Post#273 » by Jo Jo English » Tue Nov 2, 2010 6:05 pm
My thoughts after watching last night's game...
- Very happy with the strides Rose has made so far this season. He has shown the willingness to take the team's offense (nearly entirely) on his back during those games when he needs to for us to stay competitive, but he has also now shown (after last night's game) that he is more than happy to distribute the ball, feed the hot hand, and run the offense as well. Some may mistakenly label last night's performance as "passive", but they would be wrong. Derrick has really grown amazingly as a player over the past two years.
- While I did expect Omer Asik to come around and be a contributor eventually, I have to admit that he is progressing for more quickly than anticipated. I love how active he looks defensively. He's one of those guys who always seems to be at the right place, at the right time. In other words he just has one of those good feels for the game, naturally. For a big man he seems to be very mobile and have solid body control. He has been blocking a good number of shots and altering others. I also love the effort in attempting to draw charges. Once he develops a bit of a rep with league officials as a defender, he will get a few more of those calls. I can't wait to see what his game looks like 2-3 years down the road after he has added some more upper body strength and starts to finish a little better around the rim.
- It has been mentioned in this thread, and I have felt this way since his return in preseason, but Ronnie Brewer needs to rest until healthy. I suppose playing him spot minutes here and there when the team needs an extra body to toss out on the court is fine, but it is obvious that he isn't healthy. Unfortunately Brewer is one of those guys whose strengths as a player rely almost exclusively on his athleticism. Get healthy Ronnie.
- HomoSapien has been preaching for the past few days (at least) that we really need to acquire another ball handler, that teams are going to begin to press and trap Rose and that could lead to some costly turnovers. We pretty much saw that during last night's game against the Blazers. C.J. Watson, for as valuable as he could be offensively off of the bench some nights, doesn't resemble much of a point guard. A veteran backup PG could be a very useful addition to this team.
- JoNo has been sensational this season. Still I hope Boozer returns ASAP so we can cut back a bit on his minutes played. Coming off of his foot problems last season I would like to be cautious with Noah this year. Not necessarily limit him, just watch it closely, and be prepared to give him adequate rest if his feet begin to give him trouble.
- After two games it was obviously far too early to begin jumping all over Deng and pretending that you could extract those statistics and predict what sort of year he was going to have. Sure Luol isn't a guy who is typically going to go for 40, but he isn't a guy who is going to shoot as poorly as he did against the Thunder and Pistons routinely either. Luol will be fine, and he could fit very well next to a healthy Carlos Boozer.
- Nice to see Korver step up and hit a few shots last night. He seemed to be moving better without the ball on a couple of those plays when he came off of screens to free himself up. I had been concerned about his foot, but if last night is an accurate indicator he may be feeling better and ready to contribute a bit more. Obviously a healthy Korver providing outside shooting is an invaluable addition to this team.
- I've been impressed with Taj on the offensive end, but I would really like to see him start to hit the boards a bit more actively.
