My guess is that he had already played 18 minutes so Flip took him out because AJ was out of gas.

It would seem to me that the reason that AJ did not go back in is because they iced his ankle when he came out. His ankle is still not 100% and his achilles tightens when AJ cools down after running.

There is just too much risk to his ankle once it had cooled down if he would be sent back in. That is my educated guess. Why risk re-injuring his ankle?

He is coming along nicely. Once Hot Rod comes back Murray's minutes will go down to what they should be which is minimal.

It could also be that Flip wanted to use the starters to finish the game, which I can understand if that was it, but I don't agree.

Youth was served on the defensive end with Brahma, Amir and Chicksaw, with the seven blocks, 15 boards and a number of hampered/alterned shots for laker misses, but we didn't get anything from the offense. Why, because Flip & Rip & Hunter could not play under control and Flip took just to many shots...6-18 and 0-4 beyond the three. MAx Amir and Chiek were a combined 2-4 shooting??? Did they just refuse to get open or did Flip just ignore them on the floor??

Flip, Rip and Hunter had 12 turnovers between them and the game turned when Jordan Farmar had 3 of his 4 steals in the 4th qtr and picked flip's pocket on two consecutive plays. The Lakers 41 points in the 4th were keyed by those steals and then Kobe and the Laker 3 ball came alive in the last 5 mins to put the game away.

Oh well, at least we know that Samb can play in the middle. I say both he and AJ come in before Nazr in the next couple of games until Dice gets healthy. 41 mins was to much for Flip jr...should have played Alflolo more.

They are I believe purposefully not running offensive plays for AJ at this point. The reason is that they want his head to focus on defense when he is out there and not have to worry about running plays to get shots.

Also too the extent that AJ starts to score he might also be thinking about his next shot rather than his opponents next shot.

They also want AJ and also Cheikh to focus on the non shooting offensive fundamentals, like positioning on the court, ball movement, setting screens etc etc.

There is an awful lot to integrate when you are just starting to play for a team as a rookie.

Durant can take tons of shots because that is what he gets paid to do and Seattle is not very good so they need him scoring ASAP, but in the process I am sure that a number of non shooting things are required of a player at his position, he may be behind on at this point.

I think when Hot Rod comes back AJ will get a few more touches, but it his defense that I want to see shine which it did tonight.

fixed

Other notes: Our offense is terrible. Nothing but guards going one-on-one. Pure selfish basketball. The young high-percentage shooters (Amir, Max, Samb) COMBINE for 3 total shot attempts. All the while Rip takes 12 shots, and only 1 was in the paint (which was still a jumper BTW)

Rebounding is terrible too (Zone D will do that). How about this, get Amir/Samb on the floor along with some guards who want to play D (Afflalo comes to mind), and play some man-to-man.

On a side note, Flip called AJ "Amar" in his post-game interview. I'm not sure if it was a Freudian slip reference to Amare or if Flip just doesn't know his name.

Is is possible to send Murray to the D-League?

That is a major problem, and a good idea. Although im not sure flip has any other adjustment only zone. Someone's scoring let's zone, having trouble defensively zone again. He doesn't seem to have much else after that.

Lets start with Flip Murray. He got to play. 29 points for LA in the first quarter, with Flip in there. In the 4th, with Flip in most of the time, we gave up 41. Flip did score, and I like that he got to the rack on a few occasions. But the fact he can't bring the ball up under pressure, and can't play very good defense, means he really should not be playing for us. At least not as a point guard.


Now Afflalo. With Afflalo in, our defense is simply better. Even if Murray is still in the game, a guy like Afflalo is so good that we still look fine. And man, we did fine with Afflalo in the game tonight, but Flip Saunders absolutely would not stick with him tonight. For whatever reason, he kept letting Rip and Flip Murray stink it up even though Afflalo was playing some seriously good basketball.


Apparently, Flip thinks like this: I got to play the vets. Murray is a vet, so he must play. Rip is a vet, so he must play. Afflalo is doing fantastic out there, and we are winning if he is in the game, but he is not a vet and so will not play.


After watching Samb tonight, I am going to change the tone of my rotations for a while. They are going to feature Samb starting at center. This moves Sheed over to power forward where he belongs anyway. Mohammed was the first big off the bench, and that was a joke. Mohammed could not keep up with anyone, and of course, his inside play on the offensive end was horrid. At least Flip Saunders did not make us ill in the 2nd half by letting him play anymore. Instead, he actually played someone who could play some hoops, Samb. No way Samb should be heading to the D-League. We should cut Mohammed, and keep Samb around, maybe even to start for us.


