Built Ford Tough

Oh yeah, forgot to mention in my post that Bayless will be back in the Raptors lineup, so we aren't going to get the pleasure of watching the highly anticipated Calderon/Lin matchup.

Hopefully Jeremy gives the Raptors tank a nice VaLINtines gift in the form of a loss.

It is because DeRozan actually plays. Butler sucks more but because DeRozan is a focal point of the team, particularly without Bargnani, while Butler is a bit player who gets 10 minutes a night at most, he doesn't have the same kind of impact as DeRozan who is playing 35 minutes a night. When DeRozan has a poor game, it has a much larger impact on the team than if Butler has a poor game. It isn't actually the worst players in the league. It is basically just a list of players who are good enough to be in a teams rotation but have struggled this season. The actual worst players in the league would never be able to get enough playing time to have any sort of impact on something like win shares, which is basically what this chart is about.

The Warriors bench did a nice job of providing energy in both the 2nd and 4th quarters. Klay Thompson, Brandon Rush, Nate Robinson and Ekpe Udoh really were the difference in this game because the starters, aside from David Lee, were pretty bad tonight. Nash did a great job facilitating and creating plays tonight. He had 14 assists, but, honestly, that doesn't even do him justice. There were at least another 5 players where he made the pass that lead to the assist, but it was his creating that enabled the good look in the first place. However, I would've liked to see him take on more of a scoring load, especially late in the game. Frye, Morris and Dudley were all off with their shot tonight and because of that the Warriors really loaded up on the Nash/Gortat pick and roll after they were killed by it for the first 3 quarters. With Nash being a non factor scoring wise, the Suns really couldn't generate any offense after GS took away the PnR. Great win for the Warriors when you consider they get next to nothing from Curry and Ellis aside from a couple of nice assists.

Not surprised. Just watching him play you can tell that he is ready to blow at any possible second. He always has this look on his face and his body language is terrible. I'm waiting for the moment when he snaps and all hell breaks loose. It just goes to show how great Jackson was at managing egos, personalities and headcases.

Dallas' defense won them this game. The Clippers only scored on 3 of their final 15 possessions and Dallas also forced around 7 or 8 turnovers in the 4th. With their two big guns on offense in Dirk and Terry shooting a combined 9/27, they really needed every single one of those great defensive stands. Griffin's free throw shooting was disguisting in this game, though. He really needs to get into the gym and improve that area of his game. Paul had one of his weaker 4th quarters tonight, at least in the games I've watched. He has been lights out most nights, but today he really struggled to create looks out there. He did hit that big three late and set up Butler nicely for that potential game tying three, but other than that he didn't look like his usual self late. A fairly entertaining game, albeit a sloppy one.

Because they beat you twice? How dare they! James and Wade were dominant in the post tonight. I'd be willing to bet that on post ups on the left block, the two of them had a combined PPP of something abusrd like 1.9. Hell, it may even have been closer to 2 when you consider Miller hit a three or two off of kickouts when James or Wade were on that left block. It seemed like every single time one of them got the ball there it was an automatic basket. If both of them are that efficient in the post in the playoffs, this Miami team are going to be virtually unstoppable.

I doubt he gets fined. If he was going to get fined it would've happened already since this incident occured on Friday night.

Rough game for Turner, but Thad was brilliant off the bench. His touch around the rim and footwork in the post is very impressive. Combine those with his length and how quickly he moves (whether it is running, getting off the floor, his second jump, etc...) and he really is a difficult matchup when he is played at the 4, which is fairly often. Williams is really developing into a reliable closer for the Sixers as well. Hit some really big shots in this game to continue to add to his reputation. If he keeps on finishing off games like he has lately, the Sixers are going to be even more dangerous come playoff time.

Kaman goes 1/2 from the line to make it a 4 point game. Burks misses a tough, running fadeaway floater looking shot and, despite the Hornets' best efforts, it looks like they will came away with the win. If they blow a 6 point lead with 12 seconds left, even I will be impressed by their tank job. Chris Kaman really screwed up the Hornets tank, though. 27 points and 13 boards after he wasn't even expected to play. They probably regret that decision now.

Lol, I think I underestimated NO's tanking. 3 point game with 21 seconds left. Perfect for New Orleans. Now they just have to miss free throws and they will lose this game.

Hayward with a brutal turnover after the Jazz cut it to 7, but Vasquez comes down and turns the ball right back over. The Hornets are doing basically everything they can to hand this game to the Jazz but Utah is either missing free throws or committing turnovers. It is hilarious how bad New Orleans is tanking this game, yet they are looking like they are still going to win.

Hornets have fouled the Jazz on their last 4 possessions. The Jazz are doing a poor job at the line as they are just 5/8 in those attempts. Oh yeah, the Hornets haven't scored on their last 4 possessions either. 7 point lead with 3:30 left.

New Orleans is up 11 with 5:30 seconds left. Odds they blow this lead? I say 50/50.

