A play I would normally trust Horford to make all the same. Although, I think what was really unusual about the play is that he somehow had Queta on his right. 99/100 times he is in that situation it would be a player who knows what to do when he gets the ball.
For the 7-11 guys on the roster, obviously Hauser and PP are rotation fixtures. They seem to trust Kornet. For everyone else, it looks like Banton and Queta are going to get force-fed some minutes because they're the most promising.
Al is pretty good when he dribbles the ball up court and has time to survey and assess. In this fast break, the ball was awkwardly passed to him in a weird spot by a guard (Jrue?) and he made the quick decision to pass it to the wing, who happened to be the hustling, Queta, who doesn’t have the hands for that type of play.
I think that most times Al is in that situation, the player to his right is someone he can pass to without thinking about it. When he's playing PF, how often will he have the ball on a fast break with the C? Almost never.
From the replay, Tatum protested the foul call, and then continued to walk after the official that made the call. One of the coaches eventually went out to calm Tatum down but he kept yapping while the officials were mostly ignoring him. Maybe there were no magic words, but I can see why he got the T.
No doubt a fluke play. Queta can run well for a seven footer, but is a bit ham handed. If that fast break develops in a typical way, where the guard keeps it and allows the other two to fan out to both wings, one of the bigs gets a dunk/alley.
Yes he knew right away. This goes back to what I preach about this game being one of instinct and not thinking. When you are in the middle of a break you aren't necessarily thinking who the players are filling the lane, especially when you are not a ballhandler who is often in this spot, you are reading the defense and making split second instinctual decisions at full game speed.
The California portion of that stretch is brutal too. Two 7 PM local games, back to back, after getting out there then a 12:30 PM local game and a 2 PM local game on Christmas. Honestly, 4-4 wouldn't be the end of the world.
For an instant, I thought it was Brown on the right wing. Queta fumbled the pass, but he was moving at a pretty good pace when Horford fed him. Al might well have forgotten Queta was in the game.
The one good thing about this whole situation is that we got a classic Gorman line out of it, "Refs looking more like a dance team there." (Or something like that. I laughed.)
Not top 5 but certainly top 8 or so. And that’s plenty good enough with this roster.
I fully expect him to get to the level I think we need him to be at, I just think he’s coasting a bit the last couple of weeks. Just at this point, coasting for him is 27/8/5 on a 60% TS lol.
Tatum is in a slump. Happens every season (poor shooting mechanics, unable to finish at the rim, etc). He'll go through 10-15 games of this, then he'll turn to Drew Hanlen who will have detailed video of Tatum making sloppy passes. Tatum will download it and stop gambling with unnecessary skip passes in the half-court.
The pool report was talking around it but the thing here is Kennedy is gay, so the real question they were asking was did Tatum say the f slur and the answer thankfully was no.
Hard disagree. The refs were headed to the table for review of the foul. Tatum came over and kept jawing. Do you expect the refs to walk away from the table and further delay the game?
Watch the replay—above is not what happened or where it happened. And the sequence here is everything. The refs stopped just past the center court logo initially, then stopped again halfway between logo and sideline and that’s where they tossed him. Then they went to table and he pursued. It’s more that they were towards Celtics bench than he was going to the tablewhen they tossed him…a big big difference.
There's a difference (apparently) between running around on the court and continuing to go after the refs after he's been told to back off. According to Forsberg's pod, the refs' statement was that JT was told to back off and go the bench and he didn't stop. Like Beverly did later in the game.
I’d be interested to know what the head official said to the assistant about coming to get Tatum.. because that’s what set Tatum off even more.. imo nba refs don’t deserve any kind of benefit of the doubt. They’ve been awful for decades.. especially when it comes to power trips with players.. I guess Tatum should walk away but these guys need to have thicker skins.. nobody is there to watch them but they consistently think they’re the show.
It was Pritchard.
It's way, way too early for +/- ( a few games skew it), but Derrick White...
It hasn’t been nine games, but I suspect that the absence of Porzingis over the last several has probably put more of the weight on Tatum‘s shoulders.
I'm much more worried about Milwaukee.
Why did they? Does it come with a fine or some kind of accumulated penalty? It wasn’t in the last 2 minutes. I mean, why did they review it?
Flagrant fouls are assessed penalty points for the player.. if you get more than five it's a suspension. (edit: flagrant 1s are worth one point, flagrant 2s are worth 2)
Absolutely. I'd rather play Milwaukee than Philly, Orlando, New York and Miami. If we could play the Bucks in the first 3 rounds I'm confident we'd be playing in The Finals.
It feels like many here are trying to talk themselves into the idea the Bucks aren't good. They are good and their length/defense is exactly the sort that slows down the Jays, especially when playoff games get bogged down late. Also, Khris Middleton is, sadly, not washed.
According to a Timelord post on IG this morning, Tatum was upset that a ref told a Celtics assistant to come get him and said so. Apparently it was not how the ref said it, but the fact that he did, like Tatum was a child instead of a first team All NBA superstar.
By what metric is Middleton not washed or showing signs of being washed? Looking at Middleton's stats every single one is down from last year (except for fg %).. and he's playing about 12 minutes less per game on average.
Feel like the only the only thing that's changed is that we no longer no the names of the refs throwing these players out. Last night tweedle dee and dum looked ridiculous making their simultaneous ejection calls.
I don't know how they come up with 27th most difficult. They haven't played a single road game West of them yet and have played their share of cupcakes.
That SOS is determined by their own personal power rankings, so take that for what it's worth. Coming into today, they've had the 24th hardest SOS by opponent win %. They've also won more than their fair share by net rating (2 games better than expected, per Bref), but they outperformed their expected win total last year by a whopping 8 games, so who knows. They definitely don't look as good as expected (by the general public at least), but they haven't really paid for it in the loss column yet.
Yeah.. I didn't know where to look for an "accurate" SOS so just went with that one for the time being. Thanks for finding more info. I wonder how much energy Lillard and Giannis will have to put out this year just to keep the Bucks winning. I'm not trying to count them out at all, but the Sixers at the moment seem to be a bigger challenge..just a deeper team. Though I'm not sure if all of the pieces fit great when Embiid is in as he demands so much of the ball. Playoffs should be interesting.
It's really, really, really hard for me to imagine a ref saying that to a Lakers or Warriors assistant re LeBron or Steph.
Middleton's stats look poor because he is still working his way back from injury. I have watched the Bucks play and he doesn't look washed to my eyes but maybe he is cooked. Hasn't seemed so of late.
