and that's about it from last nights game.

We might be last place and have the FOY in the BW. He might be our only real bright spot.

Biggest Problem: Defense. The first part of the scheme doesn't appear to be a bad idea, we slow down the advance of the ball and knock 10 seconds off the shot clock almost every defensive possession. Then 3 out of 4 times we give up way too easy a shot in the last 5-10 seconds. They make 90% of those easy shots, miss a few like any team would. And we force few TOs, 4 steals and 2 blocks. Those need to double for this team to have a chance, and possessions where we don't get a TO which will be 80%+ of possessions, we have to cause enough chaos for teams to miss shots, and we caused almost none last night in the critical last 10 seconds of the shot clock. Its like the team just falls flat during those last ten seconds.

That is a recipe for failure. Some of the problem is we have no interior force that can man the basket and turn easy layups into tough ones. Shay showed a little bit of that, but so far DMX is a liability, Devillian is learning the game on the clock and gets lost, Washington keeps getting lost on defense and Acker yells at him, and Petar he has bb IQ but can't guard everyone and isn't a shot blocker.

I think Acker is in way over his head, is learning on the clock as well. I hope I'm proven wrong I'll be happy to see this team turn it around and beat mid and low range opponents and can fight a good team for most the game...but the things I'm seeing aren't promising.

Offense is better but relies way too much on individual creativity and give em credit our guards especially can get a bucket when needed but why can't we generate team offense? Partly because we don't have a true on court lead guard, I think they are trying to get Lewis or Diaz or Bender to be that guy and none has really stepped up enough, although if I had to pick one and go with him, it would be Diaz. Clearly Sykes is a shooting guard and maybe a damn good one at that.

FT shooting improved and that kept us in the game. Refs called ticky tacks a lot in the first half and we got more than our share. Gotta know how to adjust to things like that.

Main thing I kept thinking last night, we didn't have one big run and control the game end to end for any extended period of time. Maybe once in the first half for like 2-3 minutes. This team needs sustained runs to build confidence and we have too many parts that are learning on the job including the coach that are run-killers. Last night it was interior lapses on defense leading to easy dunks and layups, unopposed because our defender got lost in transition. And guards unable to handle their assignment or interrupt the opponents passing. Just a litany of issues I'm surprised we are staying in games.