I agree that it is imperative for us to play O with aggressiveness and D with intensity to win out. I just happen to feel that this is exactly what they will do! Call it what you will: Blue Glasses; or Optimism; or believing what I've been seeing!
I also think Hicks will snap out of his funk and explode on somebody! I'm hoping it is puke!
Hope this continues, I see some nice adjustments on both ends that IMO makes us a much harder team to deal with.
Defensively, we are not over helping as much since Theo has stepped in to the starting line up. Kenny was a heck of a defender in as much as he really worked to stay on his man, chased his man hard but when he would get rubbed off a little Justin or Joel would over help or at times totally switch to the driver and leave no one to check the spot up shooter, Kenny would tend to keep chasing the driver. But Theo is slicker on the switches, if a rub forces the switch on Justin's side they switch seamlessly, if on Joel's side Theo will play the passing lane more than the man, still stunting the drive but making it hard to kick back to the spot up. Theo's length allows that more than Kenny's did.
Teams are still trying to draw Meeks in to more high post defense and he struggles with that but he is having it thrown at him so much that he has had to really work on that aspect and the more you work on a particular aspect the better you get at it and he has gotten much better with this. It is never going to be his strength but small improvements here can pay much larger dividends because it has become opponents favored way of attacking us so improvement there makes things much harder for them.
Offensively, I see 2 things, first we are not settling for what the defense wants us to take, we are more attacking the defense and taking what we want. Most teams zone us, the zone wants to bait poor shooters in to taking jump shots and wants good shooters to take contested jump shots. Earlier season we got in to this mode where we relied to much on Joel and Justin shooting treys and that was great when those shots were falling but we have seen several games where they were not falling as well. lately, Joel's jumper has been a bit off, Justin has had some good halves but has had some periods where he would miss a few. The big change I see is that Joel is passing up some of those harder treys and driving the pressure more, forcing the defenses to react and that has opened up some better looks.
The other point is Kenny for a few games before he got hurt was becoming a none factor on the offensive end and way to many games Hicks was as well. But especially Kenny because he was neither taking the shot or putting the ball on the floor to force the defense to react. He was kinda becoming just a guy that swings it around the horn more than anything else, made us attack 4 on 5. But Theo in there puts pressure on a defense, he does not hesitate to put the ball on the floor and force the defense to react to him, he forces a big man to help on him and that opens things up both inside and out. When we get deep in the shot clock we don't have to settle for off balance long jumpers and we are not taking as many of those early in the clock.
We have just played and beat 2 teams with very different styles, one relies on out side shooting because they do not have a strong front court and the other that relied on inside length that doesn't look to jump shoot every possession. Pitt is more of a team that will look to jump shoot on you and do so with longer shooters, Cam Johnson is 6'8", their 4, Young is a jump shooter, and Artis can as well light you up. We can't let them get those clean looks,make them put the ball on the floor or make it hard for the ball to get in to their hands. They are not going to beat us shooting 2s, they could beat us shooting treys.
