Minnesota Sports Forum

I know...it's only the Nets, and they're not very good. But they were close to a .500 team before today's game and had wins over two teams we are competing with (Houston and Phoenix). And we beat them easily...it was a complete ass-kicking. Here are some things I liked:

The starting lineup: What are they now...7 and 3. Something like that. What a pleasure it is to watch the starting five play defense like it is supposed to be played. Today the score was 25-14 with a minute left in the 1st quarter and they subbed Ricky and Tay out, and that type of defensive success is not that unusual for this unit. And the defense didn't seem to change when Sam made his two substitutions in the first 11 minutes...Gorgui for KG, and Payne for KAT (with G moving to center). Those 7 guys are our best defenders, and I would like to see Sam stay with this 1st quarter rotation, at least until Pek gets back. I think we spend too much time talking about win-now vs. development...I don't think they are mutually exclusive. Tay and KG are not part of our long-term plan, but I think it really helps KAT and Wig's development by being on the court with them at the start of halves...and they definitely help us win ballgames.

The reserves Yes, they gave away the 10-point lead, but they played hard and played well and actually built the lead when they played in the third quarter. There is enough firepower off the bench to offset their defensive deficiencies, but it's incumbent upon Sam to find the right combinations when he needs to rest the starters...and it's likely to be different most games. Today Zach was not good in the PG role, Belly continued to be a mess, and Bazz was playing like he may have been hanging in the clubs with Derrick Williams last night. But Sam is getting better at not giving much rope to guys when they are off, and he was able to turn to reserves who were playing well...Gorgui, Payne, Miller and especially Martin. Kevin gets a lot of hate on this board...some from me...but his 16 points on just 9 shots in 18 minutes (along with 3 assists and 2 steals) never allowed the Nets to make a run. He had a terrific game. Tomorrow it may be Bazz that Sam has to turn to, or even Rudez. Usually someone on our bench is going to be hot and deserve more minutes on any given night.

Ricky There has been discussion about Ricky's great game on the GDT and in the Pork section, but he deserves his own category here too...he was brilliant today. Several have noticed that he hasn't been playing with the same flair he used to have, but at least for one game, he was the old spectacular Ricky. He wowed the crowd with a jaw-dropping no-look assist, and would have had another if Gorgui could have caught the ball. He seemed to have a lot of that old Ricky joy on the court today, and the bench was whooping it up with every assist. And his defense was even better. Sure there were the 4 steals, but his value goes way beyond that. He is perpetual motion on defense, and almost always seems to make the correct decision. Now, if he could just make a shot once in awhile...

Sam's quest for favorable matchups I know he frustrates the fan base sometimes (the rubes over at rubechat are even whining today! not enough Bazz, why is Payne on the court, blah blah blah), and sometimes his moves are puzzling. But I appreciate his attempt every game to find matchups that are to our advantage. Today, it was Gorgui and Thad Young. Thad is having his best year...shooting over 50% and (gasp) leading the team in rebounding! But Sam recognized Thad would be frustrated with Gorgui's length at both ends of the court, and he was right. Thad looked like last year's version of Thad, and ended up with a team-worst minus 24. We're used to seeing G get most of his points on 10-15 footers, but Sam recognized Thad's interior defense was so bad that even Gorgui could become an effective post player. I don't know if it was Sam's direction or KAT's good instincts (I suspect it was coaching), but KAT did a great job of taking Lopez outside so Thad was left trying to stop G one on one...and that's how you get a 9-12 shooting night. Great offensive coaching to feature G with Thad on him.

The cheering section I'm with Lip in not liking players smiling on the bench during a loss, But I like nothing better than an involved bench when the guys on the court make a great play. KAT is not only one of our best players on the court, but he is usually the ringleader from the bench when something good happens. Last night it was the spectacular dunks that got the bench up and showboating, but today it was Ricky's passes and the defense. The entire bench was going nuts when Tay Prince forced Johnson back and back with the first half winding down resulting in a desperation shot at the buzzer...I love a bench celebrating a great defensive stand! It shows they are paying attention and learning, and also is an indicator of great tem chemistry.


That's now 10 consecutive quarters of good basketball since the dreadful first half in the Garden. Sam's pushing all the right buttons, and the team is responding. It gets more difficult tomorrow night on the back end of a BTB against a rested and pretty good Celtics team, but we're going into the game playing our best basketball of the season.

Good summary but I have to say I'm still very down on Sam's rotations. I can live with Prince in the starting lineup as the defense improves, but it always helps to play a team that is downright terrible in Brooklyn.

But beyond that I have seen enough of Lavine at point guard to last a lifetime, and even worse is when we have Lavine/Bazz/K-Mart all on the court at the same time. Of all the guys on the roster, those 3 look for their own shot the most, not to mention that none of them are plus defenders. It's a recipe for disaster, and in the first half that squad (along with Bjelica who desperately needs to be set up for some easy hoops) gave back the 10 point lead the starters had built by playing selfish, stupid basketball.

So memo to Mitchell: Lavine/Bazz/K-Mart = Bad.

Nice post LST. Your praise of Sam the last 3 or 4 games is making me uncomfortable :) . But I do think he's doing better. I agree in that winning and development are not mutually exclusive. We have our Core 4 plus Dieng and I think plus Bazz now too in most opinions here. So it doesn't really matter how we play them this year as long as they all get their burn and stay healthy, they'll get plenty of minutes together. If Tay has to keep starting to keep winning, then so be it.

