[ClutchFans] X-Factor: The Impact of Terrence Jones

I understand that. We had to start him and play him against the Spurs more talented, bigger bigs.

I'm saying the Spurs laid bare the soft underbelly of this team now that DMO is gone. They exposed us by exposing Terrence and JET. The only chance we have to win a championship is to go find a quality big to replace Dorsey with on this roster so we don't have to depend on Terrence to do things he isn't capable of doing consistently against bigger, longer, more highly skilled bigs.

I'm not disappointed in Terrence. I'm realistic about what he is.

 

We lost the game because our tendencies are predictable. All you gotta do is expand and contract your defense. Nobody gets in the lane. Guard the perimeter. Hack howard dorsey. Sgut down harden. Bait them to threes and iso. And get mchale to gelp us out by his bonehead coaching. Thats why ge doesnt talk to media at the half... he is a stuttering fool.. first sign of incompetence.

 

Please change your name to alcoholic, then maybe you'll start to make some sense.

 

oh thats a burn

 

And you have to be ignorant to completely forget the head-to-head:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=joneste01&p2=duncati01

Doesn't look like one would be "basketball ignorant" to understand that Terrence Jones, in fact, has actually played well against the Spurs.

You are like that one loud-mouth at the bar that can't stop talking about how you have always been right and will be right. And there is this one game that proves your point, and you smear and flaunt it in everyone's face, despite being wrong for the other 95%. Village idiot effect. And learn some courtesy, please, for the love of Pete.

 

Courtesy?

Read my signature. When you guys don't have answers you start in with the personal attacks. Courtesy? Get real. I never cuss, never call you guys names. I do have courtesy. You on the other hand go on smear campaigns any time you disagree. You can't discuss and disagree without turning it into a smear campaign. Grow up.


Terrence did play "well" against the Spurs. So what. Playing "well" doesn't win games, doesn't win playoff series, doesn't win championships. You have to evaluate the team and what the team needs from the different positions.

And then to show him matching up against Duncan is totally false. He wasn't matched up against Duncan for more than possibly a couple switches in those entire 6 games. IF you don't believe it, research it like I did. popcornmachine.net It is ignorant to take a stat line like that one (Jones vs. Duncan) and extrapolate that to playoff/championship success. You're dealing in minutia here.

You have to take a step back and look at the big picture. We (or at least I am) are interested in what it takes for the team we are fans of to win a championship. How can we win a championship? Now how good can Terrence be at some theoretical point in the future. Not how good/bad he is now. But rather, what will it take for us to win a championship?

To have any understanding on that we have to be able to see our team as a whole and see our future playoff opposing teams as a whole. What are their strengths? How do they play? What are they trying to get done on-court? What are their weaknesses? How do we play? What do we have to get done to win? What are the weaknesses that we have that we have to minimize? How can we match up with them so that our system maximizes our chances of winning 4 games out of 7 against them?

And that's what I'm talking about, that's the context within my postings...winning a championship. It has nothing to do with whether Terrence played "well" in 6 regular season games against the Spurs. It has to do with understanding what happens in the playoffs, with knowing how much bigger the bigs are, with knowing that we're playing the same guys until one of us wins 4 games against the other, with understanding the opponents skill sets and what they are going to do to beat us and with understanding what we are trying to do to win games.


IDEALLY...for our offensive system to have maximum efficiency and effectiveness we have to have three 3&D players surrounding Harden and Howard. Guess what? We don't have that. We've got one 3&D player surrounding Harden and Howard. Everything else is pieces/parts. JET...great shooter/no defense. Smoove....great defender/poor shooter. Terrence..great in transition/great garbage man/good offensively against smaller bigs....good defender if matched up against smaller 4's, but can't shoot the ball from distance and can't handle bigger power 4's defensively. Kostas....can't shoot well/can defend somewhat. Pablo....good playmaker/shooting and defense are suspect.

And on and on down the line. So, it's not just Terrence that's the problem. In fact, Terrence isn't the problem here. It's the roster not being the perfect match for our system...yet.

So because we don't have the roster to maximize our half-court offense style, that means we have to depend on our defense.

For this current team to win a championship we have to maximize possession differential. We have to do it with VOLUME possessions at the FT line, the rim, and the 3-point line. We have to get up more shots on more possessions than the opponent. That means winning the rebounding and turnover battle. That means getting out on the break and maximizing break and man-advantage offensive opportunities. That means getting stops.

So, how do you maximize stops and defensive turnovers? Well, you gotta be able to match up defensively, and get the boards. And therein lies the current problem and why I am now saying we won't win a championship (just like last season) with Terrence starting in the playoffs. Because very simply Terrence is not big enough nor skilled enough defensively to handle the big bigs that he is going to be assigned to defend as the starting power forward....and he can't and won't shoot the 3-ball in volume to create the space that we need to maximize our half-court offense when we can't get stops and we allow more buckets down low.

You've got to be ignorant not to see that. Bring him off the bench in tandem with Smith while somebody else is doing the dirty work with the starters and we've got a chance. Start him, decrease spacing, and get him in unfavorable matchups and we'll eventually fail.

 

Jones played like garbage last game and we really needed him. I'm just calling it how I see it. Hopefully he bounces back. The fact is, he was a matchup problem in our favor against the Spurs last year and was one of the biggest reasons we were able to sweep them. He had several huge scoring and rebounding games. They obviously made an adjustment to account for him better and neutralize the things he likes to do. Let's see how he responds tonight and if he and the coaching staff can make the necessary adjustments.

 

He was invisible. I hope you're right in that it was about adjustments, rather than his ribs bothering him again as McHale suggested. One of those can be fixed, in theory. The other, not so much.

ETA: If TJ goes out, I'm quitting everything. This season is so stupid.

 

Honestly, he hasn't looked the same since coming back from the collapsed lung. He did fine the first game back, but has just been decent since which progressed to pathetic in that embarrassing debacle against the Spurs. Before the injury he was looking darn near dominant. The Spurs pushed him around all over the court. I think teams have taken note even before DMo went out to be physical with our bigs and dominate on the glass. Wouldn't be surprised at all if this is how DMo hurt his back while trying to battle with these guys. Looking forward to tonight. The thing is, the Spurs are straight up crushing teams right now. The sky isn't necessarily falling just yet because we can't yet match their level. We haven't had the time to gel as a team with all the injuries and minute restrictions.

 

He is coming to play tonight, and when he gets it going, WATCH OUT...