Team Canada Basketball Thread

tout court · Post #641 » by **tout court** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 7:58 pm

Older Scrubb's awkward gait is recognizable even on my incomparably crappy computer.

Looks like he is ready for the glue farm.

Ennis has had his moments.

And I would think they are a minus on the boards.

But as I said it is tough for me to tell what is going on except that they also really like that flare screen play.

tout court · Post #642 » by **tout court** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 7:59 pm

Older Scrubb's awkward gait is recognizable even on my incomparably crappy computer.

Looks like he is ready for the glue farm.

Ennis has had his moments.

And I would think they are a minus on the boards.

But as I said it is tough for me to tell what is going on except that they also really like that flare screen play.

frumble · Post #643 » by **frumble** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 8:00 pm

From the 5 minutes I have been watching, Canada looks real bad. Jacking up a lot of outside shots.

Resolution on my screen makes it very hard to identify players, but Bennett has hit a 3 and Heslip and I believe P. Scrubb have missed some.

tout court · Post #644 » by **tout court** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 8:13 pm

On offence I've seen five strangers at the Y play with more continuity and flow.

Half court defence was okay, I suppose--others might have another opinions on this.

But they were hurt inside and in transition at key junctures of the game.

frumble · Post #645 » by **frumble** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 9:09 pm

Yes, they looked completely disjointed in the half court set. I know guys have been in and out of camp, but it was still disappointing - it looked as though they had never played or even practiced together.

Per twitter, there was a stretch during the second half during which Canada had turnovers on six straight possessions.

Apparently the second half starters were:
Ennis
Heslip
Scrubb (unclear which one)
Ejim
Bennett

From the stretch I saw, Croatia looked bigger at every position.

I guess that is going to happen when the only 2 guard on the roster (Heslip) is undersized and we have significant periods with a PG playing the 2 (Scrubb or, at the qualifying tournament, Joseph).
Further, Ejim is undersized for a 4 and Bennett is undersized for a 5.

We still have no SF, and it remains unclear to me whether we are going to fill that position with a PF (T. Scrubb, Pierre, or Ejim) or a guard (3 guard sets with Heslip. P. Scrubb or Joseph nominally playing SF).

mojo13 · Post #646 » by **mojo13** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 9:47 pm

That is a wickedly undersized line-up. France and Turkey are going to chew that front line up.
Khem Birch may be the best player on the team aside from CoJo. Not sure why they are not starting him at the 5 and Bennett at the 4. I hope staring Ejim is not out of loyalty to last year. Maybe Birch is subbing in quickly for Ejim and Bennett slides to the 4. I didnt have a chance to watch this game.

And I will continue to say Heslip is a not a starting quality player. He is a role player coming from the bench providing instant offense (possibly). He is a tremendous liability on defense at all times and doesn't do much on offense if the 3 inst falling (cant penetrate, weak ball handler, weak facilitator/playmaker).

Hopefully they see CoJo as the starting SG with this team next to Ennis. We will be handicapping ourselves if CoJo is the PG with Ennis the back up.

I'm lost on what our plan is at SF. Was hoping Pierre could fill that roll (or Ejim). Did Pierre play much today?

frumble · Post #647 » by **frumble** » Thu Jun 23, 2016 10:44 pm

Canhoops.ca with a game story and boxscore.

The boxscore shows Birch with 11 minutes and Pierre with 9.

It shows the starting five as:
Ennis
Heslip
T. Scrubb
Ejim
Bennett

Mojo, I agree that once Joseph is available he should be starting at 2 instead of Heslip.
I also agree that Birch should be playing a lot more.

There is no good answer at the 3. They really could have used Stauskas or even Doornekamp (never thought I would be writing that). Even Shepherd might have come in handy.

The Brooks injury is looming pretty large.

II still cling to the hope that there will be a surprise guard/wing addition to the roster (to bump Alexander), but time is growing very short.

