12 lousy freak'n minutes a game. That's all. That's all we need of the Twin Towers playing together to get both guys 30 minutes and for us to dominate the boards and the defensive paint. They've got to figure it out. 6 minutes per half. 3 minutes per quarter. That's all. The reason the Twin Towers wasn't more effective at the beginning of the season was because Asik's agent decided that Asik shouldn't make it work. Bad advice. It worked ok the first 3 games of the season. Not great. But well enough to win with. Improvements were needed. But it was a start. Remember "all your rebounds are belong to us"? And then came the Clippers. With Asik's representation rattling the cage about getting a trade going, McHale decided to switch strategies against the Clippers. He starts the game with the wrong matchups, putting Asik on DeAndre down low and Dwight on Blake in space. And then he decides to alternate Dwight and Asik in the middle, trying to play spread and beat the Clippers from the perimeter with the spread game after those original matchups didn't work instead of realizing that with CP3 on the other side that team is going to be able to exploit small ball to THEIR ADVANTAGE. The spread game didn't work against the Clippers (twice). We just got further in the hole. We got totally ripped to shreds that night. And in the process we made Blake Griffin and DeAndre look like the second coming of Dominique Wilkins and Tree Rollins out there. We coulda shoulda used 12 minutes that night. Maybe even more than 12 minutes. With Asik on Blake and Dwight on DeAndre. We played Portland the next night at their place. Back to the Twin Towers. Still not great but we stomped their a.. Still didn't have the matchups right. Had Dwight trying to challenge LaMarcus instead of letting Asik take that assignment. But all in all we stomped them. Think about it guys. Dwight/Asik vs. LaMarcus/Robin. C'mon man. We play them 7 times with those matchups and we're actually playing instead of farting around (Asik)...we'll win 4. The next game against the Lakers was just "one of those games". Bad shooting all around. Happens sometimes. We shot terrible. Lakers came out loose and burned the nets up. Next game, Clippers again. Same cross matches, Dwight on Blake and Asik on DeAndre...playing right into the Clippers hands. They should have been flipped with Asik on Blake and Dwight on DeAndre. And Asik was jerking around on us. Against Toronto we struggled. Should have whipped them bad. Asik just not mentally into it. It was obvious. But it was a win. However, 5-3 but the experiment was over and TJones was inserted into the starting lineup and from there Asik fell off the table completely as everybody trashed the Twin Towers concept as unable to work. We had a nice little run with TJones playing over his head and teams not knowing how to defend us plus playing a number of mediocre to poor teams. But it's over. Now reality is setting in. We essentially have the same winning percentage with TJones in the lineup playing major minutes as we had in the first 8 games of the season. And if we don't win in Detroit tonight playing against 3 big boys then our winning percentage will actually be lower than when Asik was starting. You can't beat the better teams in this league by simply going small and creating big/small mismatches. The best teams in this league have the ability to play both from the perimeter and they have the ability to dominate the paint and they have the ability to exploit the mismatches back in their favor. That means they've got a superstar perimeter player and they've got at least 2 bigs that can dominate in the paint either defensively or offensively. (Miami you say? They don't have 2 dominant bigs. Well, the truth is they've got 2 of the best bigs in the game. Lebron James is both a dominant big and one of the best perimeter players in the game. There's only one Lebron James in this league, one. But nevertheless Lebron and Chris form a tandem of the most dominating bigs in the league. On top of that they've got a defensively dominant ancillary big in Birdman and they've got another dominant superstar on the perimeter in DWade along with an aging star in RayRay.) 12 minutes. Sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less. But 12 minutes. That's all. 12 minutes of Twin Towers that allows both Asik and Dwight to be starters and get 30 minutes a game. And then you can play small ball to your heart's content, speed it up, spread it out, get the shooters going, yada yada yada. But 12 minutes. 12 minutes of a defensive meat grinder, D'ing up at every spot. Put James on the small forward where he always does better defensively and get Parsons and Beverley hustling around the perimeter grinding down shooters and forcing them to put the ball on the floor and drive into the heart of 2 defensive monsters that can chew them up and spit them out. Figure it out. 3 minute bursts every quarter if you have to. That's 3 minutes of balls-to-the-wall defensive exertion to put the lock down on opponents. Surely we can manage that for 3 freaking minutes. Surely we can get the perimeter guys to slap the floor and knuckle down for 3 minutes. Control the boards, rip the ball, and get a couple 3 easy runouts and the rest of the time, slow it down and burn the clock then go back on defense and grind it out. 3 minutes at a time, 4 minutes at a time, maybe push it to 6 minutes. Can't everybody give a little bit here? Can't Asik give just a little? Can't Dwight give up just a few minutes? If we did promise Asik the starting center spot can't Dwight give that up and be announced as the power forward? Can't McHale and Kelvin do a little bit better job of matching up guys defensively and creating a more organized break to take advantage of the defensive rebounding dominance of Dwight and Asik working in tandem? Can't McHale and Finch come up with a few half-court sets that run the clock and slow down everything while we limit possessions during the Twin Towers minutes if we don't have the break? Can't we grind for 12 minutes a game? That's all. 12 minutes.
