I agree with this. They are too methodical. I'm not saying they need to be Golden State or Denver, but I don't think they are built like the Celtics for the half court. They have athletes and should force the tempo every now and again.

I like how they are set up, though as I've kept harping on, I really want to see them do it against the upper tier teams. You take away their three destructions of Minnesota and they don't look nearly as good as they do in offensive/defensive efficiency ratio as they do now.

The Nuggets/Blazers Christmas day matchup should be pretty good. Barring injury, I think both teams will have records in the 22-8 range. (60 win pace)

definitely. Plus, they are both sort of at their best on positions where the other team has "weaknesses" , especially the Nuggets with Melo (who is going to defend him with that small lineups Portland plays regarding the 1-3 spots ?) and Billups (on Blake), although i expect a lot of PT for Miller against a PG like Billups.
The Blazers with Roy at the 2 and Aldridge at the 4, although afflalo and Martin are admittedly good defenders (still, production wise that´s where Portland needs to excel).

So, Iverson is gonna retire. Good riddance. He's worthless now as a player, and he's having trouble coming to terms with a league that's blown past him. He's never gonna be remembered as a great one. He'll be known as a very good one, but not a great one. We've got LeBron, Kobe, Wade, and Melo now. Sorry, dude. You're going to be remembered on Rick Barry level, not the MJ level. He's been completely forgotten by the fans and the league before he even retired, and he can't fucking believe it. The cruel hands of time turned on Iverson.

The Blazers and Clippers are similar in that regard, in that they really need to be playing at a faster tempo to take advantage of the rosters they have. I think the main problem for both overcoming that would be Oden and Kaman, respectively, but Oden is young and can run, from everything I have seen. And I have already opined how Kaman--contrary to what people who haven't seen him play might think--is actually a fairly fluid athlete who is more adept playing with agility and in space than strength on the low block; he would be fine in a faster tempo offense.

I guess I can understand Karl's hating on Iverson, and I'm not going to sit here and say AI was the perfect player or the perfect person. He certainly was not. And there was a time when he represented to me exactly what was wrong with the NBA in the late 90s and early 2000s; when there seemed to be a lot more "me" players, and a lot more nods to the thug mentality. I couldn't stand him at that point.

Since then, since the 2001 Finals and his trade to Denver, I have come more to appreciate just how hard Iverson played on the floor at all times, and how much he wanted to win, and, really, how incredibly brave he was. He was a terrific player who was fun to watch and gave it his all out there. Sure, he needed to be brave because ke kept putting himself in harms way with bad decisions, and his teams were always limited in what success they could have because his bad shot decisions would often keep other teams in the game or let them pull away.

But I can always respect effort and courage and talent, and he did have all of that. It's a shame he has to go out like this, and I will actually missing having him somewhere in the league.

Ben Gordon is now out with an ankle injury. It's a blessing in disguise truthfully. Now Bynum can play the 1, and Stuckey can take the 2 and see how it goes.

This team is bad enough as it is, now we could go into a full fledged tailspin before anyone gets back. I hope that does happen and we can ship away Rip and/or Tay then get a top 10 pick and try getting what could be an elite front line player.

Oh well, one can hope.

Sums it up for me. Even with his flaws he's a player I enjoyed watching and definitely one I'll always remember.

my main issue with AI is his blatant refusal to adapt as a veteran, can´t swallow that at all ...

You may think this is crazy, but I think the Blazers match up better with the Lakers than the Nuggets. If I'm a coach and I'm game planning how to beat the Blazers, here is what I do:

1) I make sure Aldridge is a 15 foot jump shooter all night and turn him into the smallest 6'10" player in the history of the league. (and a lot of times, he'll help out) I do this by being physical as hell with him.

2) I make sure Roy has a difficult time getting all of his points. I throw multiple guys at him. Make sure he never has a tired body on him.

3) Now that those two guys are taken care of without double teams, I double hard on Oden with whoever is on the SF/PG.

Can Blake hit an occasional 3? Sure he can. But he's rarely going to do it all night. Can Miller hurt my PG with post ups? Possibly, but again, he isn't doing it all night.

So what does Denver have? Well, Afflalo is a solid defensive player who can make Roy work. JR is actually a pretty solid man to man defender. Kenyon Martin can thug it up Bruce Bowen style on Aldridge. Billups wil nip any Miller post ups in the bud.

