NBA Thread

I saw some of Mirotic last night and I'm not sure how much they are going to trust him in the playoffs with his defense. It was rough when Washington had their big lineup, but he was completely useless when Washington went small.
 
Mirotic needs to be in a lineup where he is the stretch four or the 5. He will learn to defend a little better as the years progress in Thibs system.
 
gilesfan said:
I saw some of Mirotic last night and I'm not sure how much they are going to trust him in the playoffs with his defense. It was rough when Washington had their big lineup, but he was completely useless when Washington went small.
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The extent to which he's improved on that end already this season makes me think he can be passable—at least for a selectively-deployed ten-to-fifteen minutes—by the time the playoffs role around. Thibodeau must also see potential, since it's rare for him to play rookies the minutes he's already allocated to Mirotic; for a system like the Thibodeau's, accruing minutes is huge for development, and learning where to be can mask a lot of innate physical limitations.

Sample-size is still an issue this early in 2014-15, but the Noah+Mirotic lineups have been pretty killer, and allowed Noah to defend closer to the basket, be better positioned for rebounds, et cetera. Noah and Gasol have been good together, too, but it's taken some time for Noah to adjust, as he's effectively playing the four due to Gasol's slowness.
 
jpx7 said:
The extent to which he's improved on that end already this season makes me think he can be passable—at least for a selectively-deployed ten-to-fifteen minutes—by the time the playoffs role around. Thibodeau must also see potential, since it's rare for him to play rookies the minutes he's already allocated to Mirotic; for a system like the Thibodeau's, accruing minutes is huge for development, and learning where to be can mask a lot of innate physical limitations.

Sample-size is still an issue this early in 2014-15, but the Noah+Mirotic lineups have been pretty killer, and allowed Noah to defend closer to the basket, be better positioned for rebounds, et cetera. Noah and Gasol have been good together, too, but it's taken some time for Noah to adjust, as he's effectively playing the four due to Gasol's slowness.
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Totally misused the word extent in there. Very disappointed.
 
Heywood said:
Totally misused the word extent in there. Very disappointed.
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george-michael-snoopy-walk.gif
 
It's crazy that Josh Smith has been one of the least productive players in the league this season, and his reward is an additional $2-million and a guaranteed starting-spot on a Western Conference contender.
 
jpx7 said:
The extent to which he's improved on that end already this season makes me think he can be passable—at least for a selectively-deployed ten-to-fifteen minutes—by the time the playoffs role around. Thibodeau must also see potential, since it's rare for him to play rookies the minutes he's already allocated to Mirotic; for a system like the Thibodeau's, accruing minutes is huge for development, and learning where to be can mask a lot of innate physical limitations.

Sample-size is still an issue this early in 2014-15, but the Noah+Mirotic lineups have been pretty killer, and allowed Noah to defend closer to the basket, be better positioned for rebounds, et cetera. Noah and Gasol have been good together, too, but it's taken some time for Noah to adjust, as he's effectively playing the four due to Gasol's slowness.
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Noah/Mirotic is a good pairing i think. Cant teslly play Gasol with him. I just think thibs will be ultra conservative and keep him on bench a lot.

Certainly see potential in him though.
 
jpx7 said:
It's crazy that Josh Smith has been one of the least productive players in the league this season, and his reward is an additional $2-million and a guaranteed starting-spot on a Western Conference contender.
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Yeah he was a terrible fit for Detroit though. Cant play him with Monroe/Drummond

If and its a big if they can convince him to be defender/transition 4 in Houston and let hin jack a couple threes a game, he might be a great fir. They dont shoot bad midrange jumpersin Houston.
 
gilesfan said:
Yeah he was a terrible fit for Detroit though. Cant play him with Monroe/Drummond

If and its a big if they can convince him to be defender/transition 4 in Houston and let hin jack a couple threes a game, he might be a great fir. They dont shoot bad midrange jumpersin Houston.
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One of the more head-scratching FA signings in the NBA recently, to be sure.

I'm skeptical he can help Houston much, either—offensively, at least—though the fit is superficially a lot better. He's terrible shooting threes, and always has been, but this season he's been terrible 0–10-feet, where he used to dominate. Plus, even if he regains his shooting success nearer to the basket, that's sort of Harden's rôle: driving and dominating the ball.

At minimum, he should give them the "D" half of "three-&-D": he's both mobile and physical enough to hold his own against some of the West's great PFs (Durant, Nowitzki, Aldridge, Griffin), so at the very least he should help Houston on that side of the ball. McHale just needs to tread carefully and ensure Smith isn't too much of a negative offensively, or they'll risk watching him register a net-negative overall.
 
Big win, unfortunately sounds like KD is out awhile, smh.

Adams played well though.
 
Rose's floater has been downright ethereal the past few games.

Meanwhile: Barkley trying to give the Bulls that Chuckles kiss-of-death.
 
Regarding earlier games: I loved seeing Luol Deng have a huge, and hugely efficient, game this afternoon, as his team showed up LeBron and LeBron's new team.
 
My brother is VP and plant manager for an LA company and they got him front row tickets for tonight's game at Staples. He said to look for him.

I will shout out if I see him.
 
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