Report from the game..............

[MoonKnight]

In what started out as a boring game, the crowd finally got into the game late in the 4th and stayed in the game throughout the overtime. IMO, as others have also pointed out, JSmoove was the key to the game. His contributions went beyond the stats due to his D. The Nuggets had a much more difficult time scoring when he was in the game. He seems to be maturing on the court and takes pride in winning. JChill had that key steal to take the game into overtime. He thought he had less time on the clock than he actually did or he could have got off a much better attempt to win the game. Woodson did make some good defensive adjustments when we tried zone late in the game to change up the D. He also put JSmoove on Miller who had been killing us with his penetration. Al's O game finally returned to earth but a great win and a confidence builder considering how we overcame the deficit in overtime.

[Plastic Man]

we can't rely on jump shots all season. i'd like to see more /slashing/ and an increase in FTA. what is up with 'melo gettin 24 FTA? that's 5 more than our whole team! he's not MJ!

[Lascar78]

yeah I was there as always, I agree. Big game from Smoove. JJ was solid again, big Al was invisible. Melo got a call every time he touched the rock, it was ridiculous. I guess we have to prove that we can win with no calls to eventually earn calls.

The worst thing tonight was our horrible defensive rotation. In the first, Smoove was guarding DJ, and kept hovering around the paint to get blocks, and left DJ open to get open 3's. For the whole game, it seemed like after a nugget would drive and kick, someone (Lue) would run out and end up having 2 men to guard due to the lack of rotation. We need to work on our team defense, big time. And when we go in a zone, we continuously leave men unattended RIGHT under the basket, and they often get oops or open shots.

Good win though, because we showed poise and courage when we were down late in the game, both in regulation and overtime

[sturt]

Quote:

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Melo got a call every time he touched the rock, it was ridiculous. I guess we have to prove that we can win with no calls to eventually earn calls.

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Yep.

That's been the case for about 15-or-so of Stern's 20-or-so years.

[Traceman]

VERY well. We simply could not guard him with anyone man to man and we were forced to double him. Then, when we doubled him, he started passing out of the double team which led to uncontested 3's by Watson and DJ. Melo is a deceptively strong guy and it is VERY difficult to stop him from getting to the rack. I LOVED it when he settled for the J rather than going to the hole because when he took it to the hole, he either got fouled or scored.