Well, that was disappointing ...

[Alex Goldblatt]

I deserved this spanking just because got overly emotional...

But few things I'd disagree with:

1. Perk's reasonable game does not go over a backup 5 level. Let's be honest
here (sorry TommyH...)  - he's not a starter. Yes, he's the best outlet guy
in the middle, but it does not mean that nobody else can replace him. Even
Paul had a couple out of his almost 20 boards... :-((

2. Theo will give a solid stopper in the middle. Talking about Perk's D
rotation would be a waste of time - it does not exist, as well as his
understanding of the help D (another underrated aspect of Raef's game, btw).


3. I can get emotional - this kids get paid millions to get the job done.
Sorry, just cannot accept any excuse of this sort. It's called
"professional athletes", and I can give you quite a few examples what this
kind of guys performed well under really tough circumstances.

I just don't think anymore that this team is ready... I picked 45 wins this
season - but in reality they will actually play even worse than the last
season. For whatever reason, it looks like we'll start from the very scratch
- and I want just to start from where we were the last year instead...
West, Wally, Paul, Ryan, Theo will give you 40+ wins just by being healthy,
better bench will add a few - WHY simply forget what was already
accomplished?!!! Heck, I feel really bad about this season...   :-(((

AG

On 11/2/06, Kim Malo <kmalo17 at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> At 12:16 PM 11/2/2006, Alex Goldblatt wrote:
>
> >3. I want Ratliff to start - and ASAP.... Perk is still nowhere.
>
> Wow. I think Perk had a reasonable but not fabulous game until Doc
> benched him and forgot about him, same as last year. And did you SEE
> how bad Ratliff looked in the preseason?
>
> He didn't offer much on offense, but then he's not in there for that.
> But he did pound the boards (no, it wasn't a dazzling total that he
> got, but he was in there carving out space that also helped some
> other guys get some and I don't see you saying the same about
> Jefferson who had even fewer in more or less the same minutes) and he
> also had that one beautiful long outlet pass, something more people
> are going to have to look to do if we really want to run. Raef's one
> big virtue (you have to understand that I hate the 3 point shot) was
> that he always looked to make an outlet pass when he got a defensive
> board. Always. Perk was second best on the team at doing that last
> season and was the only one who did it last night. As to his
> reputation as a foul machine and that's why he has to be benched, the
> first one on him was a bad call and he only got three, while
> Jefferson was the one who fouled out in about the same minutes.
>
> Back to that thing about the outlet - one of the things that
> frustrates me even more than rotations is that Doc's teams don't seem
> to do the little fundamental things well and don't show any signs of
> being coached to improve them. Enough little things become big
> things. Things like looking for the outlet pass (and this includes
> Pierce rarely looking for the PG over bringing up the ball himself)
> are habits and you have to work to work to build good ones so that
> they become instinctive. I haven't seen many signs of that since
> Doc's been here, from looking for outlets to moving when someone with
> the ball is getting trapped to give them an outlet to learning which
> fakes you don't get taken in by (e.g. yes his arms are moving but
> he's not gathering the rest of his body and his feet aren't set for
> him to be going anywhere), etc
>
> As to last night's game, yeah it was disappointing but yeah, I agree
> with people who think the emotion of the night played a big part.
> That's one of those things about being so young - younger players
> *are* more affected by emotions. I don't think it's likely we'll have
> many more games were Wally can't hit the broad side of a barn, which
> was a big factor in the slow start and had a ripple effect through
> the game at times when you'd normally look to him to score with a
> jumper. Delonte was streaky last year shooting and this was also one
> of his off nights. That won't last either.  Pierce's FT shooting,
> unfortunately we've seen before. One positive - despite his fouling
> out, I did think Jefferson looked much better than the player we saw
> last year. Some nice moves in the post, he was genuinely trying to
> play defense by doing more than just trying to draw charges, and was
> going after and grabbing at rebounds more often than just trying to
> bat at them.
> Kim
>
>
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