Baseball??? You actually came back with Baseball? Like i said. You are quite know for your emphatic enthusiasm. Possibly the biggest fanatic out there. So i will not argue this point with you. IMO tonight is absolutely a must win game.
No. I'm not hopeful, but the coaching staff would have to quickly evolve from their "just gotta make shots" shit, and perhaps find and exploit a mismatch on offense, or come up with some junk defense that the Pelicans are susceptible to or something, I don't know man. I did see a fat lady on the MAX today. EDIT: spelling
True story (second of the day): me and my similarly old buddy "Old School" were down 2-0 to a pair of young punks in the local gym this afternoon and then we reeled off 4 straight wins. So there's hope!
Yeah, series over. Might as well go stand on a chair and hang yourself. Before you do, how about give me the key to your safe deposit box since you won't be needing it.
Honestly i don't really care what the margin is. A win is a win at this point. But i agree the bigger the better. If the series get to the point where they are 3-2 with two games left? I would be pretty happy.
That's kinda the way I see it. Exactly how are we going to turn it around? Is notably streaky shooter, CJ, gonna get super hot for 4 of next 5 games? I guess it could happen. Is Holiday going to cool off? He's getting a lot of high percentage looks, so his performance so far doesn't seem inflated, and I find it unlikely he'll cool off. With Harkless back, we'll settle back into our winning streak rotation, and assume our prior dominance. Maybe, Harkless certainly did a lot of good Harkless things the other night. Will Mirotic cool off? Maybe that's our best hope? They'll struggle to find a third scorer for 4 out of 5 games and we'll pounce.
We can free up Dame by: - Having him off the ball and running off screens - Having him run off of off-ball screens. Instead of running a pick n roll from the top, why don't we have him curl off of a screen towards the elbow, catch a pass from the top, and have the big (screen setter) roll baseline? Or run some variations of that from different spots on the court? It's a lot easier to double high pick n rolls than an off-ball curl. And there's actually a chance Dame could be open for a shot coming - Running some dribble hand-off from the 2-4 spots to Dame - Running Dame off of dribble hand-offs (which can act like screens) makes sense, but keep it between guys that Davis isn't guarding. Yes, Rondo and Holiday are switchable, but who else do they have at the 2-4 spots? Mirotic? Moore? Hill? Miller? If NOP switches, let Dame ISO those guys to death. He can score easily against those dudes. - ISO Dame more - Why does everything have to be high pick n roll? Let Dame build a rhythm in isolation. Let Dame iso with a properly spaced floor which allows him to make the right pass depending on which defender helps. Iso Dame early in the possession so that we have time to move the ball, and play off Dame's initial breakdown of the defense.. It's easier to read the floor with one defender on you at the top of the floor while standing still than it is to read the floor coming off a pick n roll into a hard trap. - Set double-sided pick n rolls with a wing and big - This would allow Dame to start to use one screen, bring up the trapping big, reject that screen and go off the other one, causing the defense confusion. The big rolls, the wing pops, the other 2 players space in the corners to FT-Line Extended... We could run this with two guards if we have Aminu and Collins in to space in the corners (where they shoot well from), so that we don't have Davis trapping. This could cause switches that we could exploit, and we could run some exotic combinations of pick n flares (Say Dame goes right, the guy screening to his right would flare of the guy screening to Dame's left, and the guy setting the flare screen could then cut or pop behind Dame). Pick n flares would be deadly with 3-gaurd lineups (which will be used tonight due to Turner's injury). They could be defended with switching which would be likely due to New Orleans personnel, but as I stated in option 2, if we got one of Moore, Mirotic, Miller, or Hill on Dame, then Dame would have the advantage in isolation. I like Aminu at C guarding Davis. Aminu shot very well last game, and has done a solid job on Davis defensively. These ideas would work GREAT if Aminu was able to keep Anthony Davis from fully committing to help-side defense by making Davis and the Pelicans pay with Chief 3s if AD does fully commit. IDK man... I just don't understand why I can think of so many different things we can try but it seems like Stotts can't... There's many other ways to free Dame up. How many will Stotts try? Will Stotts make the adjustments that are necessary?
