Hornets vs Kings Special

[rpa]

Smart is honestly the only coach I have ever seen that plays his entire starting team for almost the 3rd Q, and then waits until there's 3-4 minutes left in the game to put them back in.

He does some other weird things too. The one thing I've noticed is how if Cousins picks up 2 quick fouls he won't play for the remainder of the half. Almost every other coach I've ever seen will generally pull the guy and then re-insert him early in the 2nd quarter (at worst midway through). It seems weird that Smart keeps him out for an entire quarter (to stop him from getting that 3rd foul). This is especially true given that he doesn't turn around and play Cousins major minutes in the 2nd half. I could understand if he kept him out of the first half thinking that it's better to let him play pretty much the entire 2nd half w/o worrying too much about fouls as opposed to playing him in short spurts where he can only play 4 or 5 minutes before being yanked for a foul.

[RIPskaterdude]

The weird thing is, when Smart first took over, he was nothing like this. If Cousins picked up 2 quick fouls, he would keep playing him (he even addressed that issue several times, saying he trusts his players not to pick up the 3rd). He never put the whole bench in at once, it was always one or two players slowly. Now, he just keeps putting them all in together AT ONCE. At best, he'll keep MT23 out there, but eventually its 5 bench players all together in the 2nd or early 4th Q....why not take out Evans and Cousins and slowly bring in the bench, while giving your starters a rest?

[KF10]

You're right, our team defense is horrible and that definitely has something to do with it. That said, with Evans at PG (definitely a competent defender) we weren't getting destroyed regularly by the opposing PG. At least we weren't getting killed scoring wise by them. Assist wise? Yeah, they tended to have a lot. To me, though, that's more about team defense than individual defense.

My point in all of this isn't that he's a bad player; it's that he's a backup and we REALLY need to get a starting caliber PG in here.

I agree with your general point. Isaiah, bless his heart (the words of Jerry Reynolds), shouldn't be your starting PG. 5'9'' is 5'9''. We should really envision him as a spark plug off from the the bench ala Bobby Jackson. But with that said, he's our best candidate for that position taking consideration in running the offense well. But unfortunately, our defense has been awful throughout the major shift of Reke to SF and Isaiah to PG. We have to make due with the cards we have been dealt with. Maybe in the off season, we can look for a legitimate starting PG..

[boogie-reke]

What a fckin annoying W.

[pillwenney]

Yeah, I agree that Isaiah is probably the best option at starting PG for now, but we're seeing pretty clearly why it's not a long term solution, and it's what I was saying all along. He's not a little undersized at PG like a Lawson or an Augustin. He's WAY undersized.