martin wrote:

DLeethal wrote:Team doesn't seem that much different than last year. Weak 3 point defense, questionable decision making, sporadic shooting, and can get lit up by anyone. I think the difference is this year we do have more firepower to win more shootouts. We will win 50+ games on talent alone and will have a shot against anybody in the East during the playoffs. But as of yet it does not seem like we made the leap to legit contender.

We looked really good at full strength before the Brunson/OG injuries, albeit versus bad teams. So I'm not closing the book on this team finding its stride and looking like a contender at some point. But right now it just kind of feels like last year. A good, flawed, playoff team but not much more.

I'm still wait and see. They are missing a stronger PG play off bench but Deuce, Clarkson, Hart, Shamet have been decent in that absence. New'ish offense and really they need to start focusing on defense after Xmas timeline.

Indiana last year were below .500 until like nearly 40 games in. Heatles took a long while before they hit a stride.

Yeah I'm still waiting.

I'm with you on that. Offensive teams also turn it up on defense in the playoffs as well, we might be that kind of team (like Indy or Denver). We aren't really built for 82 game defense but we have pieces to be a playoff defense in shortened spans with more in-game strategy and management.

nycericanguy wrote:

DLeethal wrote:Team doesn't seem that much different than last year. Weak 3 point defense, questionable decision making, sporadic shooting, and can get lit up by anyone. I think the difference is this year we do have more firepower to win more shootouts. We will win 50+ games on talent alone and will have a shot against anybody in the East during the playoffs. But as of yet it does not seem like we made the leap to legit contender.

We looked really good at full strength before the Brunson/OG injuries, albeit versus bad teams. So I'm not closing the book on this team finding its stride and looking like a contender at some point. But right now it just kind of feels like last year. A good, flawed, playoff team but not much more.

agreed, i'm just not convinced we can win wit KAT. We look like a better team with just Mitch out there, but he's not reliable. Ihart leaving really screwed us more than I ever thought.

KAT just isn't a fun player to watch either, he's constantly falling out of bounds and screaming for calls while the opposing team goes 5 on 4 on the other end. Very frustrating.

And we really needed to hit in FAgency with the $6m MLE, and it looks like we completely threw that away, didn't even get a rotation player out of it.

It's definitely hard to imagine KAT having championship run chops. He would need to be contained and Mitch would need to be able to give us legit minutes on nights KAT is a bonehead. But we saw last year in the playoffs the KAT experience - his offense will win you some games and his decision making would leave you many other games having to overcome all sorts of nonsense.