Your last paragraph pretty much summed how I feel in general though so I think we’re pretty much reaching the same conclusion, just disagreeing about one aspect of last night’s game.

And lastly, I think we all know who other defenses are going to happily leave open. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPyOW9XfedY IBAKA!

Kevin Durant showed zero inclination toward taking the ball to the rim after the first quarter last night. He was not in a rhythm at all offensively, when he got the ball on the perimeter he looked like he wanted to just shoot it every time. Durant is a good mid range shooter but he’s not great, he’s not Dirk for example who is hitting in the high 40′s from 16-23 feet. Durant’s around 36% this year from that distance. So even in a year where he’s dominating, those aren’t good shots from Durant.

Catching the ball behind the 3pt line makes Durant uncomfortable when teams are sending help when he makes a move toward the basket. That’s why he was shooting so many three pointers. He doesn’t have the ability to make plays for others in those situations so a good defensive team like Charlotte (or Dallas, who does this to him also) will just live with leaving someone open elsewhere. In a game where he was getting a lot of defensive attention, Durant only had one assist.

Taking 12 shot attempts (by my count) 16+ feet from the basket is not KD’s game. Even on his season’s average, he’s only making 3-4 of those shots. Against a good defensive team, maybe less.

He’s got to learn how to pass the ball at some point, and we have to develop a coherent game plan offensively to utilize our player’s skills to close out games. We were treated by, once again, a team like Charlotte who is playing team basketball on offense to close the game out and we’re not doing much of anything… there was a stretch in the fourth quarter with our second unit where all we were shooting were long twos for about 3-4 minutes.

Anyway that’s just my opinion.

But KD always catches the ball at about 18 ft out in this offense. I think I can count on one hand each game where he’s received the ball in in the post. So I’m sorry, but I don’t see how him catching the ball near the 3 PT line is going to take him out of his game since he’s pretty used to doing that for the majority of this season, and his entire career.

And you said it yourself that KD’s 3PT shot was off from the beginning (hence from the initial start, not after the Bobcats D had gotten to him). And a misfiring 3 point shot alone is typically enough to fluster a perimeter oriented player since that’s a key component to his arsenal AND it helps draw defenders out to him more, which in turn opens up his ability to head to the basket. Obviously I think the Bobcats defense played a part in limiting Durant’s good looks at the basket when he got closer to the rim, but to say he shot the ball out of rhythm all night is just wrong. At least 6-8 of his misses were on jumpshots where KD caught it, gauged what Graham/the defender would do while holding the ball at triple threat position with his feet set and properly oriented towards the basket. Only after all of this did KD rise up well over his defender and in his own rhythm…you know, like he always does. The only difference being that there was a clang instead of a swish.

The part of KD’s game that they disrupted was his ability to finish at the rim, the Bobcats certainly didn’t disrupt KD’s “rhythm” when he has time to catch the ball, set his feet, pause for a few seconds to feel out the situation and then get off a clean jumper. The blocks and contact in the paint undoubtedly affected his driving to the bucket, but the same can’t be said for his jumpshot from 18 ft on out.

But like I said, this is going to be a circular discussion where one can say A was the reason where the other will say B, neither one really knowing.

Royce Young :
@crick
I don’t think that was a showboating thing at all. It was pretty clear to me that he hung on it because he had a guy under him and was waiting for space to clear to drop down. That’s why the refs didn’t whistle him for it.

could be, I’d have to go back and watch a replay.

I stand by the main point, though, which is that the team was acting way too cocky in the first half, as if they already had the game in their pocket.

He went up, slammed a ferocious dunk, and then hung on the rim. A long time. At least two seconds, maybe three.

Ref should have blown the whistle on that one. I was embarrassed.

I can’t stand showboating players. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like LeBron. LeBron’s a great player, but the self congratulatory dancing after a good play… ugh.

Ok, Kevin didn’t do a dance. But that hanging on the rim was emblematic, to me anyway, of a kind of arrogant “yea, we bad” sort of attitude I was seeing from the players in the first half last night. Between plays they were giggling, doing little wiggle dances, high fivin. They were getting a little too confident that they were just going to steamroll over Charlotte.

Don’t get me wrong. I like to see the players happy. I don’t mind some swagger, if by swagger you mean a basic self confidence in their own abilities. But when it crosses over into arrogance, it’s not pretty.

And it bites you back too. They weren’t doing too much smiling in the second half. Payback is a b*tch.

Just my $0.02.

SD

we were in such a good position going into the game, the loss didn’t hurt us all that much. We’re still 16 games over .500, which is great. We were 5th in the West before the game and we’re still 5th in the West.

So, it could be a nice re-focus point for the team. A bit of a wake up call to let the guys know that relying on hot shooting is not smart. They’ve got to go back to the peas-and-spinach play of good, clamp down, smothering defense.

Charlotte shot something like 72% in the third quarter. That is what lost us the game. Pure and simple. He we been able to play better defense and disrupt their shooting, this would not have happened and we would have won.