A win is a win.
This one was hard to swallow though. No Okafor, no Landry this should have been no problem.
Yes I know that they have been playing tougher than their record indicates they should and I know that they were trying to kick a losing streak. But there is just no reason at all we should have had to go to overtime to beat them. Also what made it worse was that they really led for most of the game and we came back in the 4th.
Our slow starts are going to be the death of us or at least me.
I’m not going to lie or pretty this up any, tonight’s game was disturbing. Not just because what I saw on the floor (not everybody played bad btw) but what I saw on the bench.
There was a confrontation between Danny Granger & Frank Vogel on the 20 second time out in the first quarter (you know the time he had to use a second time out to wake us up). Frank, you could see, was mad when he called the time out and he yelled at Danny as soon as he walked up to the bench. Danny yelled right back at him to which Darren Collison yelled at Danny. This didn’t last for very long, a few seconds at best, but needless to say it was not fun to watch. You could see Roy being physically uncomfortable at that point.
Then later in the game when Roy made the big block, Dahntay Jones gets up and wags his finger at the Hornets. That’s not that bad but not to be outdone Lance Stephenson gets up and is not content to do a finger wag he decides he has to do an entire arm and body wave. At this point in time Trevor Ariza is standing right there and tells him to sit his punk *** down. Finally Lance backs away when the referee gets there. Normally it’s no big deal but with all of the complaining we are getting from other teams about this type of behavior I think Dahntay is going to have to be more of a mentor the other way and not a leader in taunting from the bench. It was clearly obvious that Lance was taking his ques from Jones here.
I’m not going to complain about a victory but frankly this game does not give me the confidence that our win streak is just us taking care of a few cupcake teams and if this were any other team that was decent we would have walked out of there with a loss.
We really need George Hill back and healthy, which he is supposed to be tonight. We will see.
Sorry I wish I was a little more up beat, I think I’m starting to come down with a cold and it is affecting my mood. Either that or seeing Solomon Jones set picks that our point guards thought were set by Rick Mahorn so they couldn’t get through them.
Let’s just do grades tonight.
David West: B+ Once again hit a big clutch shot down towards the end of the game. He is very efficient on the offensive end and he grabbed a few rebounds. He also threw a pass to the 5th row across the court for some reason as well, but for whatever reason he tends to throw one bad pass a game. The next time though he steps up and cuts off a guard on a drive to the basket will be his first time. If Roy isn’t in the game we have no rim protection at all.
Danny Granger: F I don’t care if he hit a three to open up overtime or not. I kept wondering for most of the game if he had overdosed on his sleeping pills again. Lifeless, careless, poor attitude and worst of all horrid body language. I have no idea what was up with him tonight but I can tell you this was the worst game I’ve seen him play in a long time. Ariza always has been a tough matchup for him because of his speed but Danny was just not himself tonight. Also Frank until proven otherwise is all that is wise, if he tells you that you are on the wrong spot on the floor then you are on the wrong spot on defense. You DON’T argue with him. Did you see Roy having to pat Danny on the head several times tonight to kind of say “it’ll be ok”? Someone said he was sick, I don’t know if that is true or not, but he played like a sick person for sure. Also stop shooting so many damned three’s, pathetic.
Roy Hibbert: A+ What I liked the most for Roy was that in the early stages of the game he missed a couple of little hook shots. Instead of just forcing up more he decided that he would have his own dunk contest where he just hammered home three in a row. But Roy’s rebounding and defense was key to tonight’s game. His scoring was huge as well but again he was an interior presence and they just could not get rebounds away from him. He very much reminds me of the Marvel Character Gladiator. The more confidence he has the stronger he becomes.
Paul George: A Solid all around game. I will complain because he also took too many three point attempts but he made up for it with several drives to the lane and solid passing. This was a great overall game from him and of course his denizen of fans got to see his windmill dunk. What they may have missed though unless they were there was his statue of liberty dunk from the side in the layup lines in the pre-game. Was that a preview?
Darren Collison: A- I don’t feel like he deserves an A- but it’s just hard to not give it to him considering his stat line tonight, he even had a good field goal %. Now had he missed that second free throw at the end of the game his grade would be vastly different. But he didn’t. He was just torched though by Jack and Vasquez on the defensive end.
Tyler Hansbrough: D What most of you feared about Tyler’s shot prior to him playing in an NBA game came true tonight. If he wasn’t getting foul’s called, which he wasn’t, then his shot is just an ugly unorthodox hook that has very little chance of going in. He did deny position to Kaman a few times but other than that his time on the floor was spent asking why he wasn’t getting the calls and looking totally perplexed.
A.J. Price: B+ Did a little better job on Jack than Daren did but this wasn’t his best defensive outing either. He did hit his shots tonight, which is a bonus, but I think he kind of stepped back a little from running the offense like h had been doing and reverted to looking for his own shot a little. Also he denied Dahntay Jones his rightful technical free throw attempt, but I guess nobody really cares about that. It will be interesting to see what happens when George does return.
Lance Stephenson: C He didn’t do anything stupid (on the court) and he did have a really nice pull up jumper. C might be a little low but he didn’t play much really and didn’t impact the game all of that much.
Dahntay Jones: C- Not his finest game, which is a shame because last night I had a pretty decent write up on him for the very good game he had vs. the Bobcats. He still played hard on defense and he only took one shot which was a wide open three in the corner that he missed.
Jeff Foster: C I know its sacred that we all must praise Jeff Foster and I will give him credit for playing very good defense & boxing out for rebound off of free throws. But other than that, he didn’t even attempt a shot and the two free throws he took he missed.
And now for absolutely no reason Dubcat.