On your first point, LST, absolutely. Starting Prince and KG is exactly the sort of thing most of us wouldn't have the nuts to do, but Sam does, and you can't argue with the results. It works. They usually help us have a good first quarter especially defensively, help focus Wiggins and Towns on getting started offensively, they don't make mistakes (seriously, they almost never turn over the ball), they hit their open shots, KG is always the first guy to help up a teammate (an important indicator of team culture), and then they sit down for limited minutes the rest of the game without complaining and lead the cheering from the bench.

I couldn't agree more with Misty's point that our second unit is in trouble when we have LaVine, Bazz, and Kmart at the 1, 2, 3 though, and most people seem to know it now. Defensively, that's just not a strong unit. Although Martin and LaVine have shown some flashes of deflecting balls and getting steals, they all tend to fall asleep off the ball and let their guys open for basket cuts or fail to fight through picks. And that's where a guy like Prince with his length could help, but mostly on 3s because he's not really quick enough for a lot of 2s. So there's some limits on the defensive upside to playing Prince with the second unit, although it would obviously help. There are moments defensively when I miss Lorenzo Brown on this team. Offensively, while all three of those guys can put up points, it's not always consistent and the big thing is there's just very little ball movement and coordinated off-the-ball action. It's like the anti-Spurs or the anti-Warriors out there. Way too much Hero ball. Prince wouldn't necessarily help with that other than not needing shots, although Sam has obviously found out lately that Miller can help run the second unit offense. That has meant fewer minutes for Bazz or Martin, and it probably also helps explain why we're seeing Martin trade rumors so far ahead of the trade deadline.

Frankly, I think Sam has been making the best of some tough decisions on the wing/guard rotations given that the problem we have all seen since last year is that we have essentially 4 wings (Wiggins, LaVine, Bazz, and Martin) who are all good enough that they should get minutes. I expect we'll see Martin traded soon, and then LaVine slide over to the 2 more, and Miller get more minutes and things should balance out.

Misty and Drew- I agree that it can be painful to watch the second unit when Martin, Bazz and Zach are out there together...offensively and defensively. Sam is modifying this somewhat by moving away from the hockey line shifts he gravitated toward earlier in the year...the last few games the subsitition pattern has been more staggered. But yesterday was a good example of the bad things that sometimes happen when those guys are out there together for a long stretch. One positive offsetting factor is each of them is a high volume scorer, especially Bazz and Martin, and if one or more of them is hot, their offense can offset their poor defense. But you can't always rely on that. I wonder if one solution would be to sub Prince out earlier in the first quarter for a 5 minute blow, and then bring him back for a stint with Zach and Martin in the second quarter to stabilize the defesne. He's younger than KG and Miller and should be able to play more minutes. Just a thought.

With the second unit the thing what stinks is the bad play of belly. Belly could be the second ball handler and improve the ball movement a little bit with his poor play it is forcing sam to play payne (he deserves the minutes) but that is another player who struggles with ball movement it becomes only iso.

Second unit gets better with a kmart trade or belly playing better

kekgeek1 wrote:With the second unit the thing what stinks is the bad play of belly. Belly could be the second ball handler and improve the ball movement a little bit with his poor play it is forcing sam to play payne (he deserves the minutes) but that is another player who struggles with ball movement it becomes only iso.

Second unit gets better with a kmart trade or belly playing better

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If Sam was going to inspire any confidence in his abilities, it would have been over this last stretch of games against sub-par opponents. Let's see how we feel about him and the team after we play San Antonio a couple times.

I 4th the ugliness of the LaVine-Martin-Bazz trio, although to be fair, their +/- together isn't as bad as one might think. It's negative, but not horrifically so.

Ultimately, Prince needs to be replaced with a younger version of what he's doing this year - and preferably with a 3-point shot. 3 & D wings are coveted players in this league and not easy to find, but that's exactly what we need.

Shooting and defense, shooting and defense, shooting and defense......

Q12543 wrote:I 4th the ugliness of the LaVine-Martin-Bazz trio, although to be fair, their +/- together isn't as bad as one might think. It's negative, but not horrifically so.

Ultimately, Prince needs to be replaced with a younger version of what he's doing this year - and preferably with a 3-point shot. 3 & D wings are coveted players in this league and not easy to find, but that's exactly what we need.

Shooting and defense, shooting and defense, shooting and defense......

How about trying to get Tony Snell from Chicago? I really like his defense. I remember one regular season game last year that Butler missed and Snell had to defend LeBron whole game and Chicago won that game. Snell has had statistically down year (PER just 6.0) but he has 3 point shot and can really play defense. Surprisingly Chicago has been clearly worse in offense than last year. Their Ortg is 4th worst in whole NBA and they could use little more offense.

Contracts of Snell and Martin won't match, so we would need to take another player as well. I think they could do Dunleavy, Snell to Martin, Rudez swap. Even though Dunleavy is better player than Rudez, he is already 35 year old, currently injured and signed for another two years.

Another 3 and D guy that I really would love is Thabo. He is already 31 year old but he would be still clearly younger than Prince and would have 3-point shot. Even though I believe that Martin could flourish in that type of offense that Atlanta runs, I think they probably don't want to give up Thabo since he is probably their only good wing defender.