Mirotic12 · Post #648 » by **Mirotic12** » Fri Jun 24, 2016 6:13 am

mojo13 wrote:That is a wickedly undersized line-up. France and Turkey are going to chew that front line up.
Khem Birch may be the best player on the team aside from CoJo. Not sure why they are not starting him at the 5 and Bennett at the 4. I hope staring Ejim is not out of loyalty to last year. Maybe Birch is subbing in quickly for Ejim and Bennett slides to the 4. I didnt have a chance to watch this game.

And I will continue to say Heslip is a not a starting quality player. He is a role player coming from the bench providing instant offense (possibly). He is a tremendous liability on defense at all times and doesn't do much on offense if the 3 inst falling (cant penetrate, weak ball handler, weak facilitator/playmaker).

Hopefully they see CoJo as the starting SG with this team next to Ennis. We will be handicapping ourselves if CoJo is the PG with Ennis the back up.

I'm lost on what our plan is at SF. Was hoping Pierre could fill that roll (or Ejim). Did Pierre play much today?

From the little I saw of Birch this season (like a few games in Turkish League and then a playoff series in Turkish playoffs) - he is a very good option as a small ball 5 for running the court and also for finishing on dives to the basket. And he can cover well on switches.

However, his offense game is really lacking and he is not skilled at all. And he's not fundamentally solid on defense either, particularly with how to properly position himself for screen roll defense. And on offense, he's not fundamentally sound at setting picks either.

So that could be why. He has great physical tools, but very lacking in skills and somewhat lacking in fundamentals. Another reason could be that a lot of European teams are very big (teams like Croatia for example), and he's quite undersized against teams like that.

frumble · Post #649 » by **frumble** » Fri Jun 24, 2016 1:58 pm

Mirotic12 wrote:
mojo13 wrote:That is a wickedly undersized line-up. France and Turkey are going to chew that front line up.
Khem Birch may be the best player on the team aside from CoJo. Not sure why they are not starting him at the 5 and Bennett at the 4. I hope staring Ejim is not out of loyalty to last year. Maybe Birch is subbing in quickly for Ejim and Bennett slides to the 4. I didnt have a chance to watch this game.

And I will continue to say Heslip is a not a starting quality player. He is a role player coming from the bench providing instant offense (possibly). He is a tremendous liability on defense at all times and doesn't do much on offense if the 3 inst falling (cant penetrate, weak ball handler, weak facilitator/playmaker).

Hopefully they see CoJo as the starting SG with this team next to Ennis. We will be handicapping ourselves if CoJo is the PG with Ennis the back up.

I'm lost on what our plan is at SF. Was hoping Pierre could fill that roll (or Ejim). Did Pierre play much today?

From the little I saw of Birch this season (like a few games in Turkish League and then a playoff series in Turkish playoffs) - he is a very good option as a small ball 5 for running the court and also for finishing on dives to the basket. And he can cover well on switches.

However, his offense game is really lacking and he is not skilled at all. And he's not fundamentally solid on defense either, particularly with how to properly position himself for screen roll defense. And on offense, he's not fundamentally sound at setting picks either.

So that could be why. He has great physical tools, but very lacking in skills and somewhat lacking in fundamentals. Another reason could be that a lot of European teams are very big (teams like Croatia for example), and he's quite undersized against teams like that.

While Birch may be undersized relative to a lot of European teams, Mojo's point is that he is bigger than Ejim. So Canada's front line is less undersized relative to teams like Croatia when they go with Birch at 5 and Bennett at 4 than when they have Bennett at 5 and Ejim at 4.

mojo13 · Post #650 » by **mojo13** » Fri Jun 24, 2016 4:04 pm

It is still grinding my gears that no one knows what happened to Sacre or Bachynski or Hanlan/Pangos for that matter.

It was an after thought before as we expected a better turnout. But as it turns out either one of those guys could have been very valuable to this team that is so lacking in size upfront. Is Bhullar really a viable contributor to this team? I am not seeing it.

What does Sacre or Bachnyski have to do better this summer? Summer league for Bachynski I guess? An NBA shot may be his only chance as he already flamed out in Europe. Sacre I guess is waiting on the beach for a contract offer (I suppose insurance could be the issue with Sacre)?

