Good Effort

Aloha,

What do you do? I guess sometimes it’s just not your year. We went into a game with the defending champions, missing 4 rotation players. Then Max, who has been trending up goes down with an ankle. That left Mays a two way guy playing stretch minutes. To his credit he did pretty well.

With all of that we were still tied with a minute and a half to go. Two defensive errors that led to 3’s ended it. But I was impressed by how hard we played.

When you think about it we did this all without our 3 best perimeter defenders. Murray would not have had it as easy with Vando on him. DLO was missed as well. His 41% 3 point shooting requires teams to honor him whether he is hitting shots or not. Without him the Nuggets crowded the paint more than usual.

Jackson Hayes has turned his season around. You have to hand it the coaching staff. You could count on him having 3 or 4 fouls in 10 minutes. He’s been playing without fouling over the last couple of weeks and only had one last night. The energy he brought nearly changed the outcome.

I thought AD out played the Joker last night. He is a big reason I feel this team has a chance with health against anyone.

We were unable to make a trade, primarily because of the asking price of our targets. Still we have a chance to improve. We desperately need another ball handling guard as last night illustrates. Spencer Dinwiddie could be that guy. He’s not having a stellar year, still a 6’5 “ combo guard that can defend a little would be welcome. And he is better than some of the smaller deals we could have made. Because of the new CBA rules many of the contenders can’t sign him. We have more cap space than most of the others. He is a LA guy so that helps. More than anything else we just need a healthy squad and see happens.