On the other end, the Blazers match up horribly with Denver. Nene is quick and will get Oden in foul trouble. Aldridge has a difficult time dealing with Kenyon's slashing. Even if Kenyon can't get open, that doesn't really impact the Nuggets in anyway. Slowing down Melo? Good luck with that. Batum? If you remember last year Batum played Melo in one meaningful game (I know the Blazers have their co divisional title banner up and all, but Denver didn't give a damn about the final game last year, they already WON the division and just screwed around that entire Blazers final game). Melo went 16-26 and scored 38 points in a Denver romp in the one that counted.

On the other hand, I love the way the Blazers match up wtih the Lakers. Plenty of size to throw and Gasol and Bynum. Roy will make Kobe work on both ends. Dre can abuse Fisher. Gasol isn't going to get as physical with Aldridge. I think the Blazers have a punchers chance.

If I could write up a script for the Nuggets in the playoffs this year, it'd be the Nuggets getting to the conference finals again and playing a team that knocked off the Lakers. (I know people talk about how sweet it is to go through the team you can't beat. . . I'm a Nuggets fan who has never seen a finals game with my team in it, give me the best draw possible) :)

Well said. Iverson almost single-handedly carried his team to a Finals appearance. He was a great player in my eyes, even with his flaws.

Courage and talent? Check. Admire both of those things? Check.

The problem is if Iverson was on the team you cheered for. I watched him singlehandedly cost Denver a playoff series against the Spurs. (Melo torching Bowen and shooting near 50% in doing it, Nene driving TD nuts and shooting 60%. . . so it was really smart of AI and his 30% shooting to take more shots a game than both of em, right?)

There will be a lot of people who love AI and will look back on him fondly. That's fine. My counter point will be this:

What other hall of fame player with something left in the tank would clear waivers with a one year, 3 million dollar contract? The great teams don't want any part of him because they know he'll throw a fit coming off the bench, the bad teams don't want him because he'll be a horrible influence on the kids.

How many other hall of famers will leave with that as their dying breath in the NBA?

People will debate Chauncey Billups for the hall of fame. My guess is he comes up short. yet the people in Denver will tell you CB is 15x the player AI was with us. Not just a better fit, a better player.

I'll love watching the AI highlight reels. I'll also always remember how his imaturaty, even as an older vet, imploded any chance he had of winning a title.

I'm very excited. Oklahoma City is hosting their first national televised game of the season. It's amazing how much better this team is after last year's horrible start.

Agreed. He's got to be among the top small guards to ever play the game. He was never that efficient in doing so, but he was one of the best scorers we'll see.

The Knicks came out firing tonight. The Nuggets actually didn't play poor defense, the Knicks seemed to hit every contested three they took. Not that it mattered. They had exactly zero answers for stopping Melo. 50 points on 28 shots.

Blazers drop one to the Grizzlies at home.

12 games tonight, road teams win 7 of them. . . one of which in not the Cavs beating the Bobcats. Stunning.

Nets looking good in preseason.

That was by the far the best the Knicks have played all season. It is only fitting that they would lose that way.

want to touch on 2 international rookies that are impressing in a way, both were supposedly a year or 2 away from playing much.

Omri Casspi : The Kings are 8-8 without Garcia and largely without Martin, Casspi has been one of the reasons behind that. Averages 10 PPG on 52% FG and 42% from 3 (weirdly enough he´s 17-36 from the FT line over the first 14 games) . After a weaker stretch has now scored 17, 15, 11 and 18 over his last 4.
Really fluid athlete who at 6´8/6´9 can play the 2/3 spots.
Averaging above his Euroleague averages btw. Also shoots more 3s at a better clip depsite the 3 pt line being farther away, allways good to see such immediate development.

Serge Ibaka : Don´t look at the numbers, try to catch a thunder game. The guy has the potential to be a game changer defensively, incredible athlete with good understanding of rotations who can do it all from Post defense, to weakside blocking and defending on switches. Just cracked the rotation , in part due to Collison´s injury but he also leaped past Etan Thomas on the depth chart.
Thunder are 9-7 btw ! They are a really capable defensive unit as well.

December 23rd-Wolves at Nets-both teams can't wait for this game, possibly the last game either team will win this season.

NM - wrong thread

Good to see Orlando recovering from that tough Miami loss with road wins in Atlanta (after a great second half, outscoring them by 29 in the second half) and Milawkee (down 9 at the half, winning by 2). If Orlando gets their main four guys healthy and they play a number of games together before the playoffs the only team I wouldn't feel good about their playoff chances against is the Lakers.