Either could be a good player at this level and shore up the interior D which seems will be a mess unless Birch can handle it all by himself.

frumble · Post #651 » by **frumble** » Fri Jun 24, 2016 6:22 pm

Any word on whether Anthony will be re-joining the team after the birth of his kid? He could help the interior D a little.

Not that it is any consolation, but as bad as the front court is looking, imagine how awful it would be had Birch and Bennett not joined the team late. Bhullar and Ejim as the starters and Klassen and Kendall as the backups.

tout court · Post #652 » by **tout court** » Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:15 pm

mojo13 wrote:It is still grinding my gears that no one knows what happened to Sacre or Bachynski or Hanlan/Pangos for that matter.

It was an after thought before as we expected a better turnout. But as it turns out either one of those guys could have been very valuable to this team that is so lacking in size upfront. Is Bhullar really a viable contributor to this team? I am not seeing it.

What does Sacre or Bachnyski have to do better this summer? Summer league for Bachynski I guess? An NBA shot may be his only chance as he already flamed out in Europe. Sacre I guess is waiting on the beach for a contract offer (I suppose insurance could be the issue with Sacre)?

Either could be a good player at this level and shore up the interior D which seems will be a mess unless Birch can handle it all by himself.

We don't even know what kind of injury Brooks suffered from. I would have welcomed a hockey-style upper body/lower body injury report.

But most of the basketball beat reporters were off covering the NBA finals for some reason and no one was left to ask basic questions, including those regarding the status of the above listed players. In hindsight, at least Wiggins and Stauskas were made to offer up lame excuses.

Can't we get media accreditation for someone on this forum to therefore go and ask the questions diehards want answers to?

And does all this mean all hope is lost with regards to TT joining the team?

Halftime Show · Post #653 » by **Halftime Show** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:23 pm

Anyone have a start time for the China game today or know if there'll be a stream up?

UcanUwill · Post #654 » by **UcanUwill** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:51 pm

Canadian U17 is destroying Finland right now. France is a bit surprisingly blowing Bosnia.

frumble · Post #655 » by **frumble** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:52 pm

Halftime Show wrote:Anyone have a start time for the China game today or know if there'll be a stream up?

Canada up 56-31 at the half. Basketball Canada site has a link to live feed, but it takes me to Taiwan-Egypt game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLCXERy73Oiz8O7jNz8OH3HBcyhkq2H5Ap&params=EAEYATgBSAFYCGILTXhPa3dleGU3ZFFoBg%253D%253D&v=p-4cF6U2Dh4&mode=NORMAL&app=desktop

frumble · Post #656 » by **frumble** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:53 pm

Found it. Live feed through FIBA site:

http://www.fiba.com/world/u17/2016/2506/Canada-Finland

frumble · Post #657 » by **frumble** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:57 pm

Halftime,
Sorry, I thought you were asking about the U17 game.

Re the men's team exhibition game, i don't know if a live feed is available. Game starts in 5 minutes (9AM Pacific)

UcanUwill · Post #658 » by **UcanUwill** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 4:29 pm

Canada U17 blows out Finland U17

92-68

http://www.fiba.com/world/u17/2016/2506/Canada-Finland

frumble · Post #659 » by **frumble** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 4:30 pm

Sportando tweeting updates on Canada-China exhibition game.

https://twitter.com/Sportando

Canada up 23-8 after first quarter.
Heslip and Bennett with 5 pts each.

mojo13 · Post #660 » by **mojo13** » Sun Jun 26, 2016 2:06 pm

Bachynski is playing summer league with both the Pistons and Trailblazers. Hanlan is playing with the Jazz.

Kyle Wiltjer signed a three year deal with the Rockets after going undrafted and will play summer league. He found a good spot with Dantoni.

No mention of Pangos and summer league yet.
I assume Olympiacos would prevent Birch from any summer league idea. And I heard Panthianikos was trying to get Pangos not to play in the deal they are negotiating.