...and if you're looking for sunshine here, welp, you might hafta keep looking.
So... we rolled easily in this game largely thanks to a mystery-man who gave us 23 pts, 5 boards, 2 blocks, a dime and a steal in 21 ininutes. Thus, lemme get the few positives outta the way by starting here:
- Cade Tyson returned from the milk carton, and to his immense credit, shot and played with confidence --- and it wasn't just the 3s --- he played a strong floor game on both ends. And yes, I TOLD y'all he can play., and it's not just my eyes. Too many foiks that I trust who have seen him up close and personal clued me in for that to be wrong. If it was back in the day, Cade gets the Holly Farms chicken. Good on him...
- We pulled out 44 early and got a TO and-1. It may have come sooner but we couldn't seem to make a damn FT to set it up. With that said, they adjusted. So... y'know we have different pickup points, right? Like mix in 43 or 42 to counter and keep them off-balance?...
- Defensive cohesion and effort was better today early on, although we coasted some later, and we rebounded as a team more aggressively
- Shout-out to James Brown, who refreshingly acted like a damn BIG, getting to the blocks, posting and asking for the ball. He was thusly rewarded by EC to the tune of 6 points in 5 minutes
- Speaking of Eliot, Jeezus-H, when is someone finally gonna fire the home stat guy? 7 dimes? AYFKM? He had 10 (9 if yer being a complete tight-ass). Honestly, I couldn't blame a blue-chip PG for thinking twice about coming here for that reason alone. These things matter. Sheeesh.
- We did not attack their 3-2 Zone with any real stress. Again, where is the post/short-corner action? As with too much of what goes on lately, it's 3-pointer or squat.
- I, like many, was hoping for an actual "reset". Welp, not so much. Other than mixing in 40, it was too much of the same-old with too damn much 5-out on the other end. Soeaking of which, pretty much all we got outta the Secondary was Cade hitting some 3s. Otherwise it was benign with Bigs again making themselves tits on a boar-hog.
- Finally, as for the aforementioned international man of mystery, Hubert likes to cite the old coach cliche that "players decide who plays". Yeah well... amid the grain of truth in that lies a big ol' cop-out. Ultimately it's up to coaches to assert playing time for guys who need to get it for confidence sake and team-building. Just suppose, for example, that Cade had come in and missed his first couple of shots... would we have seen him again enough to get a rhythm? I would like to think so --- I mean, I would LIKE to think that the staff went into this game determined to get him some run --- but again, forgive me for wondering "what if"?
Anyway, look... it almost physically pains me to have to be this critical. I like this staff and I know they are capable of better --- which makes it all the more frustrating, partially because the key needed tweaks are as simple as they are obvious. Other than that, well, we held serve and got a solid W --- and (hopefully) got a key part of our rotation back from the MIA files... 
