% chance of winning each of the next 5 games individually, our chance of winning them all is 1%.

Because I think we have a better than 40% shot for a few of the games, and worse than 40% for one or two, my scientific weighted estimate is: 5.3%.

We have a roughly 2.5% chance of winning the next 4 in a row.

FYI.

Not really that good.

[Paydro70]

Interesting note: after spending much of the season below #20 in defense, the Bobcats are now all the way up at #11! It's really not such a huge change statistically so much as we've moved from one side of the bell curve to the other (difference between #10 and #20 is only 3 points/100 possessions).

Still, we've improved a lot in eFG% allowed (16th now), and coupled with our high rate of turnovers forced, we're now an okay defensive team. It's really been the last 6 games or so that we've turned it on and actually caused the other team to miss shots as well as pressing and trapping.

That said, we're still 27th on offense, including 29th in turnover rate. I still have to question why we're running the 3rd-slowest offense in the NBA... it's a major reason why we have so many turnovers, and it's not as if we're the Suns, who make up for being 30th in turnovers by being 1st in eFG%. We miss our shots anyway, why not at least make sure we get one off?

[W_HAMILTON]

I still have to question why we're running the 3rd-slowest offense in the NBA

Because Brown has it instilled in them that they should keep passing it around, and not be selfish, and not be impatient, etc. And that means guys are passing up shots they would normally take because they are trying to buy into that system.

A few times it seems like they have gotten away from that, so hopefully Brown cuts them more slack once he gets the general idea across.

Sometimes, a shot with 15 seconds left on the shot clock is a good shot. You shouldn't just run down the clock for the sake of running down the clock, or just to show that you can be patient and pass it to everyone. When you do that, especially on this team which doesn't really have a bailout type player, it usually hurts us more than it helps.

[DaBassSource]

I still have to question why we're running the 3rd-slowest offense in the NBA

Because Brown has it instilled in them that they should keep passing it around, and not be selfish, and not be impatient, etc. And that means guys are passing up shots they would normally take because they are trying to buy into that system.

A few times it seems like they have gotten away from that, so hopefully Brown cuts them more slack once he gets the general idea across.

Sometimes, a shot with 15 seconds left on the shot clock is a good shot. You shouldn't just run down the clock for the sake of running down the clock, or just to show that you can be patient and pass it to everyone. When you do that, especially on this team which doesn't really have a bailout type player, it usually hurts us more than it helps.

I agree...and in the NBA passing up an open "good" shot is a bad play.... You have to take and hit those types of shots... our pace of play is sad...

[amcoolio]

Our pace might be sad, but it keeps us in games we shouldn't be in. Thats why we have a chance to threaten Cleveland, they will look past us.

[fluffernutter]

I'll throw in a LB defense here.

It might not be so bad to overpass a little while the guys are getting used to the system. After all LB couldn't exactly tell them to "shoot when you have an open shot" because the concept of "open shot" varies a lot for each player. It's hugely different. The chuckers always think they have an open shot. The tentative players rarely do.

I don't mind seeing them slow offensively right now because this allows them, later, when they have their heads out of their collective posteriors (and perhaps have learned some discipline), to "loosen up" and think more about "breaking the rules" when you really do have an open shot. Like, really open, not "Yeah but I double-pumped and drifted right avoiding both of them so I was open."

[Walt Cronkite]

I'm with Fluffer on this one.

As far as pace goes, I'll add a caveat that we shouldn't be taking the first open look when we're up late in a game. Those seconds count. We're still not very good at the management of a 48 minute basketball game, but we're getting better.

[BigSlam]

I think we are pushing the ball up the court more now that we were at the start of the season - which shows improvement. We are leaking out on offense a little more and getting fast break points (in part due to Swish being back) and we are starting to take advantage of the athletes we have at the wings (as seen with that baseline oop play we have been running of late).

It's been a slow process but I think the more comfortable we are with understanding the plays the more confident LB will be in our team and allow our guys off the leash a little.