Forget Wade... Udonis Haslem is going to go for about 50 points tomorrow night. Nellie will put Azibuike on him the whole game. He'll also set the new Heat franchise record in rebounds with 38, including 17 offensive rebounds.
Halftime and they're actually looking pretty good. Nothing like home cooking. Randolph had 6 points and 3 boards in 7 minutes, but of course that wasn't good enough for Nelson so he got benched. Wright is looking pretty comfortable out there tonight but he needs to be more aggressive on rebounding, and box out his man. Jackson with a quiet night, but I like it. He's not killing the team with poor shooting. Maggette is padding his stats with freethrows but again...meh. Selfish play, first play of the game he dribbles the ball, doesn't pass it, jacks it up...clang. But, he has looked worse so I shouldn't complain. Watson is looking more solid every game he plays. I don't want to get delusional and start thinking he's a starter but if he can be a reliable backup I'll be happy and he is doing it. Hoping to see more Randolph, Wright, and Watson in the 2nd half.
Wow talk about a last second breakdown. Warriors always find a way to mess with your emotions. They give you hope, then they take it away from you.
The warriors have got to be the worst team I've ever seen at closing out games. I didn't think it could get worse than watching them almost give it away against Portland but this takes the cake. And they even managed to do it twice, in regulation then again in OT. To their credit though, I was almost expecting them to get shutout in OT after the first collapse.
I'm glad they lost. Two words: defensive rebounding. Or lack thereof. That put us into OT and that eventually lost us the game. The inability to secure the defensive rebound. We got out rebounded bad and gave up tons of second chance points. So, Nellie resorted to the small ball lineup again with Maggette at 4. Ugh. Those last few possessions in regulation and OT, we had the small lineup. I actually cheered when Maggette hurt his ankle because I knew Nellie would sub in Wright. Too bad he came right back in and took Wright out. I thought CJ should or even Crawford should have come out so we could have Biedrins/Wright or Biedrins/Turiaf or Turiaf/Wright. To Nellie's credit, he put Turiaf in at the end of OT and Biedrins got the huge defensive rebound. I was yelling the whole time, "we need two rebounders in there!" Sure, we gave up the steal to B-Easy at the end and that UNCONTESTED (Maggette!!!) 3 by Quinn...WTF was that? Maggette was IN HIS FACE and all he had to do was put up a hand. I guess the concept of basketball 101 (Jim Barnett's new mini series LOL) slipped his mind. Outrageous but I'm glad the Warriors lost for the sole reason that they were unable to secure the ball. Maybe Nellie might do something about it. Maybe not, but at least this issue wasn't disguised by a win.
The Warriors should almost always close with Turiaf/Biedrins, then you put in Mags/Sjax/ and possibly Crawford or Watson depending on who is playing a better point guard. The reason I say Crawford is because he can hit some big shots and he's very creative scorer, but I like Watson because he doesn't dominate the ball like Crawford does. Nelson is going to lose games because he insists that Maggette at power forward gives him a mismatch to close out the game. What a dumbass. This game could have been won if he had just played the big matchups (he did okay with Wright which was probably why it was close all game, but Turiaf needs to get involved more as a closer!). Instead he goes away thinking it's better to have a spear against a knife fighter inside of a crowded telephone booth. He goes with Mags at PF and bamm we lose. F'n Nelson. He's not a genius if he can't demonstrate running different kinds of teams. We're a halfcourt team that needs to learn how to play D and take better care of the ball by getting organized offensively. I don't hate Maggette even though he's been questionable lately, I just think he's being misused and his role is way outside what he's designed to do. Keep it simple and he rocks. Just like how Davis should have been used as a passer, I don't think Mags should be used as a setup guy. This team has plenty of talent to keep things close, but it starts with DEFENSE and rebounding. We can't help with the turnovers immediately because look at who our 3 perimeter guys are (a bunch of new guys with high turnover rates), but we can at least focus on defense and get bigger guys in there to neutralize the other team's big guys. Over time the turnovers should decrease with guys getting used to each other and set plays. If we make it up as we go along, the offense will be disorganized and we'll never get good shots at the basket. Don Nelson just sucks for this type of team. So overrated. He needs to go back to what he was doing in the first 7 games of this season. I don't know why he went away from that.
Yeah, that was really disgusting, I mean he literally did not lift even a finger, let alone a hand or arm, and the Heat needed a 3 there, with Quinn boxed into the corner. Didn't even jump or start to bend his knees to either.
