Lurker

You don't grow and develop by never playing. It's much more likely it'll throw you off your rhythm than teach you anything.

The move that Dennis put on Rose on the first of his two key baskets was ridiculous. Rose was actually trying to D up, looked like he was doing a good job of it and at the last second he was barely beaten somehow. Then the second one, it's where I've said Hardaway Jr has changed, just slightly. If he's in New York, he's probably putting up that shot. Instead he waits for Humphries to roll a bit, passes it to Humphries, and Humphries makes a great pass to Dennis for the three. I'll say it again, this was a really sluggish game at times. The guy who has barely played was key and then Hardaway Jr and Schröder were the only guys that hit field goals in the 4th quarter.

I don't know if I said it already but whether I did or not, I'll admit it here. I was wrong. I had my doubts going into this season, and the Bucs game seemingly solidified them. But after the Denver game, it felt different to me than last season, and while I did waver a bit, it turned out that it was different. All the credit in the world. Just getting a center, picking up Sanu/Gabriel, and the development of Tevin Coleman completely transformed the offense.

I hate to say it, but if you pay close attention, Prince has NBA ready skills but his off ball defense makes him borderline unplayable if you want to try to win. Playing a zone scheme for years is going to get etched into your muscle memory, so blame Baylor, not him. If he didn't have that stupid zone scheme etched in his muscle memory, it'd be stupid to not play him at least 15 minutes a game. But it has to get pushed out of him first.

It's going to basically be impossible to not make the playoffs unless another stretch like what is coming (really what is going on now) is fumbled away AGAIN like last year. Both last year and this year ended up being at the same marker so far (with this year having a not as good SRS though) but the difference last year is a relatively easy stretch got fumbled away (they recovered though in March during the hardest part of the schedule). If this team has it together, this month realistically should be wrapped up at 5-2. If it does get fumbled away it's going to depend on how things come together for the team to recover, just like last year.

Meh. But if a coach can get to him, he can be a good unselfish player. He's a good passer when he wants to be. It's rarely seen though...it's mainly seen when he plays at the Olympics. I'm doubtful anyone is able to really get to him though.

It honestly felt like this game was stolen, there was a lot of sluggish play. Bazemore came out with tons of energy, or the Hawks might have dug a much bigger hole to start, and then Hardaway Jr and Schröder had clutch plays down the stretch...and were the only players that were getting baskets in the 4th.

Bazemore mostly at SF: 11.2 shots on 36.9% shooting and 30.2% from three. Bazemore mostly at SG: 8.5 shots on 38.2% shooting at 32.7% from three. So its more acceptable. Not great, but it's better. Since the Charlotte game he's over 40%...barely, which is why I've thought that he's doing better.

Dennis is almost there, the last thing that he needs to learn about is when your own offense isn't there to not make it a problem on the rest of the team and affect the game in other ways. Because it's going to happen over the season, every player has ups and downs. Does that mean he hasn't been a problem? No, he has been at times, he especially was in the Knicks matinee back in November and the game vs the Celtics. But Bazemore has been worse. I think Bazemore has been getting better since a permanent move to SG though. He's not being counted on to do more than he can. I'll check the stats...

Bud's in eff it mode lol but with Porzingis not playing some time at center for Millsap isn't a big deal. Noah is done.

Cosign with this.

If we see half of this version of Dunleavy for the rest of the season I have no problem with letting him play at all. Not in a big role, but in about a 20-24 MPG role.

I'll take even half of this version of Dunleavy for the rest of the season.

Another disappointing one by Dennis. You just gotta fight through, you're going to have ups and downs in a long season. I oddly think this one wasn't too damaging though despite 5 turnovers, the one on Friday was bad and very damaging.

And the reason why I'm saying that he doesn't need to be on the PG in some matchups is because this team needs both his scoring and playmaking more than his defense. If it was a team that had more scoring options, than yeah I'd say Dennis, go D up and just focus on playmaking on offense, but right now he has to be the second option to Millsap.

