Well, last night, basketball fans were treated to the first full slate of preseason basketball of the year. Seven games total, and with that, professional basketball returned in all its glory. Sure, it’s still only the preseason, but most of the starters played around twenty minutes, and we got a great look at some of the rookies and fringe players that will help shape their teams’ fortunes this year.
Look! There’s Basketball: Reviewing the NBA’s Preseason
As usual, SBN’s bloggers were all over the coverage. Without further ado... Some recaps and scattered thoughts from last night’s action.
Chicago Bulls 102 Utah Jazz 101:
SLC Dunk weighed in after last night’s contest in London:
Almost titled this post the Block Party Edition. Good gravy. Joakim Noah was looking like he was swatting 6th graders. The Jazz ended up with 13 BA total. Wes Matthews, Paul Millsap, and the KOOF were on the receiving end of most of those. They gotta learn in the NBA it's okay to push off with your off arm when going up, at least if you play for the other team.
Wes Matthews made quite the impression. He had 16 points including 3/4 from downtown. Sign him up if he can hit that corner three. With CJ out, he's doing all the right things. With Dupree having got a lot of the minutes in the first game, perhaps we'll see Johnson from FSU get minutes in the Madrid game.
Deron helped lead the comeback in the third and finished with 16 & 3. None of the starters finished out the fourth.
Despite having 3 BA, Millsap led the team with 18.
Straight Outta Vancouver offered a few notes from the Memphis perspective:
- Rudy Gay got handled by Caron Butler's excellent defense and faster first step on offense, and he didn't do himself any favors by shooting poorly.
- Zach Randolph held onto the ball too long and passed poorly, but was moving the ball. He rebounded well against the inexperienced young Wizards bigs.
- O.J. Mayo was pretty bad out there. He didn't play within himself at all. Hollin's new offense is free flowing, but you still have to play organized ball.
- Sam Young, DeMarre Carroll, and Hasheem Thabeet were all effective, but Carroll and Thabeet fouled way too often.
- Michael Conley was perhaps the lone shining example. Sounds like he controlled Gilbert Arenas and forced him to pass more frequently then Agent Zero normally likes him to. His stats suggest an efficient and effective offensive game.
While SBN's Bullets Forever took care of the Wizards coverage:
- Gilbert Arenas looked really under control offensively, almost too under control. He barely shot the ball and passed up a lot of open shots or drives. However, he did finish with 10 assists in 24 minutes, and some of those assists were really pretty. Overall, I was happy with how he looked.
- Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler both look like they're in midseason form. Two solid games for them. You can depend on them every night now that they're back to being complimentary guys.
- Nick Young had his moments. He hit a couple nice shots, and there were only two times where he reverted into Nick-on-five mode. He was a bit up and down though defensively, losing O.J. Mayo a couple times and getting pretty abused by Sam Young.
- Randy Foye just looks so much more comfortable off the ball spotting up off someone else's initiation than off his own. There were at least two times where he overdrove and didn't know what to do. He certainly can handle the ball at times and can bring the ball up the court, but I think Flip's sets with him in have to involve someone else making the play.
SBN’s Fear the Sword was feeling good about the Lebron-Shaq pairing:
Could LeBron still get to the rack with Shaq on the floor? Can Shaq actually do what he says he is going to do - take a backseat to LeBron?
Consider those questions, at least for a night, answered with the resounding Hell yea!
LeBron James did what he does - 15 points in 15 minutes - on 5/7 shooting. Shaq scored 6 points, while grabbing 3 boards. One troubling stat might be that O'Neal picked up 3 replacement referee fouls in 15 minutes.
A nice surprise for the Cavaliers was J.J. Hickson, who scored 15 points, adding 5 rebounds, in 17 minutes. Hickson is still a work in progress on the defensive end, but there is little doubting his offensive ability. If he can stay healthy this season, Hickson is going to play a huge role, or at least be promising trade chip.
Rufus on Fire, on the other hand, was less thrilled:
1 - Gerald Henderson played 20 minutes and shot 3-10 from the field. Um... Uh... Be better, Gerald.
2 - Alexis Ajinca was totally fine. He didn't set the world on fire, but I'll take 9 points and 7 boards in 19 minutes from our backup PF. He had fouling problems in the NBA and D-League last year, so we'll see how that plays out, but this was certainly encouraging. I'm not holding out hope for stardom, by any means, but if he's a contributor, then he beat the odds implied by his rookie year. Derrick Brown didn't rebound, but if he can be a contributor, then, again, he'll have beaten the odds implied by his draft position.
3 -- D.J. Augustin had the best unadjusted +/- for the Cats. He had too many fouls, but 12 points and 6 assists on 5-8 shooting is a good thing. Raymond Felton started, which I hope changes as the season goes on, but we'll see.
