POST GAME HOUSTON

Entertaining game, somewhat ugly and cold shooting, but I like seeing defensive struggles too, even though both teams had alot of cold moments. We were ice cold from the outside, at some point if your having a John Starks type of night, maybe you should do other things to help your team. The refs bailed out Harden a bunch of times, breathe on him and it could be a foul. Sully overall won the war with Howard, both had their moments, but Sully still did his thing inside, was able to move the big man and play his game for the most part. Definitely not one of Amir's better games. Zeller had a few nice moments, running the floor, but he is still such a defensive liability and fininshed with 0 rebounds, hes 7 ft tall right? Meanwhile Rozier got some minutes and had his best game as a C, hustling all over the place and scrapping, fighting for 7 boards. Sometimes he would be right in the thick of the action and as the bigs were fighting for the rebound, he would timely snatch it up, kid is definitely not afraid to mix it up as were AB and Smart who also can mix it up underneath.

Well our winning streak is over, but it was a nice run for a young overachieving team. Rozier might be playing his way into rotation and we all want more of the Mouse, who always shows he can defend. Going forward hope we can see more of Rozier and Mickey.

Thanks for starting the thread, Cowens.  I don't think we'll see a lot of Rozier and Mickey, nor Hunter, going forward unless it's a strange situation like last night.  We are not in pure development mode now, we are in "positioning ourselves to get good playoff seeding and then get to the 2nd round of the playoffs" mode and that will probably mean rooks will sit.  If there was more distance between us and Miami (1/2 game back) and Charlotte (2 games back) then maybe, but there isn't.  Brad wants to win.  Furthermore, at this point in the season we have to start getting our playoff squad in sync so we can have THE BIG MO behind us when the playoffs begin.  Next year is next year and I don't see Amir being here.  Then, you'll see Mickey.  Rozier?  We are loaded with guards, aren't we?  Overloaded?

Rozier looked good last night.  7 boards, 3 offensive, 3 assists, 1 TO and a ton of energy in 10 minutes.  BY FAR the best he has looked.  Quite poised.

Brad didn't go small, he didn't even go micro or nano, he went all the way down to cellular-sized.  When we were trying to get the game back down to a possession or two towards the end he had a team of 5'9" Isaiah Thomas, 6'2" Terry Rozier, 6'2" Avery Bradley, 6'4" Marcus Smart and 6'9" Jared Sullinger.  It worked pretty well too, closed the gap from 10 down to 3.

Smart with another bone-headed mistake that cost us big time.  He touched the rim on a shot that was going in (actually falling through the cylinder as he touched the rim).  I love his intensity, his competitiveness, his ferocity but how many brain-dead mistakes this year does that make for him?  I'm becoming a bit concerned he doesn't know how to play through his emotions and instead let them play him.  His 2-8 shooting didn't help neither.

Monster game by Sully, completely outplayed Dwight "Dinosaur" Howard in my opinion.  He loves to get up for big games.  Rebounded like a fiend at one point.  He ran up his rebound totals by getting 2 of his own misses but he never gave up and that's the key. Please don't go after Dwightmare, Danny, I beg of you. I don't care how many draft picks they sweeten the deal with, just say no. All these years in the league and he has not developed his game even one tiny, little bit. I'd kill for Boogie, I think his 'tude would improve 1000% if he just won more often than he has over the past 6 years in Sacto, but I'll take Horford as a very nice consolation prize. Howard would be the booby prize.

I saw Amir Johnson this morning with my breakfast. He was on the milk carton.

We shot like shit, 37%.  You are not going to win like that but we still kept it close until Smart's brain fart and then another brain dead technical by Turner that resulted in Harden getting, and hitting, 3 ftas that made it a 3 possession game with little time left.  Brad needs to deal with these inabilities by key players to channel their frustrations appropriately. We saw it in the Cleveland game too, we let the refs get to us. I know we're the youngest team in the NBA but we need to grow from there too and these, coming on the heels of the Cleveland brain melt down, are examples of where we aren't. Isaiah shot well, Sully shot well and Bradley was 7-17, not too bad, but 1-8 from 3 and some of them were so far off you almost thought they were meant to be passes.

On to Indiana.


bob


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If it was up to me bob, they would be getting more time and if Crowder is out for a few games with his high ankle sprain, then ET has to play more minutes at the 3, alot more. Sullys bulk and Mickeys shot blocking and athleticism will definitely compliment each other....and was fun seeing Sully outwork Howard.