Comments on: Disturbing: Magic 96, C’s 89

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:36:02 +0000

Brendan,

I was sitting on the opposite side of the Magic bench.

Glen Davis made a few baskets, but did you feel people were confident in him shooting? He had three shots blocked against, why even attempt it when there are four people behind you. PASS THE BALL. For every good thing he does, he does something stupid to offset that.

ESPN’s playchart is down, but I recall Rondo making more than 2-3 jumpers.

Ray Allen had a arm touching his everytime he was doing the curl, I could see it clearly in the 3rd when he kept losing the ball and on the floor. I am not saying it is not his fault, but the magic got away with a bunch of good hacks.

By: MikeD

MikeD — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:59:14 +0000

Yeah I do agree about Daniels, he played very well when he was in so I am suprised Doc didn’t use him more. Of course Doc makes mistakes, but my main point is that he is a very good and underrated coach. He had some growing pains for sure, but this season I don’t put much of the teams struggles on him. The players simply aren’t performing to the level that they can.

By: Tom W

Tom W — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:05:46 +0000

MikeD- I agree and disagree with you. I agree that Allen needs to be left in games, shooters who aren’t shooting well only right themselves when they get to keep on tossing up shots. But to leave him out there for as much time as Rivers did, when Daniels was CLEARLY playing the better game? I didn’t think that was a good decision.

Also, it’s 100% Doc Rivers’ fault that Rasheed Wallace keeps getting minutes, when he clearly doesn’t deserve them over Perk OR Sheldon Williams. If I could trade shoes with Rivers for a week, I would do what Samuel Jackson did in Coach Carter and tell Sheed he had a week to complete 1,000 suicides and 2,500 pushups by Friday, or be benched indefinitely.

By: MikeD

MikeD — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:55:29 +0000

cptn bubbles – Why do you put so much blame on Doc? He is a pretty damn good coach and we are lucky to have him. That 3rd quarter meltdown is completely the fault of the players. I just don’t understand your logic that because a player is struggling Doc needs to sit them. Everyone is going to have up and down games, that doesn’t change the fact that he is a hall of famer and our best shooting guard. You can’t just put someone on the bench because they got off to a bad start shooting the ball, how would they ever break out of the slump? The C’s have one of the most efficient offenses in the league, the problem isn’t field goal % it is turnovers and rebounding.

By: Jay P

Jay P — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:51:03 +0000

KG has definitely lost his intimidation factor, people just don’t fear him like they used to… or like they do Howard.

Back in the day, people feared him cause he was in your face, finishing on you, jamming you up, you set a screen, he popped right out with you, and you weren’t going to get around him.

Now he’s just a step slower, and once that mental psyche of opposing players starts leaning to “Hey… this guys not as good as he used to be, we can get by him, we can push him back.” Then it’s over to you, you have to player better than you did 10 years ago, and he just doesn’t have that anymore.

We knew this going into the year though, it’s not a surprise, I didn’t expect KG to the the dominant force of old.

But I did expect more out of Rasheed (greatest disappointment of the year), I did expect more out of Ray Allen (he’s been better lately, let’s hope it continues if he gets more rest now with Daniels back.), I did expect a veteran team to take care of the ball better, and do the little things right.

In 2007 we could get away with being a little sloppy, we could get away playing lazy for stretches, cause KG was still in his prime, and he could carry this team any night… every night.

Two years later, and one knee less, he can’t do that anymore. This is a team who can’t just sit back and rely on their talent to get them through anymore, their too old, their not as quick as they used to be. They need to do the little things right, they need to protect the ball, box out, player consistent, help defense (And not really on KG to bail them out, cause he cant do it anymore.)

The mentality of the team has to change, or it will be a very short postseason.