Just after I made that post above Walker had two nice plays. One where he created contact and got to the line and another where he pushed the ball in transition and made a nice layup and drew a foul in the process. However, the Bobcats are trying to hide him on defense by taking him off Holiday and onto Meeks who is primarily a spot up shooter. A good idea, but since Walker was put on him, Meeks has hit 2 threes. I'm not trying to come off as some harsh, negative critic because I would really like to see Walker succeed, but I just don't ever see how he is going to be a starting point guard in this league unless he has some dramatic improvements in multiple areas of his game. If it was just one or two things I could see him improving on them, but he has so many areas that need improvements that I just don't see him being able to become a real impact player.

This is what makes me question Walker's ability to ever be a starting point guard. He is 0-4 from the field with just 1 point. Meanwhile, Holiday is 5-6 with 11 points and Williams has 8 points and gotten to the lin 6 times (although is shooting just 2-6). Walker does have 4 assists but he is struggling to really create against Holiday and defensively, the two players he has guarded in this game have 19 of the Sixers 39 points. The Bobcats just have to hope that as he gains more experience he is able to rectify some of these weaknesses, and it is difficult for him without Augustin and Henderson in the lineup as too much is expected of him, but he is at such a disadvantage physically that it makes me question his long term potential.

I don't know for sure since the stream was somewhat choppy and grainy, but he looked to be about an inch/inch and a half taller than Valanciunas and Val measured out right around 7 feet before the draft last year. That would put him somewhere around 7'1 or 7'2. The stream could be misleading, but at least that is what it looked like to me.

I posted this in the Valanciunas thread in the Raps forum, since Valanciunas plays for Rytas, and figured I'd mention it here. He played Lietuvos Rytas today, but he struggled. 10 points, 9 boards, 2 steals, 2/9 FG (2/2 3PT) and 4/4 FT in 29 minutes. He was 0/7 until hitting two threes late to make the game somewhat interesting, although it was out of reach by then (cut the lead from 11 to 5 I think). One thing about Motiejunas is that it looks like he has grown since the draft. He is looking absolutely huge out there. If I had to guess, he has grown to a legit 7'1 or 7'2 since the draft where he measured out 6'11 I believe. I talked about him not being able to play the 5 in the NBA, but now that I have seen his growth and length, I actually think he would be more than capable of playing there once he builks up a bit. He looks huge.

Couple of things today. First, he played today against Prokom, which has Donatas Motiejunas, a 1st round pick of the Rockets last season on it and put up: 13 points, 14 rebounds (6 offensive) and 4 blocks on 4/10 FG and 5/8 FT in 30 minutes. Not his usual efficiency as he shot just 40% opposed to his typical 65%+ but he did a great job on the glass. Most impressively is that he held Motiejunas to 10 points, 9 boards, 2 steals, 2/9 FG (2/2 3PT) and 4/4 FT. Motiejunas was 0/7 at one point, but hit two threes late. They weren't guarding each other the whole game, but there were times when they were on each other. Some highlights. Jonas specific highlights were: Jumper at 35 seconds Spin at 1:40 Block at 1:55 Up and under at 2:53 Second, he was named FIBA Europe's Young Men's Player of the Year today: Rubio won this award three times, Rudy Fernzandez won it and last season Jan Vesely won it, although many thought Valanciunas should've won it last year as well, but Partozan (Vesely's team) had a really good year so I guess Vesely got it, even though Jonas was better.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20120212_UTA@MEM

You also have to realize that the Hawks are without arguably their best player in Al Horford and he is really their only legitimate big man. Smith is more of a tweener forward, Zaza is an energy bench big and nobody else is really NBA rotation calibre. I really think people underestimate just how much of a loss it is not having Horford on the roster. They wouldn't be on the level of a Miami even if they had him, but not having him is definitely a reason for their inconsistent play.

The turnover is credited as a team turnover on a 5 second count, not an individual one. What is true is that he didn't "technically" have a DNP-CD since he did come in and commit a foul on Kobe after the inbound. Since he played less than 1 second (took 0.5 to foul) he isn't credited with having played because you need to record at least a second of playing time in order to be considered to have played in the game. For all intensive purposes, he was a DNP-CD, though.

Wall with 6 assists in the 1st half and only 1 shot attempt. I kind of like that from him. In some of the games I've watched this season he gets a little too trigger happy and gets away from his playmaking, which is the best part of his game. By no means am I saying that he shouldn't look to shoot the ball and only look to create for others, but it is nice seeing him really looking to create.

Very bad. I found this on RealGM. They have 6 players in the bottom 50 in PER: Blake 9.20 Goudelock 9.17 Murphy 8.92 Fisher 8.54 Kapono 5.49 MWP 5.43 And those who don't qualify: Morris 7.31 Walton 8.67 McRoberts 10.45 Ebanks 8.17 So 80% of the Lakers roster has a PER that is well below league average and if Morris, Walton and Ebanks qualified, the Lakers would have 9 of the leagues 50 worst in PER.

Some decent stuff on Twitter after this game. Butler getting torn to shreds. The last two are my favourites.