FanPost

Second game of summer

Needless to say, Flynn looked loads better than his first game. Hopefully he is getting more comfortable in his role. The first game was ugly as evidenced by his 1:1 assist to turnover ratio with seven of each. In his defense, he should have had quite a few more assists, but marginal talent surrounding him missed many open shots. This game he posted a pretty 14 assists with still an ugly 6 turnovers. A few of those assists went to Ellington for some nice jumpers. Good chemistry brewing. It's just my opinion, but I am not a fan of his defense so far. He was advertised as hard-nosed and able to stay in front of his man. In my eyes, he has spent more than half of the game running next to his man trying to get back in front of him. He HAS to play the passing lanes more to mimic A.I. on defense if he can't guard the guy straight up. The first game it looked like he was having trouble breaking his guy down one on one (another thing he was advertised as being good at), this game he looked slightly better.

Wayne Ellington had a great showing today. Leagues better than his first game. He ended up 8-14, 4-7 beyond the arc which includes a missed buzzer beater (so 8-13 and 4-6). His defense was good...compared to what we are used to.... He is no where near guarding guys like Kobe and Wade, but he will be an improvement. He was still easily shaken off when his guy put forth a real effort. As we all expected, his rebounding numbers were down from the first game to a more modest 2. Overall, he's looking like a great pickup at 28, although shooters drafted lower like Jodie Meeks and Chase Budinger are looking pretty good too (we'll see which of the 3, if any, will be looking good come the real games). He had a nice defensive play against a 3 on 1 where he completely stopped the ball from touching the hoop on a dunk attempt.

Corey again looked wild. A little better than last game, but he still looked like he had a little too much caffeine before the game. He showed some better off the ball movement, but still looked terrible while controlling the ball. Despite this, he only had 2 turnovers if you can believe that. I just wish he could go to the basket strong instead of turning around and running in to someone while throwing the ball blindly over his shoulder. Once he gets everything together again, I am still convinced that he has a spot in the rotation. If nothing else, as a lockdown defender for guys like Pierce (who he dominated in their previous meetings), Kobe, Tony Parker (hopefully we wont need him to after getting rid of Foye who let him drop 50 on us), Roy, and others at the 2/3. Looking at the best teams, they all have a good or at least above average defender at this spot (which is usually where most of the points come from). Battier, Bowen, Pierce, Kobe, etc....unfortunately all of these guys are either tremendous offensively as well or they can at least knock down an open 3.


The lowlight for me of the game, was watching 2 blown 4 on 1s. No one knew where they were supposed to be and it looked like everyone cut to the hoop hoping to "get theirs." The first game looked like everyone was looking out for number one and this game was much the same. The other team, in both cases, has been a much better team, working as one instead of looking out for number one and coming out as number one.

Now we wait, until Friday at 7:00 to see our Wolves take on the Wizard...should be pretty uneventful from here on out. Let's just hope to see some constant improvement. Let me know what you thought of game two and our guys' individual performances. And maybe even Jonny's team performance.