Thomas will always be a better scorer than Dennis, but he's not a significantly better player... This is another matchup in which Dennis doesn't need to be on the PG. If he focuses on defense he can do well (he was staying with Thomas on a number of occasions...but he was getting help anyway for no reason) but it really hurts him on offense. You need to put Thabo on Thomas, switch everything for most of the game, and then in crunch time you bring the double. It may not work, but the idea of treating Thomas like he was LeBron was incredibly dumb.

My biggest issue in this game with Horford wasn't really even with Horford's playmaking (though it's nice, it's not what won Boston the game), it's that he recognized two, maybe even three actual play calls by the Hawks rather easily (and I'm not even talking about something simple and stupid by a PG that was pressing). There was one play in which I knew for sure that it was a play designed to get Howard an easy layup at the rim, but Horford had it snuffed out from the get go. Millsap was going to the hole with Howard moving toward it, but Horford was there and while Howard got the pass, it was ripped away from him in a short time period. There was another play in which it was supposed to be a Millsap-Howard lob, but it was recognized by Horford. Luckily, Millsap is smart and was able to adjust and hit a layup. And then the final play might have also been recognized by Horford. The switch to zone, with no timeouts had the team going nowhere. In a game that ended up being close, although it shouldn't have been, recognizing a play or two can go a long way.

I like Bembry but unless he can get his shot to respectable, his best role will end up being the guard version of Boris Diaw off the bench. Yes the Kent Bazemore deal is going to really bite and look like a huge mistake in the offseason. It's going to really cap the abilities to adjust the team. It would have been smarter to let him go, try to hammer down a friendly deal with Hardaway Jr, and start Sefolosha and Korver together. If that happens I honestly think Korver is still here.

I actually have to side with this. Well, technically it's not fine but there is really only two more tweaks I'd like to see, and otherwise there's not much you can do. Move Hardaway Jr to the starting lineup for Bazemore. See what Gary Neal has, if he has his shot still, then keep him around for shooting. I'd prefer to stick with seeing what the rookies have but...

It's pretty tiresome to just say someone owns someone. Dennis was in his own head over the past, he was not mentally in this game, he did not get "owned" at all.

I mean this was worse than normal stuff. I don't like his substitution patterns but he usually isn't as bad as he is with other stuff.

Bud is not going to coach as bad and oddly as he did last night but this just isn't a good matchup for Howard and Sefolosha and isn't great for Schröder either. Schröder can do much better than what he did (like he could've shot in the low 40s% and had at least 6 assists) but he's going to constantly face great defenders against Boston, it's even better than teams that are actually great teams.

You can't let your emotions overwhelm you, they have to fuel you. This resembled game 4 vs Boston last year for Dennis, he wanted so badly to perform well that he was overwhelmed. The good thing in that series was he got over it quickly and we had the series end with him sticking it to Thomas in Boston in game 6 but he obviously didn't allow himself to forget about it completely. Whatever it was, it made himself not even think about the game last night. It's something that is unfortunate but can happen. As a young adult, I know you can still let your emotions overwhelm you in the age 20-24 range.

That's where I said at least one tweak needs to happen. It'd be better to have streaky shooting than no shooting, so Hardaway Jr needs to start instead of Bazemore.

Howard against 5 out offenses is a disaster on defense. He was 4-4 but if you watched the game this is where the little things from Horford were missed horribly. When the Hawks were not treating Thomas like LeBron, they were allowing backdoor cut after backdoor cut even without him in the game. There was no communication defensively with Howard in and despite it being a bad defensive lineup communication on defense was a lot better when the second unit came in in the third and fourth quarter and it stopped momentum. Dennis was really bad. I think better play by him would've helped but wouldn't have been a game changer with the first unit. Any plays the Hawks ran inside were noticeably swallowed up (there was a set play ran to get Howard an easy basket but Horford recognized it and took the ball away from him with ease). They played better with Delaney but only really found it offensively with a spacing unit...which is when he was in.