I agree, but he has a tendency of dominating the ball, as you would say. Not just dominate, but put up real questionable shots. Tonight's game, he did great offensively. But he's so one-dimensional. He gives you scoring, and that's it. He's a bad defender or he simply chooses not to play it right, and he's not a play maker. If he sticks to scoring productively by shooting a high FG% and getting to the line, I can live with that. He's great at getting to the line AND making his free throws, I'll give him that.
Mags is a hardworking defender when he's motivated (IMO). I think Nelson's screwed him over just like he did with all the other swingmen playing power forward. It's why nobody at that spot wants to play for Nelson. They all want out. Mags simply lost his energy and just doesn't give a crap any more just like I don't give a crap about Nelson and his small ball efforts in the 4th. It just doesn't work and I don't believe in it. Then with the rest of the team, they were all making questionable decisions and not putting much thought or effort into what they did out there. Biedrins, Crawford, Jax were getting sloppy. Those are supposed to be team leaders. It can't all go on Mags. At least he ain't the point guard, Crawford is supposed to be and that means we're in trouble because he's a pure two. He's only considered a combo guard because of his lack of body weight.
I'm only arguing about Mags because you've been a consistent supporter of him, but you seem to be denying the fact that he lacks basic defensive fundamentals, ehem, like putting a hand up to contest a 3 to tie the game. That has nothing to do with motivation, playing out of position, etc. To tell you the truth, I don't know what that has to do with. It was just plain stupid. No, I am certainly not putting last night's game on Mags...only that one play. Last night's game was lost due to defensive rebounding, first and foremost. That can be attributed to Nellie's refusal to play two bigs.
It's a no-win situation. There are shotblockers on this team, but not a single good defender. Small ball needs deflections, energy, transition game. When the other team is scoring every time downcourt, small ball doesn't work very well. In a traditional system the bigs are too thin to man up on any player in this league. They'll get eaten alive. The front office has to decide whether they want to rebuild, or win. If they want to rebuild, then Why the Magette, Turiaf and Jackson signings and Crawford trade? If they think they can win with this personell, then they're delusional. I just don't get it.
Why oh why did he foul Wade going to the bucket (stupidly trying to draw a charge) when the W's were up 4 with 14 secs left? Let him go. Not flashing out to the shooter when you're up 3? Guard the 3 pt line and let the roller go. Stupid, stupid.
As much as it pains me to say this we need another player like Barnes. I hated 90% of his game but he was long and lanky and he was able to get in the passing lanes, get deflections, and fuel the fast break. We replaced him with Maggette who was supposed to improve the offense but his type of game doesn't allow us to get into the offense that Nellie wants to run. It would be great if Randolph could learn to use him length that way as opposed to looking for shot blocking opportunities. On a positive note, I love what Turiaf brings to the team. He's so active, doesn't get pushed around, and is the type of hustle guy that fits perfectly on a run n gun team.
Seriously. I don't know about the rest of you, but I used DVR for last night's game and I kept rewinding Miami possessions to see the Warrior defense. If you have it, go back and look at it. Time and time again, Maggette is caught standing around, watching everyone else try to contest a shot or grab a rebound. Time and time again. And time again. He rarely tries to box out. He doesn't even pretend to try to box out on freethrows. He's standing on the base block during a free throw, and instead of trying to even make an effort to box out for the rebound, he just backs up, stands behind the opposing rebounder, and watches the freethrow go in the basket. If it doesn't go in, he has NO chance of even trying to get it. Maggettee will have like these 10 second spurts where he gets all fired up and pretends like he's suddenly a good defender. That usually happens when he's trying to go one-on-one with Wade or somebody. Then, after about 10 seconds, the adrenaline wears off and he's back to his lazy self. I swear if you don't believe me go back and watch the tape. The guy is ALWAYS caught flat-footed and in no position to contest a shot or box out. He's a lazy defender. That's all it is. His arms are way buff but his back looks haunched and his legs a little skinny. Maybe all that byceps mass is weighing him down? I dunno but it's pretty sad to watch him at times. No defense, and then comes down and wants the one-on-one match-up. *yawn*
I've been seeing this all season. He's good at making it look like he's playing tough D but overall, his defensive fundamentals are nil. I would be a Nellie supporter again if he gave Mags several DNP-CD's.
i didn't have time to read everybody's posts. i thought that besides that atrocious meltdown at the end of OT (and the end of the 4th as well) they did a lot better at a lot of the things that have been annoying me lately. they seemed to drive to the hoop a little bit more, maggette and jackson both seemed a LITTLE less trigger happy. really what it boiled down to was rebounds...and has watson always been such a bad defender?? i didn't notice it so much until last night, but he was even letting quinn blow past him without much defensive effort...ironically, CJ seemed like the only warrior that was going all out for rebounds in crunch time.
