True measuring stick - How we are doing against winning teams

yeah can we picture delfino at the 3 getting all those ariza 3s?

but I thought about that squad last night, I remember we BLEW out the bulls at home and on x-mas, that team was a 8th seed but they use to never let up on the gas when they would get up mainly fastbreak points & 3s.

that roster really FIT morey ball. needed to add a few more players, chemistry was there.

 

Very reasonable assertion. I too believe we need to upgrade the PG spot.

However, that's not an excuse for Trevor Ariza. He's having the worst real season of his career (dismissing the two when he was 19 and 20 as a bench player.)

 

Guys don't even bother closing out on Ariza anymore. His "slump" is bordering on outlasting Garcia's from last season, and that's saying a lot.

 

2014-15 Ariza is a worse offensive player than 2013-14 Garcia. It's that bad.

If you look at ORtg, Garcia wins 108 to 100.

If you look at shooting percentages, Garcia wins in every category except free throws.

Ariza is having the worst shooting season I've ever seen personally. It's to the point that I don't even expect him to do better than like 3 of 11 shooting on a nightly basis.

I'm at the point where I'd be fine if they benched him.

 

Last year we played our best basketball after the all star game..

I'm guessing the closer we get to playoffs the better the team will gel and things will be different

I still don't understand why Canaan isn't utilized more or why DMo isn't fed as much as Howard below the rim

 

At least his contract shrinks each year!

 

Yikes. I wouldn't mind benching him either, tbh. I wonder how bad he has to get before they decide his defense isn't worth the tradeoff.

 

Well McHale has said he doesn't care if Ariza misses every shot in some post game interviews so my guess is that he will never get benched.

Sadly, he's either going to have to shoot better or get traded. If neither of those happen I have no doubt that McHale will run him out there 30+ minutes a night regardless of how bad he shoots the ball.

 

Yikes.

McHale reminds me of Van Gundy. Favors defense over offense and his whole offensive scheme is built on our two stars.

I am not feeling good at all for this season. SMH only Houston could go from being a no-defense, all offense team to a no-offense all defense.

 

Ariza has been bad on offense

but his defense has been AMAZING yes AMAZING

 

I wouldn't mind trying Corey Brewer at the 3. Brewer plays just as good defense and seem to hustle more than Ariza.

 

30 games in, i feel like we've been playing 1000 games. post season can't get here soon enough. i'm excited to see what adjustments mchale will make come playoff time. will demo get more than 1 minute. knowing our luck, we will draw portland again. i just hope the phrase 'coin flip' series does not come out of anybody's mouth.

 

Regarding Howard, that's easy, it's ego. If you think he sulks and takes plays off now, imagine when he begins to pout about DMo getting more touches than him in the post. Which DMo rightly deserves...

If it weren't for his D and 3 steals per game, I'd be with you, what a shame after his hot start too... I do wonder how Brewer would look with the starters though and then have a bench of Josh Smith, Papa, Ariza, Terry, and Canaan?

 

At some point one starts to negate the other though.

It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't taking any shots, but at 12 shots a game he's taking too many for it not to matter.

If you miss 8-10 shots a night, with many of them being threes, that's the equivalent of 8-10 turnovers. His defense can't just make that not matter.

They can't let him jack up 12 shots a night anymore if he isn't to hit them at a respectable rate.

 

I definitely don't think Brewer is as good a defender, but I'm starting to think the drop off might be worth it. I don't know, Ariza is just so terrible lol.

 

So this has nothing to do with this thread, but something just happened with a yardstick that I thought was funny. I went to Texas, my boss went to Arkansas. Someone brought us a yard stick...dont ask....he comes out and says hey look, lays down the yard stick, then flips it over to make 2 yards, and says that's how many yards Texas got! lol -- I laughed

 

Our overall team D has been horrible lately so Im not so sure there will be much of a dropoff lol

 

Easy to say that looking back and knowing we aren't getting Bosh. Bosh would have been a great fit to this team next to Dwight. Would have certainly made us the favorites. In the end, Bosh decided against it and we had to make a decision -- either give up all flexibility and run with the current team, or let him walk and build without him.

Now had they known Bosh wouldn't sign, yah, totally go early and hard for Lowry and resign Parsons.