Philadelphia 76ers 107, Toronto Raptors 98
Raptors HQ tried to look on the bright side, despite the loss:
First off, props to the crowd in London. In a city where hockey rules the fans last night at the Labatt Centre looked to be in fine form. From what I saw and heard from the comforts of home it looked like an active and vocal crowd for a preseason match-up. If anyone was at the game last night we would love to hear what you thought about it.
Second, what's clearly obvious is that despite missing CB4 and the off-season's main acquisition in Hedo Turkoglu, this Raps team looks nothing like the teams of the past. This team is athletic from top to bottom and the depth is already apparent.
A lot of the raw athleticism was on display as a result of Coach Triano getting every player into the game from Calderon down to Banks. The minutes were spread equitably and each player had an opportunity to show what they could do. The results, for the most part, were solid. Players like Sonny Weems and Amir Johnson really stood out to me this evening. Both were extremely active on both ends and you had to love the aggressive style of play each of them brought to the floor. Weems was attacking the rim relentlessly and Amir did a great job on the glass, running the court and blocking shots.
Despite the loss, SBN’s Spurs blogger, over at Pounding the Rock, was “quackin’ in his boots”:
DeJuan Blair - What can I say? He's a beast. An epic, legendary debut not seen since, well, maybe Timmeh's days. The stat line: 16 points, 19 rebounds (8 offensive!) with 2 assists and 1 steal to boot in only 22 minutes. The 6-15 shooting was skewed with several missed tip-ins to the basket, so forgive the young stud.
Manu Ginobili - I don't care what you did out there. Your three-point stroke made me swoon. Your ball-handling made me quack in my boots. Seeing you run pain-free out there made me believe in true love again. Welcome back.
George Hill - Georgie porgie puddin' pie, kiss the girls and make 'em cry. He ran the team pretty well (4 assists but 3 TOs) without Tony Parker. He shot the three-ball great. The young man's coming along awesomely.
SBN's Blazers Edge had this covered from top-to-bottom. Some thoughts on All-Star Brandon Roy:
Brandon Roy: A 3 for 11 stinker that left Roy asking McMillan for more minutes tomorrow night out of a desire to find his personal rhythm, which he told me after the game that he hasn’t found yet this season. During the second half, Roy was shaking his head at one of the replacement official’s phantom calls (overall, I thought the officials were inconsistent but not terrible, although the Blazers shot 46 free throws so... um... it was a long night). After the game, Roy said this to me about the officials...
“Um, they did the best they could. (laughs). I think it was somewhat earlier in the game that threw our rhythm off. I think both teams wanted to play up and down a little bit and the foul calls kind of slowed the tempo. Those are our officials so we have to do the best we can to play well.”
While Sactown Royalty took care of the Kings side of the coverage:
* IF WE'RE KEEPING SCORE on the point guard race,
- Tyreke Evans will never come off the bench this season.
- Beno Udrih (9 points on 7 shots) is ahead of Sergio Rodriguez (7 points on 8 shooting possessions, three turnovers to one assist).
* SEAN MAY fouled out in 13 minutes, 44 seconds. Last season's quickest foul-out was executed by Josh McRoberts, who earned six whistles in just ... 5 min, 24 seconds. (Wow. Just wow.) May has some hacking to do if he wants that record this season.
* JASON THOMPSON has gone without mention, but how about a cheer for him? He didn't foul out in 25 minutes (which, given the leaguewide whistle-happy nature of the replacement refs is impressive), he scored 12 points on 12 shooting possessions, 7 rebounds, only 1 turnover, 2 assists, a block ... hurray for JT. Nice work, I think. (You see, I couldn't see the game, so I have no idea how good his work actually was.)
And finally, to round things out, the Phoenix Suns rolled over a European opponent, Parizan Belgade. In loo of thoughts on the game, specifically, Bright Side of the Sun offers some general thoughts on the preseason:
- If you are a player who's over the age of about 25 and have played more than about 3 years in the league what you do in preseason is pretty much meaningless
- Sure, Amare needs to work himself back in shape but don't blow your orange lid if he goes 2-36 and gets dunked on by Nemanja Bešović
- At least for this Suns roster there's only a couple of guys that might be worth watching in preseason and one of them already broke his foot so that leaves...
- Goran Dragic. How Mr. Slovenia looks this preseason might actually give us some insight into how much he's developed this summer. I won't care so much about his points, turnovers or assists but I do want to see him play with some swagger
- Earl Clark. Honestly, I kind of feel like I've seen all I need to see from Clark in Vegas. The kid's got all five tools and the question for him is can he put it together over the course of an NBA season. I am sure he's going to do some amazing things over these next few games but honestly, I don't care. I want to know how he looks in early February after the excitement has worn off and he's cashed a few of those big pay checks
Be sure to check back for further analysis, and magic formulas forecasting your favorite team's outlook for 2009 YouTube videos!
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