Positives and negatives so far

[Multi-Billionaire]

Observations so far, mainly from Pacers-Nuggets Game 2 (Beijing)

 

 

Positives:

- Afflalo looks great, he really focuses defense, especially to rebound the ball and just stop people. He looks more comfortable catching and shooting in motion. From the corners, he should be automatic all season. He doesn't always finish around the basket, but what I like is he keeps trying at it... hard and the right way. It looks like it's his nature to help the bigs crash the boards, he will get a lot of minutes this way. Afflalo is a better defender than Dahntay Jones. He defends you hard but not gets out of line. DJ is only effective when the player loses his cool... but Afflalo plays perfectly legal defense and just shuts you down.

- Lawson looks solid, aside of his off shooting, he's hard to stay in front of and can almost penetrate whenever he wants to, finish or get to the line. Moves the ball especially well to the teammates at right spot to keep moving the offense. This will get him some meaningful minutes as AC can't do this.

- Malik Allen is very active, just rebounding the ball, cutting, setting picks, boxing out, those are what we need from a backup big... he should take minutes away from Johan Petro all season unless Nene, KMart, Birdman, or Allen himself gets injured (knock on wood).

- For the very first time ever, J.R. attempted a turnaround jumpshot off a post move. If he can add this dimension to his game, he can easily jump his PPG from 16 to 22+... easily. But it looks like he won't do it often. I wonder why? His unselfishness and passing skills are as fantastic as ever.

- Melo was doing what he was supposed to do... but in this game he was fantastic. After DJ intentionally lowered his shoulder and hit him in the chest, Melo decided to school him... also intentionally elbowed DJ twice in the mouth but got called for offensive fouls twice But DJ tried everything in the third, didn't work, Melo went for 17 pts.

 

 

Negatives:

- Aside of some defense here and there, Graham is virtually useless... esp on half court offense sets... He can't finish around the rim, yet he still tries taking straight to defenders. He's gonna get cut imo

- Draper is gonna get cut with Lawson playing well and looking ready to be at least 3rd string PG

- Why did Karl only play White garbage minutes?

[Amare320]

It's good to hear that this team's going steadily improve defensively, if they continue to make some nice strides towards that they can only become better, id say things are looking quite positive for this team, better hope GK delivers!