hubie brown spoke about TT last night on how he's not buying it couldn't work & trying it in that shirt amount of time. Mchale spoke about it after asik didn't get traded, he said it will be mins there, will be nights we need them playing together They had a better chance of making it work having another playmaker in the lineup to start the games with them. could stagger Lin & asik mins w harden & howard, bring them out at 6 min mark then bring in Lin & asik back in at the 10min mark. To give harden & Howard some rest.
I don't believe for one second Morey promised Asik anything when he signed him. I'm not sure who the source is on that (I assume Asik or his agent) but 1) We've never heard of Morey promising a player anything and 2) we gave Asik the largest contract by far (as in the league laughed at us) so there was no need to add additional verbal "promises". It all smells like damage control for Asik's pouting.
True, Lin would make quite a difference. Asik and Lin are, at worst, the 6th and 7th best players on this team.....at worst! And quite an arguement could be made that they are a top 3 player and a top 4 or 5 player. You can't take that away from a team and not feel it. On top of that I don't know how many games we've actually played this year where both Beverley and Lin were healthy. Probably just a couple. At worst....Lin is your 3rd best backcourt player...at worst! Those guys both have tremendous value to this team (or any team) on the court. So if we can't trade them for a better player or at least a player that is just as good as them or at least for enough draft picks and expiring contracts to put is in play for a big time player at the trade deadline then we need to get both guys healthy and playing hard for 30 minutes a night for us in the primary rotation.
I believe without a doubt that Morey promised him the starting center spot. (that's common place when pursuing big time free agents) But what Morey meant was for last year. Not for all time.
Theres only two ways TT will work. 1. Asik develops a mid range jumper. He's got good form, he needs to stop rolling to the basket and pop out about 15 ft from the basket. 2. Run some plays. It will help to get our big men easier shots around the basket seeing as how both asik and Howard are limited away from the basket. Unfortunately, Mchale's playbook is about a page long. Some high post-low post action would be nice.
HaHa, another hilarious statement from basketballholic, that information must came from multiple sources! You are a genius, basketballholic! One simple phone call to Asik's agent from Morey will solve this TT problem immediately! LMAO!
OP is right. Howard plays 33.5 minutes. That leaves 14 minutes and 30 seconds for Asik right there. It should be: -Howard starts. -Sub Asik in with 4-5 minutes left in the quarter and take Howard out with 2-3 minutes left in the quarter. -Take Asik out 10 minutes into the second and sub Howard in 3-4 minutes into the second. Repeat for second half. That gives Asik 28-30 minutes a night, and ensures everyone is stays fresh while only playing the TT together for 8-13 minutes a night. Just figure out something that works. I like the idea of them playing the last 1-2 minutes of close games together to box out and grab rebounds.
I agree with you on that. In fact, basketballholic predicted that: He is not wrong at all, he said Dec 19 and did not stated what year! So, Dec 19, 2016 is perfectly fine! Do get me wrong, I enjoyed reading his comments and I think he is a fine poster with an incredible amount of basketball knowledge!
It would be awesome to have Dwight and Asik guarding the paint and then Asik playing more of the "pf" on offense and have them mix it up among themselves. Or you know whatever. It's fair to assume he would be the one with the better shot. But you mean to tell me that Dwight and Asik would be to proud to talk it out when they are playing? They're all on the same damn team. Grows some nuts work that **** out. I'm rambling now lol. Obviously it's not that simple, but then don't make it so hard.
I like basketballholic. He isn't rude, he's passionate and he gives you his opinion and the reasons behind it. You can fault him for allowing his emotion to get the best of him, but his heart is in the right place, so **** you haters!
I suspect the rudeness is in large part because of my posts about Lin. Nobody here likes Lin more than I do. I like him personally. And I really like his on-court game. And I'd really like him to stay and be the starting point guard. I think we could have a dynamic team with him and Harden sharing the playmaking chores. And frankly, I think the stats prove that he's just as efficient a playmaker as Harden is. But it's not the way this team is built. And I've accepted that. I've also accepted that for us to become a championship team we've got to move him. We need one more great player. He's going to have to go for us to get that player and most likely Asik is going to have to go too. I don't have time for the haters. I'll give most posters multiple chances before I ignore them. But after multiple posts simply trashing others, including myself, I've found it best to just hit the ignore button. If posters can't give us some basketball insight or generate some honest basketball discussion it's just not worth my time to read their insults. It's all about the Rockets.