This one was hard to swallow though. No Okafor, no Landry this should have been no problem.
Yes I know that they have been playing tougher than their record indicates they should and I know that they were trying to kick a losing streak. But there is just no reason at all we should have had to go to overtime to beat them. Also what made it worse was that they really led for most of the game and we came back in the 4th.
Our slow starts are going to be the death of us or at least me.
I’m not going to lie or pretty this up any, tonight’s game was disturbing. Not just because what I saw on the floor (not everybody played bad btw) but what I saw on the bench.
There was a confrontation between Danny Granger & Frank Vogel on the 20 second time out in the first quarter (you know the time he had to use a second time out to wake us up). Frank, you could see, was mad when he called the time out and he yelled at Danny as soon as he walked up to the bench. Danny yelled right back at him to which Darren Collison yelled at Danny. This didn’t last for very long, a few seconds at best, but needless to say it was not fun to watch. You could see Roy being physically uncomfortable at that point.
Then later in the game when Roy made the big block, Dahntay Jones gets up and wags his finger at the Hornets. That’s not that bad but not to be outdone Lance Stephenson gets up and is not content to do a finger wag he decides he has to do an entire arm and body wave. At this point in time Trevor Ariza is standing right there and tells him to sit his punk *** down. Finally Lance backs away when the referee gets there. Normally it’s no big deal but with all of the complaining we are getting from other teams about this type of behavior I think Dahntay is going to have to be more of a mentor the other way and not a leader in taunting from the bench. It was clearly obvious that Lance was taking his ques from Jones here.
I’m not going to complain about a victory but frankly this game does not give me the confidence that our win streak is just us taking care of a few cupcake teams and if this were any other team that was decent we would have walked out of there with a loss.
We really need George Hill back and healthy, which he is supposed to be tonight. We will see.
Sorry I wish I was a little more up beat, I think I’m starting to come down with a cold and it is affecting my mood. Either that or seeing Solomon Jones set picks that our point guards thought were set by Rick Mahorn so they couldn’t get through them.
Let’s just do grades tonight.
David West: B+ Once again hit a big clutch shot down towards the end of the game. He is very efficient on the offensive end and he grabbed a few rebounds. He also threw a pass to the 5th row across the court for some reason as well, but for whatever reason he tends to throw one bad pass a game. The next time though he steps up and cuts off a guard on a drive to the basket will be his first time. If Roy isn’t in the game we have no rim protection at all.
Danny Granger: F I don’t care if he hit a three to open up overtime or not. I kept wondering for most of the game if he had overdosed on his sleeping pills again. Lifeless, careless, poor attitude and worst of all horrid body language. I have no idea what was up with him tonight but I can tell you this was the worst game I’ve seen him play in a long time. Ariza always has been a tough matchup for him because of his speed but Danny was just not himself tonight. Also Frank until proven otherwise is all that is wise, if he tells you that you are on the wrong spot on the floor then you are on the wrong spot on defense. You DON’T argue with him. Did you see Roy having to pat Danny on the head several times tonight to kind of say “it’ll be ok”? Someone said he was sick, I don’t know if that is true or not, but he played like a sick person for sure. Also stop shooting so many damned three’s, pathetic.
Roy Hibbert: A+ What I liked the most for Roy was that in the early stages of the game he missed a couple of little hook shots. Instead of just forcing up more he decided that he would have his own dunk contest where he just hammered home three in a row. But Roy’s rebounding and defense was key to tonight’s game. His scoring was huge as well but again he was an interior presence and they just could not get rebounds away from him. He very much reminds me of the Marvel Character Gladiator. The more confidence he has the stronger he becomes.
Paul George: A Solid all around game. I will complain because he also took too many three point attempts but he made up for it with several drives to the lane and solid passing. This was a great overall game from him and of course his denizen of fans got to see his windmill dunk. What they may have missed though unless they were there was his statue of liberty dunk from the side in the layup lines in the pre-game. Was that a preview?
Darren Collison: A- I don’t feel like he deserves an A- but it’s just hard to not give it to him considering his stat line tonight, he even had a good field goal %. Now had he missed that second free throw at the end of the game his grade would be vastly different. But he didn’t. He was just torched though by Jack and Vasquez on the defensive end.
Tyler Hansbrough: D What most of you feared about Tyler’s shot prior to him playing in an NBA game came true tonight. If he wasn’t getting foul’s called, which he wasn’t, then his shot is just an ugly unorthodox hook that has very little chance of going in. He did deny position to Kaman a few times but other than that his time on the floor was spent asking why he wasn’t getting the calls and looking totally perplexed.
A.J. Price: B+ Did a little better job on Jack than Daren did but this wasn’t his best defensive outing either. He did hit his shots tonight, which is a bonus, but I think he kind of stepped back a little from running the offense like h had been doing and reverted to looking for his own shot a little. Also he denied Dahntay Jones his rightful technical free throw attempt, but I guess nobody really cares about that. It will be interesting to see what happens when George does return.
Lance Stephenson: C He didn’t do anything stupid (on the court) and he did have a really nice pull up jumper. C might be a little low but he didn’t play much really and didn’t impact the game all of that much.
Dahntay Jones: C- Not his finest game, which is a shame because last night I had a pretty decent write up on him for the very good game he had vs. the Bobcats. He still played hard on defense and he only took one shot which was a wide open three in the corner that he missed.
Jeff Foster: C I know its sacred that we all must praise Jeff Foster and I will give him credit for playing very good defense & boxing out for rebound off of free throws. But other than that, he didn’t even attempt a shot and the two free throws he took he missed.
And now for absolutely no reason Dubcat.
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