Looking around the NBA, man, it’s shocking just how many holes there are out there on so many teams. The Jazz are voluntarily starting Jeff Green. The Lakers were relying on Troy Daniels last night. For a league that is filled with so much talent, the salary cap has really led to a weird situation where the mid-level guys just don’t have jobs any more and teams are just saying, “Eh, we’ll just fill things out with minimum pay players.”

I’m holding judgement until we play a few more contests, but this turnover chasing defense I don’t hate. It’s fun even if it’s not effective and it seems like the sort of thing that’ll improve going forward. Transition offense looks solid, half court seems like a lot of the old motion shit that isn’t that effective. There were some kick out flashes and some ‘build a lane’ drive plays, but it’s unconvincing.

I’m team realist, but I’m holding out hope that last year’s shit was more personnel than coach.

Yeah, but Barrett had been doing a decent job against Irving to that point and Frank was cold. And Mitch was fouling as often as not against Irving drives.

I meant just mixing things up on offense/defense period, during all of the stoppages in time (like maybe bring Trier in for offense on the offensive possessions). I agree that it would have been weird to put Frank in cold at that point (although, the argument would be then “Why not try Frank earlier, so he wouldn’t be cold later?”).

While I don’t disagree about the offense/defense thing, I’m almost more put off by how there just doesn’t seem to be any plan out there in the closing minutes. What is Fizdale even doing?

Yeah, but Barrett had been doing a decent job against Irving to that point and Frank was cold. And Mitch was fouling as often as not against Irving drives. I’m less concerned about this defense centured around disrupting passes and creating turnovers as I am the offense where there the plan was to isolate a turnover prone Randle underneath in a halfcourt set. Trier was hot as shit, at least run him out as an option! Randle is obviously solid in the flow but he’s equally obviously bad in the iso post game. You’re down 2 with ten left, Trier Barrett and Ellenson need to be on the floor with Mitch and Morris, last as a distraction.

While I don’t disagree about the offense/defense thing, I’m almost more put off by how there just doesn’t seem to be any plan out there in the closing minutes. What is Fizdale even doing?

It is utter coaching malpractice to be up 3 points with a minute to go with 2 time outs and not go Offense/defense substitutions leaving your best 2 defenders on the bench and ESPECIALLY because you KNEW Kyrie was going to shoot the dam ball.

Great point.

They only give lip service to defense. They do not value defense anywhere near its intrinsic value to winning basketball games. That’s why we never get anywhere. Good defense matters a LOT. Great defense wins ball games and helps create better offense. They keep acquiring and playing scorers that can’t defend and then expect a team with 3-4 weak links in every lineup to actually defend well because they are talking about it. We only have a handful of guys that can contribute on both sides or defend at a high level. None of them have major roles except Robinson and he’s so raw he fouls himself out of minutes a lot of the time.

Smith needs to go down to the G-League and work on his shot- it wasn’t a thing of beauty last year by any means but it’s flat out busted now.

The problem is Fizdale, management, and probably the pressure of playing in NY.

Smith was bad his first 2 years. Dallas put him on the market and couldn’t give him away. The whole league knew he was bad. Knicks management likes athletic scorers. They were probably impressed by his ability to jump and make the occasional highlight play. They are idiots, but that’s a given.

However, now that we are here, we can’t keep doing this same crap every year where we bring in another mediocre young PG, have them all compete, and yank them as soon as they make a bad play or have a bad game. If I was trying to be a basketball terrorist that would be my strategy. We totally annihilated Frank’s development that way and now we are doing the same thing to Smith this year (and Frank again after he made great progress for France with competent coaching) .

You have to give young players roles based on merit (which in Fizdale’s case is a major problem to begin with because he has no idea who his best players are or how to fit them together) and then stick with them so they are relaxed, comfortable, and can grow into the job. If they fail after a reasonable amount of time and/or the backup is obviously better, you can make a change after awhile and then stick with that.

But this in/out of the doghouse nonsense, 2 TOs and you destroy everything that was accomplished in Europe, busting DSJr out of the rotation altogether now because he missed some shots, making Trier the starter, etc.. is flat out idiocy. Besides being bad, Fizdale is also destroying Smith’s confidence and terrorizing him. Smith knows going in if he misses a few shots or turns the ball over he’s out. No one can or should ever have to play like that.

He’s already on another level than the rest of the guards

He’s done okay in that role, but in traditional PG terms Payton is still better. That could change! Payton is a solid backup 1 but he’s not a good starting 1. I think best is to move forward like tonight: Payton starts, the other guys get some backup minutes depending on play, and RJB gets some amount of time based on how it’s going. It’s the second game, this all needs to play out some more.