Some takeaways from the game

[bLACKpANTHER]

Positives:

Dwight gave us what we brought him here for. No way Plumlee/Belinelli give you 10pts AND 15 boards. He will improve x2 when Batum gets back. And can you imagine MKG and Dwight helping everyone else out!? We shud get better on defense too.

Kemba aint lost a step. Business as usual. No fallout from his 1st Allstar year.

Some might think Cody was 'meh' in this 1st game - but he was only a bucket and a board away from a double-double.

Bacon belongs in the NBA. We got a contributor in the 2nd round. Winning!

Negatives:

Frank frank frank.. Do we need to say anything? He has got to be better for us to contend for a top 4 seed. Shiii- he's got to be better for us to exercise our Team Option at the end of the year or I can see us moving on if this is a sign of things to come.

Assist Ratio, ugh... It's expected to dip with our best 2 facilitators in street clothes, but still unacceptable.

3pt shooting, blehh... 9-30 ain't gunna cut it. Frank and Monk alone were 1-11 and the rest of the team was 7-19.

Overall:

Monk will get better - might have just needed to get the jitters out. I want him to keep shooting.

Hope MKGs death in the fam is not someone really, really close. For 2 reasons: One - because I'm human and care about him and his family. Two - because as a fan, MKG seems to me like a 'sensitive' kinda player (for lack of better term) and could fall into a slump if his mind/heart are broken. Thoughts and prayers to my dude. I have prolly been one of the most vocal on here about benching MKG but I truly wish him the best.

At the end - I'm still Optimistic about the year. Road opener against a solid Defensive team with grit while half our squad is in the M.A.S.H. unit?? Let's see how they bounce back against one of the many tanking teams in at home against the Hawks.

Here's to a fun season seeing the young talent grow while Kemba trys to improve on an Allstar year and Dwight resurrects his career. Can't wait till we get healthy!

And remember - our first few months are our tough stretches. If we are around .500 at Christmas - we will be prime for a much easier stretch into and through the spring. Go Hornets!!!

[Daddy_Uncle]

we look like the same trash team we have always been as I knew we would

[Jeremy Igo]

Thanks for the writeup, I wasn't able to see most of the game. 

 

Frank looked that bad huh?

[rhyslloyd]

I'm not too discouraged, at this point.  We didn't look very good, but, as you said, several key players (not Batum) were out, and we had a rough shooting night.  We're a much better shooting team than what we showed last night.  Frank did look terrible, though.  For a shooter and a guy who can put it in the floor and get to the rim, he sure doesn't shoot very well or get to the rim with a good look very often.  Marvin is an albatross.  

[bLACKpANTHER]

btw, Red is not good..

[bLACKpANTHER]

Turnover/steals is bad.. we pride ourselves as a team that protects the ball.. during our worst stretch last year we averages 12.5 TOs per game.. gotta protect the ball and shoot better.. simple as that..

[TylerDurden]

I was really surprised at just how bad Frank was last night.  Again, with Monk, it was his first official NBA game, and from what we saw of him in the preseason, i believe his issues were all attributed to jitters.  Frank actually started to look solid at points last season,  so i expected him to improve on that...  he actually looked 10x worse.  Idk if Clifford gave him the green light that wasnt there previously, but some of the shots he took were just unbelievably bad.  Actually, most of them were.

And it just looked like our guys, aside from Kemba, and maybe Dwight and Bacon, just rolled out of bed and decided to play basketball.  They all looked like your average joe who hasn't played pickup in a couple months and shows back up at the gym and tries to do the same things he was doing before.  They looked uncoordinated and sloppy.  Bad dribbling, bad passing, bad catching, bad feel for the game...  it was really, really hard to watch.

Also had to say, I had to go back and look at Dwight's stats again after the game, when I saw he only had 10 pts.  Watching the whole game, I swore he had at least 15.  His presence is crazy though.

[Carl Spackler]

As bad as shooting was for most of the lineup, we win that game if we don't hand away 26 points off turnovers. 

[bLACKpANTHER]

I also just realized the game was not at the Palace!? It was back in the city of Detroit - the first time in 40 years..

They were gunna win that game regardless..

[Jackofalltrades]

11 hours ago, Jeremy Igo said:

Thanks for the writeup, I wasn't able to see most of the game. 

 

Frank looked that bad huh?

It was Jimmy Clausen level bad. 

[SOJA]

The biggest issue I have with Frank's performance is that he was bricking WIDE OPEN threes. Not contested fall back jumpers. Wide open shots. 

Worst pick in franchise history. 

I want to like Frank. I want to cheer for Frank. fug I hope Frank proves me wrong, but he hasn't yet and I don't think that's changing. 

[SOJA]

Monk first game jitters plus he's a shooter, games like that happen. 

Whole team looked super duper unorganized and unprepared, esp. first half. It was like we had never played basketball together. 

Tobias Harris hit everything last night but Stanely Johnson missed everything- man he reminds me so much of MKG

[RoaringRiot]

nice post @bLACKpANTHER - thanks