Given the way McDyess and Maxiell have played recently, do you think Jason is muscling Antonio out of the lineup?

I didn't see Max play tonight, but based on the way Dice has performed in the last 30 or so games, I would say someone needs to put the muscle on him. 6th man is up for grabs, may the best player win.

Lets open this up a bit. Why pick on Dyess? Look a little closer. In this set of back to backs just concluded, its Dyess who got more minutes vs. Mohammed. Its Mohammed in danger of losing his minutes. Its Mohammed who has been steadily losing his minutes of late. Dyess continues to play the usual 20 minute average. Dyess played 27 last night, so he was due an off night. Those knees of his will only give us so much so fast. Dyess has given us a whole lot of fine games in the past. Mohammed has yet to give us one. Should Maxiell start is the question I would say yes to.

I would rate the bigs;
1. Rasheed
2. Dale Davis
3. Maxiell
4. McDyess
5. Nazr
with Nazr being the odd man out. Either way Maxiell should definitely be part of the regular rotation from now on. The way he plays you can't keep him on the bench.
If he keeps improving I can see him starting in the not too distant future. Rasheed may have to move over to center. Or, we have had some success with a 6'7" center in the past.
I openly admit to an anti-Nazr bias, how can you play center and not box out?

lee, I agree about McDyess in the past, but he is not getting younger and is probably playing out his last decent contract.

Maxiell on the other hand does not seem to pick up the touch fouls McDyess does, and plays at the rim, drawing fouls, something this team sorely needs.

I see your point on Nazr, but even Nazr has been outplaying McDyess of late. Let's face it, Antonio's bread and butter move is a fading jumpshot, 10~14 feet from the basket. When he's on, he's efficient. When he is off, he's a liability like the last two nights.

I threw out the idea in chat that maybe Davis should be starting alongside Sheed (like in Portland) and Nazr and Maxiell coming off the bench together. What do you think of that idea?

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

It's funny, the biggest coaching gripe on Max is that he doesn't do "it" night in and night out, I think that has more to do with experience or the lack thereof. But NONE of our bigs do "it" night in night out, for various reasons:
1) Sheed, is the epitome of an inconsistent under achiever with an amazing array of skills and talent.
2)Nazr, Nazr is what Nazr is, a guy that can get you 10&7 in limited mins in a best case scenario.
3)Dyess, a clear case of diminishing returns as a player whose had bad knees and starts getting older, or based on his performance, has gotten old.
4)Max, sometimes his efforts just don't materialize, as he plays more and gets accustomed to the league the consistency will be there.

I feel good about our frontline, Joe's insistence on depth is really going to pay off, between the four of them 2 should find their groove on a given night.

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Play hard, Play smart, Play together, share the ball, have fun....Play the right way!!!!!!

I do wish Dale Davis would start as well as Jmax, while Rasheed is out. Starting is not McDyess' forte.

You forgot Dale!

But you're right. As long as we get 2 or 3 out of 5 rolling, that's a formidable front court. Now we have to break off Tay's cement shoes...

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

Starting Dale Davis, or JMAX, either would work. Its more important to get Mohammed out of the rotation vs. which player starts between Davis and JMAX. And its more important we start seeing Amir play, something Dumars has hinted at.

While we are still early in the season, Joe should be demanding that Brahma be at least splitting more minutes with Dice. Looking the last two games and the boxscore of both, JMax clearly outplayed Dice. Even Dales' numbers looked better than Dice. Starting JMAX should be considered if SHeed misses the next game.

The good thing is that with Sheed out we have seen Davis and JMax showing Flip that we do have some depth in the front court, and both of these two are not afraid to battle in the paint evidenced by the 5 blocks the two of them had last night and the 25 rebounds they grabbed tonight. (only wish our two starting forwards would play more in the post)

Even when Sheed comes back, his minutes should be limited so that JMax continues to get his on the job training in real game situations Looks like Dice is averaging 21 mins a game and Sheed about 33. I say when Sheed returns, drop his minutes to 27-30, Dice's to 15 and give the leftover minutes to JMax in every game. That way we got fresher legs come postseason tme than we had the last two years.