JMAX had a poor game as a starter, getting into too much foul trouble way too early. The bright spot was all the free throws he was nailing.
Sheed had basically a lethargic game on offense for the most part. But he did do some good stuff here and there.


Hayes hit several shots. And he played some power forward for us, where he really belongs if he plays.


Tay was so so, but for this game, he was not used right at all. We desperately needed a point guard out there, but Flip Saunders was too busy experimenting with the likes of Murray and Hunter running things. Quite disasterous, and actually comical at times. Just hurt a bit too much to laugh though.


Rip had a truly horrid first half, both in shooting and ball handling. Followed by a better shooting 2nd half, but more poor ball handling. He showed no ability at all to step in for Billups a bit in handling the ball. I will say though that Kobe was held nearly scoreless in the first half, so Rip was doing something at least.
Kobe never heated up until the last five minutes, and heck, he was shooting and scoring over Tay. So what more could we have done? We could have played Tay at point, Afflalo at shooting guard to guard Kobe, and Amir at small forward. And probably came away with a win. But my guess, Flip was sick to his stomach from having been forced to play the rookies and other young guys so much. (From Dyess and Billups not playing plus a lot of foul trouble.)


LA's offense was real simple most of the game. Miss, get the rebound. Miss again, get the rebound. Eventually, the ball would take a lucky bounce and LA would put in some slop. yes, guys like Afflalo, Samb, JMAX, and Amir were playing some seriously good D. LA was shooting under 30% thru 3 quarters.


The Pistons were hitting 50%, but not getting the offensive bounds (some, but not like LA was), and not getting to foul line (like LA was.) Further, points off our turns were all for LA.


If Amir was in the game, we were doing just fine. In the first half, we were playing losing basketball, but lost no further ground after Amir entered the game. In the 2nd half, we were playing even. Amir came in and we got a bit of a lead (6 points I think) before Amir came out. We finished the 4th with an 11-2 run, and Afflalo and Amir were both in during most of that. But to start the 4th, you guessed it, they were not playing, and did not return to the game.


I don't know what the totals were in the end, but before Amir left, we were up to 5 blocks. Maybe 3 by Amir and 2 by Samb. (Or reverse that.) Maybe JMAX had one of those. Samb was altering a lot of shots too. The guy is just plain tall. Despite Samb just so easily shooting over his defender from about 18 out shortly after he entered the game, he was not given another shot to take from the outside. Kind of wierd. Let the guy shoot.


Amir got his share of rebounds. I see no problem there for him. Samb gets his share too, just because he can jump higher than any other human. (that I know of)


As soon as Afflalo came in, Kobe tried his level headed best to score on him. Nothing doin. After about 3 tries, he realized he was not going to earn his money that way.


I absolutely hate losing. Yes, I loved that the young guys got to play, and I love how well they did. I do see all that as a big positive for this game. But darn, Mohammed is still allowed to wear the uniform. And Hunter has not retired. And worse, here is Flip Saunders making believe again that Flip Murray is a point guard. (I honestly thought this non-sense over when Prince was playing point a lot to back up Billups for several games.) Will Flip Saunders learn? He sure has a lot of talented young guys. Will he keep fighting Dumars, and let us fans see a truly excellent team in action. (The one Dumars envisions; please Flip, let it happen, and quick - us fans truly do hate to see a loss when there was just no reason of the loss.

This is just an excuse. Flip does not want the young guys to play at all. When they do play, he does not want them to shoot. If they were allowed to shoot, they just might hit some shots. Now it would look really bad for Fliip not playing them. By not shooting, the average fan will think they can't shoot, and go along with Flip not playing them. Its an old old trick. And very stale indeed.

This I will not buy for a minute. They could have kept that ankle loose. Amir was nowhere near exhausted either. He only played about 8 minutes in the 2nd half.

We did not lose this game because we played our young guys.

We had a chance to WIN this game because we played our young guys.

The only reason we were ever in this game was because of our young guys.

We lost this game because we played some "vets" that had no business being on the court in crunch time.

We lost this game because we have a coach who doesn't have the faintest idea how to coach.