The B2B will test our depth which should be very good. Honestly it helps us because it will force McHale to play more guys off the bench and develop them which should only give them the experience they needed headed into a hopefully long playoff run. The schedule sets up nicely in the closing stretch if we are battling for division/home court. Also, only 6 of the first 30 games are against teams you would call a contender heading into the season with 4 of those 6 coming at home. If the team gels quickly, they could race out of the gate like the 1994 and 1997 teams.
He didn't sound irked in the slightest by the schedule to my ears. I think you Clutchfans are just projecting your own bias into his tone of voice. The schedule is FINE. This year our talent is such where the schedule should no longer be an excuse. Like the Spurs, you are allowed a max of five games per year to chalk up as a "schedule loss'.
What actually happened to Dmo? When he first got injured, they said he would only miss a few games. But then he didn't heal like they hoped and missed the playoffs and now start of training camp. Was it a herniated disc? It shouldn't affect Dmo's game as much as it did to Dwight, but those are such a pain to deal with.
I missed the initial bit but here is what I caught at the end. Main thing is Pat is coming off the bench, so we can put the starter question to bed. 790: How much pressure is the team feeling to take that next step? JB: I don't think its the pressure. We have high expectations of ourselves as a team. It's not pressure but we expect to get better. Everyone went out as a group to get better and hopefully we can bring it in collectively and win a championship. 790: Getting Pbev back from a defensive standpoint is big. Now you have Ty Lawson to maintain 94 ft of pressure on both ends. JB: Definitely. Now it gives us two solid guys. We can play those two guys together and allow one to play make and other to put up pressure for 94 ft. Now if you bring Pat off the bench, he is going to go at the back up point guards. Along with Corey Brewer makes our 2nd unit dynamic. 790: How many different types of teams do you have? You have a small line up you can utilize, you have a big line up? JB: Because of our depth we have a ton of different line ups. We have experienced a ton of different things in pre season. Against Memphis we played Dwight and Clint with 3 small guys in Harden, Ty and Bev around them. We can play Ariza at the 4. What we are comfortable with is the talent level. With our group of guys and versatility we can put different things out there. 790: I would imagine with guys like Ty, Bev, Harden, Capela etc those practices are pretty salty. JB: Worst thing about our practices is being a ref when everyone is going and going and talking trash. We may throw some salt out there and make a few bad calls just to get guys going further. We hope to take that to the game and turn it up a notch even higher.
Here's the audio of Daryl Morey on the Jim Rome show today: Daryl Morey interview, talks about disappointing opening night loss, Dwight Howard's positive attitude http://takebox.stucknut.com/?id=1c3a
Daryl Morey on 790 a few mins back. Tidbits from what I heard. Part 1 790: DM, Lance was pretty confident you'd roll the Magic. We would have liked to have a more comfortable margin. Can you include us when you play these games? DM: I'll tell coach McHale to work on that. To be frank we are not working well as a team right now. We have to continue to take steps and win while we try to dig ourselves out. It's going to take daily effort and getting some guys healthy. We started better last year. But we want to peak around APril. 790: Based on last year, as with all players they have hot spots where they like to take shots. With the addition of Ty, has it changed some of James hot spots? Is he still getting shots where he likes them? DM: I don't really look at hot spots but rather where the guys are coming of them. Whether they are open. His mix of shots are different from last season. Some of it is Ty and this year he has had a lot of looks and he has missed them. I don't think James will finish the year shooting like 15% from 3 or whatever. Lot of them are unguarded. We will turn this around. As much of our shot making has been bad, we need to get better defensively. Just a lot of injuries and new additions like Ty and Marcus. We are focused on improving execution on all ends. 790: Last year, James Harden had that video came out with him not playing D. It was clear he worked on his game last off season. In your opinion did James put in the same amount of effort as last off season? DM: He always works on his game. His leadership which has been big. Overall if you point to any players on the team, they are not playing like they are capable. No one is playing to the level they have played in the past. One guy led us to victory and that is DH. 790: What's up with DMO? We know you don't have an answer. Michael says Dmo is his favorite player and as much as he likes the suits he would like to see him on the court. DM: You're pointing to a great issue. He is so important to our big rotation. He is such a very good team defender, very underrated, very good at P n R defense. Just a high IQ player. He is back on the court and back to BBall activites. Doctors are very optimistic about where he will be in the future. What they want to do is strengthen the base around the back and make sure everything is at peak performance. Because they are so optimistic on his long term prognosis they want him back to 97% to make sure he is back and ready. Reality is until doctors give us the go ahead it will be day to day until then.
Part 2 - Missed the first bit, apologies. I'm sure someone will have it later. 790: On Harrell - Reminds me of Draymond in that he is physical, dunks and led the NCAA in dunks every year. DM: Yeah he is physical and can put the ball in the hoop with a dunk easily. Reminds me of Carl Landry when he was here. On Clint going from where he was last year playing less than 100 mins to starting now is a huge progress. Defense we are playing with him is different. Asking him to be more aggressive and this is not what he played in Europe 790: Clippers or Kings - if Dwight can only play in one game? DM: At this point we can't really chose on back to backs. Doctors want him to get max rest. We will check in on him when he gets him. We want him to get max rest. At this point we don't really have a choice, It's up to the doctors. 790: Really good game for Dwight yday. DM: 10 for 10, that's really good. He was obviously the ebst at anchoring the D yday over anybody. 790: How did he have a torn meniscus while playing so well in the post season? He was anchoring the D, rebounding DM: I mean he had a lot of issues and I'll just leave it there. He is playing well now and let's hope it continues. Obviously Rockets are/were hiding something major on Dwight
They've gotta be withholding information on Dwight. Healthy players don't sit out back to backs for "rest". I mean, what's he resting for if he's healthy? He's got something chronic.
Will these words from DM be enough to end the discussion about whether or not DMo is a plus defender for this team?
You know, I switched on the game minutes before it started where they show McHale's pregame interview with the media and he used that same word (chronic) when talking about Dwight. He said something to the effect of "he's not quite day to day but we have to see how he feels tomorrow after the game. That's how it is when you're dealing with something chronic." I'm paraphrasing based on memory. But it did perk up my ears a little bit when I heard it.
I could have sworn when Dwight was dealing with his knee issue last season that I read that once they get the original knee issue healed that he will still be dealing with it for the rest of his career. He'll have to "manage it" basically. I have not been able to find the article though.
