Juany8: Again, I’m not saying Felton is a great guard, just that nobody was available that could defend and pass as well as him while also being able to shoot (Lin does not come close to counting). Those kinds of point guards get payed a lot more than Felton. I think he’s been an average player overall, and I definitely agree that he is shooting too much right now, earlier in the year I really did feel like a lot of his shots had Tyson at least very close to the rim, now he’s just jacking shots up too quickly. At least let Melo do that, people will bitch about his lowered efficiency but the team will probably do better. Felton is still shooting a solid percentage from 3 so he can space the floor, Felton is being given a little too much freedom

Felton has been utterly terrible lately. I’m hoping it’s his hand, because he was at least decent before his injury. If Brewer can’t hit his shots I have no problem with us reducing his minutes, but Felton simply has to stop shooting so much.

Nick C.:
That doesn’t excuse Felton for his inability to hit open 15 foot shots. If he could hit them maybe teams wouldn’t be so eager to let him fire away. I don’t see why that gets glossed over, wasn’t that an issue with Duhon ultimately on the PnR or was it the inability to finish (yet another issue).

Again, I’m not saying Felton is a great guard, just that nobody was available that could defend and pass as well as him while also being able to shoot (Lin does not come close to counting). Those kinds of point guards get payed a lot more than Felton. I think he’s been an average player overall, and I definitely agree that he is shooting too much right now, earlier in the year I really did feel like a lot of his shots had Tyson at least very close to the rim, now he’s just jacking shots up too quickly. At least let Melo do that, people will bitch about his lowered efficiency but the team will probably do better. Felton is still shooting a solid percentage from 3 so he can space the floor, Felton is being given a little too much freedom

massive:
If Felton could be as good a shooter as Jameer Nelson was when the Magic were a contender, then we would really be going somewhere. Raymond Felton either shoots too early in the shot clock, misses wide open looks when they collapse on Chandler, or takes that stupid floater he has a lot of difficulty making at a reliable rate. I like that he had 4 assists and 15 FGA with zero turnovers, but going 4-15 is completely unacceptable.

Only problem with this logic was that it was Rafer Alston that got them to the Finals, not Jameer Nelson. Few players had a worse shot selection than Rafer Alston trust me…

As far as Felton, it’s become pretty clear Brewer needs to go from the starting unit. The spacing is starting to get cramped now that Brewer is being left open and everyone is collapsing to the paint, at that point it’s either felton takes that jumper or resets the offense so that Melo can hopefully get something out of nothing. Then we’d be bitching at Melo for taking tough shots instead of being disappointed that Brewer completely lost his shooting stroke and is an offensive liability out there. Coupled with Chandler’s utter lack of ability to do anything but roll hard to the rim in a straight line, this cramps the spacing on the starting unit. Amar’e helps because you can’t just leave him open, he’s too good with the ball, but I think Shump will be the ideal guy eventually, especially if he can be even an average shooter.

cgreene:
It’s funny.I just got back from the game and read the thread and there are like 0 comments about how ridiculous Melo played.Guess this debate is finally over.

Pretty much the norm now. Wallace still a very good defender.

There is a pretty substantial shift in the way Melo’s playing — he’s finally in an offense where the offense comes to him.

In the past, against a defender like Wallace, he would have had to expend so much more energy grappling with him on the block and then trying to beat him 1-1 with the help. That leads to a higher percentage of difficult shots and kills your legs when you have to work so hard to just get the shot off.

Now, he’s picking his spots to attack, and doing a lot more catch-and-shoot.

And there will be nights that when his shots are off he will go back into the full-out attack mode that he’s more accustomed to historically.

Having nights like tonight is what will allow Melo to last efficiently throughout the year.

He’s had stretches of roughly the same efficiency, but it took a lot more work, and often led to injury.

maxwell_3g:
we have relied on stt is the past, and he has never really delivered, despite talking a big game.In his first year, he was injured for the playoffs.In his second year, despite talking about improved defense all the time, he utterly failed on the defensive end.Most recently, he missed his second straight playoffs becaue he decided to punch glass.im just skeptical.as a Knicks fan, I DO hope like hell I am wrong though.If so, I will be more that happy to say you guys are right

Amar’e posted a 630 TS last playoff despite guards being unable to get below the 3pt line or make a serious pass in the pnr.

the one game he was healthy against Boston he destroyed them.

Amar’e is a big game guy, and he is the difference in beating the elite teams in a 7 game series. he will have to be great, and I think we’ll soon find out that he’s still capable of being great as he was just two years ago…

DRed: Melo was really good.He was great on offense and didn’t turn it over.He kept us in the game until Tyson went berserk.But he also had only 3 rebounds and one assist.I’ll take that game from Melo, any day, but it’s not ridiculous.

Ankle hurt his general activity tonight. Assist numbers deceiving given the situations he was in tonight.

If he’s not asked to force things his efficiency will continue to be off the charts The assists are going to come.

rebounds are a concern. Part of it is blocking out bigger power forwards so guards can come down,…. I expect his rebound rate to rise with a pf on the floor, paradoxically until you watch what his role is…. But there were a couple of loose ball he would normally get.

bockadoo:
Ok, enough with Felton shooting this much.He’s now almost under 40% for the year.I like him because he’s tough, gets steals, plays pretty good d, but he’s having an overrated season.Hopefully when Stat and Shump get back he’ll shoot less.When’s the last time he made more than half his shots?Maybe his hands are bothering him, but why keep shooting?Watching Jennings against Memphis do the same thing over and over.

Most of his shots are open shots he’s getting on the switch.

This is another situation where Chandler’s absolute dearth of post-moves hurts his teammates.

Teams switch because they want Felton to shoot knowing that Chandler can’t hurt them on post-ups, even against guards.

Yes, I’ve been thinking about that period too. I’d really like to see those clips myself. I still can’t understand why D’Antoni himself didn’t try to use the same techniques last year and this year with the Lakers. Am I crazy for thinking that he should be able to similarly integrate two big men in a similar pattern?

On a similar note, Memphis has a number of plays in which Marc Gasol serves as screener and then passes it either to a three point shooter or down low to Randolph. Other than Marc being a step slower than his brother, I don’t see why this couldn’t be used on the Lakers.

I’d also love to see clips from the end of Suns 09-10 when Robin Lopez played center and the Suns offense was as good as ever.