Ok, this will be brief as I have to be up in about 4 hours & travel two hours to class.
We can talk about missing Reggie, Ron, Brad, etc., etc. Tonight I missed one person & one person only.
Dale Davis.
Yes I know it's me so I always miss Dale but this game had nothing to do with his rebounding (although that would have helped) or his inside defense (God knows we could have used that). No what I missed more than anything else is that we don't have one player on our team who will lay out that punk @ss B!tch Clifford (Grandpa) Robinson.
Did you see this @ss kiss his biceps? Dear God.
All the while I just had to sit there & take it because we don't have a single player on our team that will stop that crap.
Where is Ron Artests elbows when you need them?
The fact that we are being pushed around & physically abused inside is about to make me lose my mind.
Look I think Nena Krystic is a great player but for God's sake we were making him look Nate Thurmond in that game. He was just physically pushing us wherever he wanted to.
I am not one to blame refs. for our misfortunes but sweet mother of God could they at least pretend to see the shoulder dropping that the N.J. big men are doing to get their guards open?
Ok, I'll calm down now & try & look at this a little more objectively.
We go home 1-1 I think if we were all honest with ourselves we would admit that this is about the best any of us hoped for coming into this series so this one game loss is not a huge setback IMO.
Right up front let me ask a question. What is up with Peja? According to Clark this is an injury from 2 months ago & he is just now not able to play? I think it was Jermainiac in another thread who said it & I have to agree here, unless you've got a bone sticking out of your leg (ok that is hyperbole but you get the opinion) then you really need to make yourself available to the team to play. The coach could keep him on the bench or something but at least he could have been used in situational plays (like say maybe a late 3 or something).
I'm not quesitoning the injury btw, for those of you that get so offended whenever someone dares question an injury) but I am questioning if it's really so bad that he couldn't have been available.
Now to Jermaine.
I totally forgot about Robinson being with the Blazers when J.O. was there. This of course depresses me because J.O. never plays well vs. any of those old Blazers for whatever reason. Whether it's Sheed, Brian Grant or even Grandpa Cliffy.
One thing you will notice though that all three do when playing him, they play him physical. Do you think they know something?
I am still happy with J.O. for not getting involved with the refs. for some of the calls he has recieved. However he is allowing Grandpa to take him out of his game.
On the other hand would Jeff Foster please step up & give Grandpa a hard back pick or something? J.O. won't do it so someone will need to.
N.J. has the clear out for J.O. well scouted so I think Rick is going to have to go back to the drawing board & come up with a new offensive scheme. However to Rick's credit, I don't know how the hell you design something new when your wing players are in foul trouble & the other one isn't even playing.
Speaking of Jeff Foster he really is having a hard time with Krystic but that is because Nena can step out 15' & nail the jumper like Rik Smits. Because of J.O.'s foul trouble we are in trouble because we have nobody to patrol the paint that much. God love Foster for trying but he just is not a good weak side defender & since N.J. doesn't really have a big man who goes to the rack then Jeff is a little out of his element.
He did get up 5 shots during this game so that is a good thing. He's trying & overall I like his play but I will say what I have said since the dawn of time. I do not like him & J.O. on the floor at the same time.
However when Austin plays like this I don't know what you do. I like Austin so much more when he is crashing the boards & attacking the rim. I know that on occasion that Cro can nail a jumper from the three point line, but when he shoots half of his shots from there & doesn't hit a one of them I know we are in trouble. Also his defense has been abysmal for the most part. He is just to damn short to guard Krystic but because J.O. is in such foul trouble all of the time he has to guard him. I don't know what to do there.
Jackson just got caught up in the foul parade during this game, nothing more nothing less. I don't feel bad about his game because I don't feel as though he was going off of the farm on offense or anything. Just a rough night from the field for the poor guy.
Granger was great considering he is a rookie starting in his first playoff game. I would like to see him take it to the rim more than he does but overall I thought he did very well.
Like every other Pacer I wanted to see him do better on the boards but the guy was in there on almost every rebound he just didn't snag a lot of them. In fact I thought he was fould on at least two occasions but because they seemed to let some contact go on down low he never got the call.
It is a testimate to his defensive skill that we often left him on Carter in the 4th quarter. Rick must already have supreme confidence in his defensive abilities.
Fred Jones again was outstanding. That one sequence where he blocked Kidd on a fast break & then literally ran the length of the court to tap out an offensive rebound was breath taking. I just wish we could have done something with it.
We did not lose this game because of Fred Jones that is for sure.
In fact I can't say any one person lost us this game & for some reason I don't feel that bad about the loss other than the B.S. extra cirricular crap that Robinson was doing.
Oh God how that burns me .
I think next game we have to make more of an effort to get everybody back to rebounding. We may have to sacrifice some open transition baskets to get some offenisve boards.
Defense will only slow down an opponet, you have to score to win & right now we need more possesions on offense so that we can score.
Sorry that this is so short & directionless, but like I said I gotta be up shortly. I'll check back tommorrow night.
