Don't know why we are still going to AD for clutch fts. should have gotten the ball to one of our guards.
And just like that we’re slumping again. And to think it all started with our rookie coach insisting on not signing a backup center vs Houston.
We rested AD, thinkng Rockets would be an easy win. Now the snowball is rolling and its hard to stop. Get rid of Ham, get a better coach, we have a good core of guys, just need someone that can utililize their skills.
We have at least two more years of Ham, forget about any firing. We had a chance to have a real coach in Stotts or Atkinson but we went cute and have to live with the mistakes of a rookie coach.
don't let one game fool you. dallas hasn't been good since picking up kyrie. like everyone, he saved a big game for us. still rather pay less for a younger russell, despite the fact that the game was basically lost on that lopsided matchup. as for the game/season--is what it's been. we're just not there, and we're not going to get there in a matter of 12 games. lebron's injury ended the season, and now we're just having tryouts for next year. i'm still pretty bullish on the squad we've got despite the recent disappointing results, tbh.
It’s not pre Westbrick trade bad, it’s actually quite surprising that our expectations suddenly became so high for the teamwe still have a better record than the Pelicans, so I’m still satisfied and so long as we won’t give them Wembanyama by some stroke of luck in the lotto then the season is not lost to me. But it won’t stop me from thrashing Ham or soft AD.
Newsflash: Orlando is a HUGE team. We match up terrible with them without Lebron. This will not be an easy victory.
I still love the deadline acquisitions but we’re starting to see their limitations, especially without LeBron. You need a playmaker like LeBron to feed good looks to Beasley and Vando and take pressure off of DLO. I also still want to play a stretch 5 next to AD. I think playing next to another big has a positive psychological impact on AD and his night-to-night energy level. The AD-Vando pairing is great defensively but I think we’re seeing that it should be more of a 20 minutes per game thing. I’d start Bamba next to AD and look for another P&R big in the off-season.
I can see 6 guaranteed losses from our remaining schedule 2 from the Suns, 2 from the Bulls 1 Clippers 1 Utah, 39-43 probably projected out of the play in
i still think we can make the AD/lebron/vando/beasley/dlo lineup work and work well. people are overreacting to vando's recent games, imo, and the defense is worth the drop off on offense, imo. we also desperately need a wing defender in the starting lineup given that lebron has retired from that. moving him down to the three spot on defense will really hurt us. i think we're going to finish the year 40-42 and in 10th place, then lose on the road to okc without lebron in the play-in.
I’d still want DLo/Beasley/LeBron/Vando/AD to be the closing lineup as I agree the wing defense outweighs any offensive clunkiness. I just think a few minutes to start each half with AD at the 4 (like we did with McGee and Gasol in 2020 and 2021) would help AD. He could even be the wing defender in certain matchups, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for LeBron to defend at the 3 for a few minutes to start each half. I hope we at least give it a look. Since the trades I’ve very much agreed with you that this was more for next year, with the remainder of this year being about finding the right combinations and identifying what we still need to do on the edges of the roster.
They are who they are. The standings illustrate perfectly the nature of this team. they have built a lot of bad habits recently and ADs issues goes back multiple seasons. you can’t just turn up when it’s crunch time when there’s been little evidence of playoff or title level performances consistently from them they’re cramming for a paper at 11pm that due at midnight after procrastinating all semester. Not gonna work when the degree thesis is due
yeah, i've been a fan of the 15-20mpg placeholder starting c next to AD at various times and wouldn't mind taking a look at it. i just think the other lineup is ultimately the superior one. this is a more pessimistic approximation of my general feeling. you can't undo a bad season in 20 games. russell missing several of those and lebron missing all of them. the season was lost a long time ago, and then the forum kinda went nuts with euphoria after the (definitely great) deadline trades and started believing we were going to just rocket up to the 6 seed from a cold start. now we're in backlash mode i guess. i am thrilled about the trades but have been consistent in expecting a 9th-11th place finish the whole time.
One of the worst parts about this loss that will fly under the radar… Wenyen having a good game. I’d bet the FO will point to this and say “See, Wenyen is just fine, we DON’T need another center”. Ignoring that some of his best play was alongside AD, and when he WAS out there by himself there were still moments where the defense totally collapsed and gave up easy buckets at the rim. We’re probably getting blown out in that next back-to-back against the Clippers. Zubac gonna go off for another 30 point, 30 rebound game. Russ gonna be rocking the baby. Media’s going to spend days talking about how we just scapegoated Russ.
