GT: Orlando vs Charlotte Fri Nov 21st 7PM EST

[BobsBuddy]

Everybody just chill! 13 games don't make a season ..
69 games to go. As long as Al Kemba and Lance stay healthy,we can come back from this. Coach hit it right on the head when he said we just played like "Slop" the first 3-4 minutes of the 4th quarter. I heard him yelling instructions from the sidelines and I was just watching it on TV. If this meltdown keeps up, I predict that some trades will be made after January 1st when some trade restrictions are lifted. The determining factor of who stays and goes will be decided on paper by Cho. The 3 mentioned above will stay.
Neal has earned the right to stay as our 6th man.
MKG's Stats so far have been well above previous seasons,but he is hurt. He should be back unless it's serious.
Zellar's numbers dictate he should be starting at 4.
Maxciel has earned the right to be a backup at 4 or 5 and Vonleh has shown signs of greatness.Both are keepers.
Both Roberts and Pargo are keepers.

That leaves Williams(restricted),Biz,PJ and Hendo as trade pieces.
PJ is a gunner,Hendo a defender,Biz a shotblocker, and Williams is an over paid 4 who can't score consistently.
These are the pieces of the team that need to be moved. Post your idea's on the Fake trade thread.
Beelieve me Hornets management get ideas from it.

[mrknowitall215]

They do when it comes to getting rebounds. I agree with him completely.

Maxiell isn't even rebounding well for us. He's only averaging 6 rebounds per 36 minutes and only 2 rebounds per game in the 12 minutes that he actually do play

yet we're rebounding just as well with Maxiell on the floor as we do with Biyombo.

Since the team rebound at its best by about a 2% increase when Bismack Biyombo or Cody Zeller is the floor rather than Maxiell, I'm going to give the benefit of that being that Maxiell get the chance to play alongside Zeller. The team rebounds miserably with Al Jefferson & Marvin Wiliams on the floor together it appears

[MasterIchiro]

I still am not that worried yet. For 3/4 of this game we looked really good, and it wasn't just because Al was hitting shots. We defended well, our second unit was solid, Hendo actually hit a couple threes, we hustled, there was solid ball movement...it really looked like we had turned a corner.

And then we gave up 40 points in the fourth quarter. WTF.

I saw enough signs of life tonight to keep me optimistic.

what does it take for you to be worried? i get that you are an optimistic guy, but at some point we have to stop making excuses for them. its not good enough. from the front office to the coaches to the players, its just not good enough.

It would take me not believing the talent is there for us to win.

So you obviously believe it doesn't take more than talent to win.

[LamarMatic7]

Maxiell isn't even rebounding well for us. He's only averaging 6 rebounds per 36 minutes and only 2 rebounds per game in the 12 minutes that he actually do play

yet we're rebounding just as well with Maxiell on the floor as we do with Biyombo.

Since the team rebound at its best by about a 2% increase when Bismack Biyombo or Cody Zeller is the floor rather than Maxiell, I'm going to give the benefit of that being that Maxiell get the chance to play alongside Zeller. The team rebounds miserably with Al Jefferson & Marvin Wiliams on the floor together it appears

That's because of their offensive rebounding. Obviously, they're better at that than him. But that's not the point here.

[yosemiteben]

what does it take for you to be worried? i get that you are an optimistic guy, but at some point we have to stop making excuses for them. its not good enough. from the front office to the coaches to the players, its just not good enough.

It would take me not believing the talent is there for us to win.

So you obviously believe it doesn't take more than talent to win.

No, but I believe we have the staff to figure out how to make the talent work. That vast majority of games we've lost have been close games that we couldn't close out down the stretch and/or have lost significant leads despite our poor defense and offense. That to me suggests that we're capable of much more once we have some time off to implement our adjustments.

[trins]

we have solid players but no star potential player (unless Vonleh really does turn into Noah VonBosh) honestly we should still be rebuilding and looking for a star or MKG decides to be aggressive MKG and not shame corner MKG

I really believe MKG has a All-Star - Superstar potential, the biggest problem that is holding him back is he is a mental midget and what a big hurdle that is! I mean he can drive anytime he wants, his jump shot improved dramatically, he is one of the best defenders in the NBA. But mentally he is not there or will never be there.

When he misses a shot he becomes offensively passive. I'd rather have MKG having 19 shots a game than Kemba Walker, at least that will build up his confidence.

I dont know why you say the man is mentally weak, he's been a winner on every level of play, and now he has a coach who spent the entire first season telling him how much he cant shoot and who refused to play the guy in the 4th quarters. Simple coaching up the player would do wonders for MKG, when that's done and you see MKG playing scared or really bad then we have a problem. This is year 3 for MKG and he hasnt even scratched the surface of what he can do for us .....we dont even wanna play the guy late for Pete's sake and he might be our best game changer.

I mean offensively he is mentally weak. He has that mentality that if he misses one jump shot he will hesitate to shoot. I mean before his injury he reverted to being super passive and refused to shoot and just passes. I mean one time I remember he passed up an open shot and Clifford benched him for it. Ever since he's was a pro everyone told him his jump shot sucks, it takes a toll on him mentally. He has to overcome that hurdle.

[Snidely FC]

I didn't think the problem with Maxiell was rebounding. The second time Fournier drove unmolested to the rim I would have yanked Maxiell for Biz.

[Radu_Hornets]

Once Lance will stop to take bad looks and focus on driving the lane like we asked hen do to do... He will be damn just fine !