ESPN reporting Frank is out in NJ. Not at all surprised. I know Harris was hurt but no reason they should be on the verge of 0-17. Whats funny is they lost the first game of the season on a buzzer beater. No word on who replaces him.

no surprise, but that nets team is brutally unbalanced. Harris or no harris ...
Suns-Raptors a good game as usual, nash is awesome ... :) Bargnani is a terrific talent, hope he develops as he did so far.

Stoudemire is like one of the worst players against double teams, he´s just terrible as a go to option in the half court ...

There´s not much more exciting in this league than the Suns starting one of their patented runs. There´s not a team running hte break harder then them as well. Nor just to finish, but a 37 year old hill just ran ahead of everyone 3 times to be in a position to set someone else up.

Phoenix wins and improves to 14-3.
Bosh and Bargnani really impressive in stretches but the Raptors couldn´t hit anything from outside going 1-20 from 3. Part of it was the Suns though who again played good 4th quarter defense and closed out very well on the Raptors shooters.
Phoenix on the other hand right at their season average percentage wise, shooting 13-30 from long range, Nash gets 20/16.

Barbosa rolled his ankle pretty bad though, hope he´s going to be fine ...

Detroit wins against the Hawks, Ben Wallace with 11 offensive boards (had 10 the game before) and Jerebko from sweden with a double double and great D at the end after scoring 22 the night before.

Memphis just displayed how not to play with a lead in the 4th ... Clippers 33-7 in the 4th, 22-0 run to end it ...
Gasol hits 13-18 but gets blatantly ignored in the 4th...
After this game Marc Gasol has now hit 60 of his last 76 attempts from the field over an 8 game stretch .

Iverson in talks to come back to the 76ers.

Lebron is a great player and fantastic teammate however some of things he says lately make me just shake my head.

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index....s_coach_1.html


Im really not sure how BIG Z breaking the record for games played by a Cavs player is bigger than the game itself.

If the Cavs had won by 3 points or something I'd think LeBron was just talking out and being stupid, but they won by 16 and big Z gets a DNP-CD? I agree with LeBron, that's in pretty poor taste.

Yeah, I'm with LeBron on this one. Unless they scored 16 points in the final minute, it's ridiculous for Brown to say he didn't have a chance to put Big Z in the game.

Shaking my head is not because of Z not playing and bron thinking it was wrong. Its his statement this record being bigger than the game.

He probably didnt mean it the way it sounded, but it sounded kind of outrageous kind of like the Jordan statement a few weeks back.

If you read the rest of his comments, he pointed out that all they had to do (and it would have made sense actually) was let him start & either wait for a timeout or even call him, remove him, and let the fans have their moment with Z.

I took it the "one game" thing more as an awkward/messed up way of trying to say something to the effect of "having him on the floor for 30 seconds was not going to be a difference maker, not even in this one game"

Uh Kobe?

Wow

One-legged fall-away 3 pointer off the glass for the one-point win.

Insane.

I've been watching the last couple of Raptors' games and their offense is exciting. I just hope they somehow learn to play defense better. The past two games have been promising, but it'd be nice to see consistency (and no more giving up 145 points). DeRozan has looked good the last couple of games as well, and is really taking it to the hoop.

Greg Oden goes down, he's likely done for the year. Just terribly sad.

Carmelo Anthony goes nuts in the second half against the Spurs. He went 10-15 with 22 points in the second half. 34 overall. Ty Lawson continues to be a beast. Just a sensational player.

Bad night for a lot of Western Conference teams. Blazers lose Oden, Mavericks and Spurs lose big home games, Jazz lose in Minnesota. . . only Denver and the Suns are going to leave the night 100% happy.

Oden's got to be about out of chances hmm? another massive injury...

Looks like the Bulls got tired of playing defense after the first few weeks. They may make the playoffs but it's disappointing to see the direction the team is going. Rose isn't developing like he should and the team has a group of young guys who just don't want to play defense.

I know that the goal is a free agent next year, but I'd like them to step into a better team.

Well Oden is one of those dudes where you just expected that, but didn't hope it would happen. But...I dunno, that always seemed like a tough situation. At least they didn't give up the chance to draft Michael Jordan to get him.

Oden was having a incredible year on a per minute basis (7th best in the NBA heading into the week). Remove that per minute qualifier and he was still probably a top 30 player.

Kevin Pelton actually wrote about his quiet breakthrough year Monday.

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/...?articleid=800

Nice article. Thanks for sharing that.

Actually, Clips are probably decently happy about their win. They didn't lose anyone, Gordon came back and played fine and they got the win when they didn't play their best.

