I know It's weird saying how much you miss a guy when you have a 24-3 record but Hunter's defense has certainly been missed. Mainly guarding guys like Wade who would of had a far tougher time last night had Lindsey been in the game. Lindsey is a top quailty defender even at his age, he remains one of the best on the ball defenders in the NBA. Due to his age he won't be playing big minutes even when he returns but he can come into the game and play a few minutes on some of the top guards and give them plenty of problems which will help the rest of his team-mates. He plays with energy and gets other guys to do the same. Hell with the new offensive system Lindsey might be able to get some offense going also. He's not the scorer he once was but you don't suddenly lose the abilty.
I completely agree with you. Sure everybody can get caught up with our current start, (24-3!!!! 24-3!!!! :-D) but we still have had some problems this year. Seems like almost every game, one player on the other team goes off on a rampage. Now it's understandable with front court players, Ben still isn't completely healthy and Rasheed doesn't really get the defense completely down until later in the year. Even so, when our front court defense needs a spark, it happens. Now, with guards, we don't have anybody that we can expect to lock somebody down at basically any point in the game. I'm definately looking forward to getting Hunter back. I remember quite a few games when he came in off the bench, provided that defensive spark we needed and got us back in the game. Last night against the Heat, I wasn't too comfortable with Wade starting 6-6 in the fourth. That would have been a very good time to interject some Hunter into the game. Sure we have been able to outscore them at this point, but continuing through the season will be fairly tough if we still have to rely on our starters. The one thing I liked about the Heat game is that we were able to rest Ben and Billups in the 2nd quarter, and although I don't understand why you bench somebody as on fire as Billups was at that point, I did appreciate them receiving some rest. I like how we have started using Delfino a bit more these past few games, and I think when Hunter comes back it'll improve things further. Even if he only plays 8 minutes a game, they will be some valuable minutes with his defense and (hopefully still) existing offensive skills. Sorry this is so long, haven't posted in a while, had to write for a bit, don't even know if it makes any sense.
