I can't believe people seriously expected him to play brand new players (one rookie at that) in the 4th quarter. I don't know how some people here can stand to watch games with this many knee jerk reactions. These kinds of responses remind me why I won't come to this board for months at a time. The sky is always falling.
This is true. He passed well, got tons of FTs (and made them) and I was shocked by his defense - this is a poor defender? Hopefully, he will get his shot up and improved, which we will need. < Good.>
Yep, Martin didn't have it tonight. Bud was hitting shot after shot at the time. Not saying Bud is the better player, but Rick USUALLY keeps the hot guy in. The bigger question is why was Shane playing PF
The Mavs and Thunder both won today....ehhh. But, we are still only 2.5 back from the 8th seed. It's not over yet.
He's not used to our rotation. You could see him constantly communicating with the other players especially AB. At least he's making an effort unlike a certain shemale.
Kevin Martin played. Look at every other team that had new players, they all were played. I'd rather put Jeffries in there at PF then Shane any time, at least he is familiar with the spot.
When I watch these games. It makes me hope the big fella recovers 100% because I can't take the 110+ games with a loss.
How is asking for the new players to play a knee-jerk reaction? Rick played Martin and he is new. Yes Martin played in the system before but that was a couple of years and a couple of systems ago for him. Dont you think that Hill, Jeffries or Armstrong could have at least stood in the Pacers way on defense for a few minutes better than what Andersen or our Power Forward Battier did?
Best thing about this, Portland lost last night so it's meh...but still have to have these games. People mention Caron's first game and Jamison's....they are right, and both of their teams lost. Martin played well, he missed some shots he's going to normally make...i'm just upset at Rick for playing Scola at Center and Battier at PF in clutch mins.
This is when I miss pryuen. At least we could have seen some pre-game photos of the new players after this disappointing loss.
Ya I wanted to see our bigs come in. We were clearly undersized in the front court and even though I do miss Landry, I don't think it would have made much difference. Landry guard Granger? *shrudder*
I think the first game after a big trade serves more purposes than one might surmise. I think RA returning KMart is one of those things that's more about "establishing trust" from the get go, where there's no confusion over the "value" of this new player esp. at crunch time. It's a delicate situation. Nobody wants to bruise anyone's ego on day one at the job. Yet day one is also where first impressions are the strongest as well as first "expectations". Sadly we lost. But hopefully this is a good first "meet in greet" in battle. Ultimately winning is what's going to bind all these players in the locker room. Hopefully, this will be sooner than later. I will say this though as a final observation. Short of knowing where we are in the defensive rankings this year, our D is just atrocious. Admittedly, I DON'T subscribe to the D'Antoni Sun's philosophy of old that you can just outgun your opponent consistently every night. Here, I kind of miss JVG with his attention to D and where D alone gives the team a chance to win every night. Tonite, it felt like this game was NEVER in control.... and that it just kept slipping away farther and farther (from the third quarter) with no end in sight. And where losing was just a natural outcome. Where were the stops??? Where was the team D? Where was the patience on offense and the transition D on the other side? theSAGE