All that said, damn, what an ugly game.

Really sad about Oden. The guy is snakebit. Seems like a guy who really wants to be there, too, and is as frustrated as his teammates and the fans with what has happened.

Really sucks for Portland. It's one of the coolest cities I've ever been to and from what I've read some of the most loyal fans in league. Oden seems like a good guy too who was finally figuring things out. I guess the injury isn't one that has long-term effects and is something you can return 100% from.

Hell of a game-winner tonight by Roy though.

regarding Oden : Hate the world right now, fuck ...

Man, Oden's injury has really got me down for some reason. I really want him to suceed.

Ok, did the Bulls really let him tie his shoe? What in the hell?

LMAO

Evidently Deng didn't think to walk forward and snatch the ball away.

really don´t get the hooplah on that play by the bulls. Isn´t it basic sportsmanship ? :confused:

I finally saw another Pistons game yesterday (love the early sunday games :) ) and was very impressed by the Rookies Jerebko and Daye. Jerebko will be a stud glue-guy that is allready impressing without scoring.
They guy just knows how to play defense, has a great attitude on that end (doesn´t back down even when he´s getting scored on), has amazing footwork and lateral mobility. We are talking about a 6´9/6´10 guy doing a pretty good job on the other teams best perimeter scorers in his rookie year coming over from Europe.
Really kind of comparable to Tay Prince in that regard, only that he can also legitimately defend quite a few PFs but is much less of a ballhandler.

And Austin Daye impressed the heck out of me as well, playing key minutes in the 4th quarter as the 2 guard (at 6´11 !) and looking great doing so.
Looks like he can legitimately play at the 3 spot in the long run at least, good foot speed and preimeter skills.

Heck, i´d love for the Pistons to try to pull out a 4 forward lineup later in the year with 4 of Wallace/Maxiell/Villanueva/Jerebko/Daye/Prince.
They do have some serious defensive potential when healthy, all they need is some good creative scheming to make it work.

Omri Casspi also with yet another nice game, still shooting 50+% from the field and long range (and still 50% FTs :confused: )

And Gallinari´s stroke is just awesome, phenomenal shooter. Still 3rd in makes per game (and first in total made 3s) on 45%. He´s not just taking open shots either and the Knicks aren´t a good team at creating open looks (next best are robinson and Douglas at 35%) with no Postgame and a decent-at-best creator at PG whose case isn´t helped by his ridiculously bad shooting this year ... Why even bother to close out on him or guard him tightly ?
If Gallinari had half of jerebko´s footspeed he could be an absolute superstar, the way it is i see him getting to borderline allstar level with some serious protection needed defensively. Best Case scenario is Peja Stojakovic with better passing/shot creating although that again is hurt by his footspeed. He really is damn slow footed. Nor bad footwork offensively when he has a plan, but his lateral quickness just isn´t good enough to guard perimeter guys while guarding PFs is out of the question as well from a physichal standpoint.

Nate Robinson out of the rotation for the knicks btw, supposedly because of his antics on the court and lack of teamplay.

How inefficient has Duhon been shooting this year ? He has more shots (174) than Points (164), shooting 31% from the field and 26% from 3. Yikes ...

Brook Lopez is huge btw,to go with his skill set he´s really impressive. Terrible at recognizing double teams though, that needs a ton of work.
Devin Harris is NOT a Point Guard...

whomario: No, I don't think it's basic sportsmanship. If it's a dead ball, that's fine. If the ball is live, there's nothing wrong with the defender taking the ball. The only time I've seen that is in practice, and even then, I would be surprised unless it was a walkthrough.

whomario,

That's not sportsmanship. It's a live ball, you better play hard.

Duhon is horrible this year. Not defending nearly as well as he used to either.

I just don't like Detroit's makeup right now. They don't do anything really well (outside of offensive rebounding)

They cant' shoot (25th in the league in true shooting%), They aren't efficient at either end (22 in offense, 21 in defense), their 3pt and FT shooting are abysmal. They don't pass well, they don't steal passes, block shots or force turnovers. . . really, it's stunning to me this team has 8 wins right now.

That's actually a good thing. They are winning games because they work their asses off game in, game out. The problem? They may play their way right into permanent mediocrity if this keeps up. You aren't getting John Wall by sneaking into the 8th spot in the East. Your cap number next year prohibits them from being a player in the FA market (unless they get a miracle sign and trade)

I'll see them for a full game the first time on Thursday (Nuggets in Detroit to finish their 4 game road trip) I'm interested to see how Daye looks.