We can talk about missing Reggie, Ron, Brad, etc., etc. Tonight I missed one person & one person only.
Dale Davis.
Yes I know it's me so I always miss Dale but this game had nothing to do with his rebounding (although that would have helped) or his inside defense (God knows we could have used that). No what I missed more than anything else is that we don't have one player on our team who will lay out that punk @ss B!tch Clifford (Grandpa) Robinson.
Did you see this @ss kiss his biceps? Dear God.
All the while I just had to sit there & take it because we don't have a single player on our team that will stop that crap.
Where is Ron Artests elbows when you need them?
The fact that we are being pushed around & physically abused inside is about to make me lose my mind.
Look I think Nena Krystic is a great player but for God's sake we were making him look Nate Thurmond in that game. He was just physically pushing us wherever he wanted to.
I am not one to blame refs. for our misfortunes but sweet mother of God could they at least pretend to see the shoulder dropping that the N.J. big men are doing to get their guards open?
Ok, I'll calm down now & try & look at this a little more objectively.
We go home 1-1 I think if we were all honest with ourselves we would admit that this is about the best any of us hoped for coming into this series so this one game loss is not a huge setback IMO.
Right up front let me ask a question. What is up with Peja? According to Clark this is an injury from 2 months ago & he is just now not able to play? I think it was Jermainiac in another thread who said it & I have to agree here, unless you've got a bone sticking out of your leg (ok that is hyperbole but you get the opinion) then you really need to make yourself available to the team to play. The coach could keep him on the bench or something but at least he could have been used in situational plays (like say maybe a late 3 or something).
I'm not quesitoning the injury btw, for those of you that get so offended whenever someone dares question an injury) but I am questioning if it's really so bad that he couldn't have been available.
Now to Jermaine.
I totally forgot about Robinson being with the Blazers when J.O. was there. This of course depresses me because J.O. never plays well vs. any of those old Blazers for whatever reason. Whether it's Sheed, Brian Grant or even Grandpa Cliffy.
One thing you will notice though that all three do when playing him, they play him physical. Do you think they know something?
I am still happy with J.O. for not getting involved with the refs. for some of the calls he has recieved. However he is allowing Grandpa to take him out of his game.
On the other hand would Jeff Foster please step up & give Grandpa a hard back pick or something? J.O. won't do it so someone will need to.
N.J. has the clear out for J.O. well scouted so I think Rick is going to have to go back to the drawing board & come up with a new offensive scheme. However to Rick's credit, I don't know how the hell you design something new when your wing players are in foul trouble & the other one isn't even playing.
Speaking of Jeff Foster he really is having a hard time with Krystic but that is because Nena can step out 15' & nail the jumper like Rik Smits. Because of J.O.'s foul trouble we are in trouble because we have nobody to patrol the paint that much. God love Foster for trying but he just is not a good weak side defender & since N.J. doesn't really have a big man who goes to the rack then Jeff is a little out of his element.
He did get up 5 shots during this game so that is a good thing. He's trying & overall I like his play but I will say what I have said since the dawn of time. I do not like him & J.O. on the floor at the same time.
However when Austin plays like this I don't know what you do. I like Austin so much more when he is crashing the boards & attacking the rim. I know that on occasion that Cro can nail a jumper from the three point line, but when he shoots half of his shots from there & doesn't hit a one of them I know we are in trouble. Also his defense has been abysmal for the most part. He is just to damn short to guard Krystic but because J.O. is in such foul trouble all of the time he has to guard him. I don't know what to do there.
Jackson just got caught up in the foul parade during this game, nothing more nothing less. I don't feel bad about his game because I don't feel as though he was going off of the farm on offense or anything. Just a rough night from the field for the poor guy.
Granger was great considering he is a rookie starting in his first playoff game. I would like to see him take it to the rim more than he does but overall I thought he did very well.
Like every other Pacer I wanted to see him do better on the boards but the guy was in there on almost every rebound he just didn't snag a lot of them. In fact I thought he was fould on at least two occasions but because they seemed to let some contact go on down low he never got the call.
It is a testimate to his defensive skill that we often left him on Carter in the 4th quarter. Rick must already have supreme confidence in his defensive abilities.
Fred Jones again was outstanding. That one sequence where he blocked Kidd on a fast break & then literally ran the length of the court to tap out an offensive rebound was breath taking. I just wish we could have done something with it.
We did not lose this game because of Fred Jones that is for sure.
In fact I can't say any one person lost us this game & for some reason I don't feel that bad about the loss other than the B.S. extra cirricular crap that Robinson was doing.
Oh God how that burns me .
I think next game we have to make more of an effort to get everybody back to rebounding. We may have to sacrifice some open transition baskets to get some offenisve boards.
Defense will only slow down an opponet, you have to score to win & right now we need more possesions on offense so that we can score.
Sorry that this is so short & directionless, but like I said I gotta be up shortly. I'll check back tommorrow night.
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