I don't know if you guys paid attention, but Clifford played him a lot with the second unit, and I actually liked what I saw from him trying to get the ball to bizmack throwing alley-oops like the previous game. Remember that Lazer pass to Biz (that he actually catched).
Maybe he'll get the other aware that they can throw ally-oop like a normal nba team.

[LamarMatic7]

Once Lance will stop to take bad looks and focus on driving the lane like we asked hen do to do... He will be damn just fine !

thing is that he has never driven to the rim that much in his career.

the question is whether he doesn't like to play that way or maybe he truly is incapable of getting to the rim that often.

or maybe he has only played on teams where behemoths occupy the whole paint.

[LamarMatic7]

As far as comparing this year's Lance to last year's - he's driving at about the same frequency he did last year. Only thing which unsurprisingly is down is his FG% on those drives.

5.2 drives per game this year vs. 4.4 last year
3.3 points per game on those drives vs. 3.4 last year
5.6 team points per game on those drives vs. 5.2 last year
4.5 points per 48 on those drives vs. 4.6 last year
43.2 FG% on those drives vs. 57.0% last year

[yosemiteben]

I haven't rewatched the game (don't know if I can bring myself to do that), but my memory is that Neal was a big part of the problem defensively. I know he was a spark plug offensively, but it seemed like it was his defensive breakdowns that resulted in the lion's share of the comeback points.

Am I just not remembering correctly?

[LamarMatic7]

I haven't rewatched the game (don't know if I can bring myself to do that), but my memory is that Neal was a big part of the problem defensively. I know he was a spark plug offensively, but it seemed like it was his defensive breakdowns that resulted in the lion's share of the comeback points.

Am I just not remembering correctly?

if it helps, I'll watch the game tomorrow after I get home off work. will keep an eye on it.

[yosemiteben]

I haven't rewatched the game (don't know if I can bring myself to do that), but my memory is that Neal was a big part of the problem defensively. I know he was a spark plug offensively, but it seemed like it was his defensive breakdowns that resulted in the lion's share of the comeback points.

Am I just not remembering correctly?

if it helps, I'll watch the game tomorrow after I get home off work. will keep an eye on it.

Thanks. I probably will end up rewatching just because I'm a glutton for punishment, but curious to hear your thoughts too.

My biggest impression after this game is that the "Alfense" narrative doesn't really capture what was wrong with this team last night. Our offense seemed to me to be dynamic enough. Our issue lied in our embarrassing defense down the stretch.

[ball teacher]

I really believe MKG has a All-Star - Superstar potential, the biggest problem that is holding him back is he is a mental midget and what a big hurdle that is! I mean he can drive anytime he wants, his jump shot improved dramatically, he is one of the best defenders in the NBA. But mentally he is not there or will never be there.

When he misses a shot he becomes offensively passive. I'd rather have MKG having 19 shots a game than Kemba Walker, at least that will build up his confidence.

I dont know why you say the man is mentally weak, he's been a winner on every level of play, and now he has a coach who spent the entire first season telling him how much he cant shoot and who refused to play the guy in the 4th quarters. Simple coaching up the player would do wonders for MKG, when that's done and you see MKG playing scared or really bad then we have a problem. This is year 3 for MKG and he hasnt even scratched the surface of what he can do for us .....we dont even wanna play the guy late for Pete's sake and he might be our best game changer.

I mean offensively he is mentally weak. He has that mentality that if he misses one jump shot he will hesitate to shoot. I mean before his injury he reverted to being super passive and refused to shoot and just passes. I mean one time I remember he passed up an open shot and Clifford benched him for it. Ever since he's was a pro everyone told him his jump shot sucks, it takes a toll on him mentally. He has to overcome that hurdle.

That play where MKG got benched the entire 4tf quarter is exactly why he may at times be timid. Every mistake HE makes in the second half will be the excuse Cliff uses to not play him. When we played Portland, Wesley Matthews passedup a open 3 and his coach pulled him over and told him to put the shot up, MKG does it an we bench him. Imagine MKG passing the shot and Cliff pulling MKG to the sideand saying "we need you to take the shot kid, when your open let it fly" and he pats MKG on the back side, do you think MKG would be as timid? I told you guys last year when the coach tried to change the way he shoots that that would effect his psyche, so what do you think about the fact that we freeze him out offensively, we sub him when we want to score and we tell him he's not good enough to play in the most important portion of the games cause hes such a liability. You can blame MKG all you want but this is a result of not having the support from.the coaching staff, and to be honest, through all of that I think he's held up very well.

[ball teacher]

As far as comparing this year's Lance to last year's - he's driving at about the same frequency he did last year. Only thing which unsurprisingly is down is his FG% on those drives.

5.2 drives per game this year vs. 4.4 last year
3.3 points per game on those drives vs. 3.4 last year
5.6 team points per game on those drives vs. 5.2 last year
4.5 points per 48 on those drives vs. 4.6 last year
43.2 FG% on those drives vs. 57.0% last year

Maybe cause Lance gets the better perimeter defender when last year Paul George got it.

[LamarMatic7]

As far as comparing this year's Lance to last year's - he's driving at about the same frequency he did last year. Only thing which unsurprisingly is down is his FG% on those drives.

5.2 drives per game this year vs. 4.4 last year
3.3 points per game on those drives vs. 3.4 last year
5.6 team points per game on those drives vs. 5.2 last year
4.5 points per 48 on those drives vs. 4.6 last year
43.2 FG% on those drives vs. 57.0% last year

Maybe cause Lance gets the better perimeter defender when last year Paul George got it.

There's no excuse for a large amount of shots he's taken and missed.

[Diop]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/536180717739589633[/tweet]

seems like Lowe is with us in questioning Max's minutes