Get well Battier. This maybe a blessing in disguise however as Bud will be getting more playing time.
Not in the injury, but in Cbud's playing time...which uh...was pretty significant today against the Knicks.... DD
They probably run a MRI to creck the damage for sure. I hope it's only hyperextended & not an ACL. Purdue can tell ya what an ACL will do for ya! Either way, it's probably the season for Battier.
He didn't play badly.....he outscored the guy he was guarding, played decently on D....and rebounded well. He is the best scoring SF on the team.....needs more time. DD
Well he will get his minutes from now on and it will benefit him in the long run. He will make the most of his time and I wonder if the team will sign someone if Battier is indeed out for an extended period.
i didnt think he played badly as whole, my beef with him is how it relates with the rest of the lineup. We got enough offensively oriented players and not enough defenders. It's been clear defense has been our biggest issue. If Jeffries could stay on the floor then he may help bud in that aspect, otherwise there's going to be a lot of high scoring games and we are gonna need defense to pull them out, like tonight. Hopefully Jefferies can keep it up then too or else we're screwed.
It is not the perimeter D that is the problem it is the interior D, it is virtually impossible to contain a perimeter player with the rules in place these days. You need active bigs to trap on the PnR.....our Bigs are not good at that, and we have no presence at the rim. Insert Yao Ming and watch how much better our D looks. DD
The interior D gets in trouble because they need to look out for their men AND any perimeter players that get by too easily. With better perimeter defenders it takes away some of the pressure the bigs have. It's one thing to use a pick and roll and another to simply get by a defender, which happens to bud mroe often than battriza. Once one guy get's by the other defenders must scramble and someone is usually left open. For some reason Bud has a habit of floating around, not sure why. Ariza does the same thing, and loses his man like Budinger, but ariza seems aware of where the ball is, while Budinger gets caught between trying to see his man and the ball and he ends up looking at neither because of it. He needs to improve his positioning on defense so he can use his peripheral vision instead of having to turn his head as much.
Might as well rest Shane for the rest of the season, and call up Taylor to play back-up SG.... Bench for rest of season: Lowry Taylor Budinger Hill Andersen --RB
