In a nut shell

Aloha,

We saw something last night that was all too familiar. We fell behind early by 14 and had to fight our way back. That happened a lot last year and I’m hoping that it was the energy of the Nuggets ring night that caused it, not something we are going to see a lot.

This game was reminiscent of the last preseason game. We came out and couldn’t make shots. Austin missed some easy shots as did Dlo and Rui. The Nuggets are a good defensive team but not a great one and they had little to do with some of those misses. We have to get better.

Last year AD seemed to score well every other game. Last night he did it by halves. 1st half unstoppable. 2nd half disappeared. If LeBron is going to play only 30 minutes a game AD has to be better.

Prince was great last night. He is not as good as Vando on defense but he does compete. That kind of shooting could keep him in the starting unit. Still a bit concerned about his rebounding.

Speaking of rebounding we did win the rebound battle which had been a problem. We only turned the ball over 12 times but it lead to 20 points, highlighting our ongoing transition defense problems.

LeBron was LeBron. He missed his 3’s but was super efficient in everything else. He probably would’ve closed the game if it were close. By the way, can the man get a foul call? He was fouled on every drive, even got a bloody nose and didn’t draw a foul until the end of the game. And yes, the ref’s were homers last night.

Our 2nd unit is much better than Denver’s. I think it’s the reason why we should contend. But they have to be much better. We only won the 2nd unit battle by 4 points. It needed to be double digits. The 2nd unit guy who impressed me last night was Cam on the defensive side. He was very good.

It’s only one game against the champs on their ring night and we will get better. I still think by the end of the year we can beat the Nuggets in a 7 game series.