He did force one or two of those shots, but he got other guys involved and generally did a nice job. I definitely don't think it was as bad as Flip Jr. in those garbage time games (to be fair to Jr., he didn't over-chuck it too badly this season back when he was getting "real" minutes). And actually most of Stuckey's minutes in the 4th quarter last night were more or less "real": Lil' Lawrence Frank didn't take his Big 3 out for good until only about 2 minutes were left.

I just emailed Need4Sheed and asked them if they knew if Sheed has come up with a nickname for Stuckey.

If he has I will use whatever nickname Sheed has chosen.

stuckey did look good last night he forced one jumper the rest was good shots just didn't fall. he is already better then murray in his first few games but to give murray credit i rather see him play then hunter

tonight's game vs pacers

18 minutes
10 points
3 assists
3 rebounds
3 steals
3 to's

I'm impressed with his ability to get the rim (and somehow always get his own miss), but his PG skills are unimpressive so far. It's only the 2nd (or 3rd) game so we'll see.

Don't expect a lot from him regarding his point guard skills for maybe 2 years or more.

He wasn't a point guard at EW.
Also, it is the hardest position to learn in the NBA, especially for a combo guard who is trying to play the point.
Hunter never really mastered it his whole career.

All I got to say is, Deron Williams was aSG at Illinois and he's working out ok. Give him time. He'll get it together.

He's making things happen. The to's were typical rookie pg mistakes. He'll iron it out.

OK, so we got our first taste of "real" minutes for Stuckey in a game that was close all the way tonight in Indy. 9 points on 3-8 from the floor, 2 assists to 1 turnover, 3 boards and 1 steal in 17 minutes. His biggest impact was when he came in for Rip near the end of the third quarter and immediately sparked a run by driving to the hole, hitting a couple of Js, and getting to the line on the last play of the quarter. A game that had been within 1 or 2 points for a long time pushed out to a 6 point Piston lead at the end of the quarter thanks to his scoring.

Naturally he's still making some rookie mistakes; two drives straight into O'Neal's face resulted in two unsurprising rejections. Also one bad turnover and a couple of mistakes on D. But he also took a charge in transition and made some other things happen on D as well. The common trend with most of his mistakes seems to be that he's too aggressive, which is precisely what I always want from rookies. Much better to try too hard and gradually learn how to dial it back then to have to pick up the intensity or aggressiveness.

I think we're already seeing a great impact from him. He gets to the hole super-quick whenever he sees an opportunity, which is exactly what we need from the first guard off the bench. When he's out there with CB, you have two guards who both have MAD handles, which is nice because the drop in shooting touch with Rip out is partly made up for by the increased ball-handling ability. The next thing I hope to see from him is a good rhythm with Rip, since most of Stuckey's minutes look to be at the point with Rip at the 2.

We've got ourselves a winner, folks! All hail Joe!

I don't know if there's a stat that tracks "effective assists" but there were maybe 3 times where he passed to a man who was fouled and went to the line. Or do assists count those anyway?

Anyway that was a fun one to watch, I love seeing him out there.