Dukies in the NBA - Thur Nov 1

[Exiled_Devil]

I am finding this enjoyable. The PHX offense combined with the fact that I think Grant is one of the coolest people ever makes me smile a lot. I may actually plan to watch NBA ball this year.

Exiled

[darthur]

As a big Phoenix fan, I thought their offense looked out of sync tonight, but overall, Grant Hill looks like a great fit. Now if only he could get those 3 pointers to start falling! He took 7 tonight, compared to 12 all of last season.

[JasonEvans]

Grant was 4-5 on 2pters and 1-7 on 3pters. If he gets those 3s to start falling he is going to be lethal in this offense.

He also had 5 assists and 6 boards-- filling up the boxscore like he used to.

As an aside, Kevin Durant clearly has the green light to shoot in Seattle. In his first 2 games he has put up 45 shots. He's averaging 22.5 ppg, which is massive for a rookie, but he is shooting just 40% from the field. Once he figures out what works and what does not at this level and gets his shooting percentage up a bit, he is gonna be a major force. Considering he is just one year removed from high school, well... WOW!

--Jason "too bad Seattle has Durant surrounded by NADA for now" Evans

[JasonEvans]

I'll try to do this as often as possible, but others should feel free to pick up the slack if I skip a day.

After opening with 32 points and 15 rebounds in his first game on Tuesday, it would make sense for Carlos Boozer to suffer a bit of a dropoff in production in game 2. Well, he went for 30 points and 16 rebounds last night as Utah lost to Houston. It is early, but Carlos may be making a run at 1st team All-NBA this season. Those are some huuuuge numbers he is putting up.

In that same game, Shane Battier had 8 points, 2 rebounds, and 1 assist for Houston. Of course, his value cannot be measures just in the stat book. He held Andrei Kirilenko to 5 points on 1-5 shooting in 38 minutes of action. It is also worth noting that shanee played 33 minutes for Houston, 2nd only to Tracy McGrady's 39 minutes 9tracy went for 47 points, by the way-- damn!).

Grant Hill's 13 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists in Phoenix's game with Seattle has already been discussed here.

--Jason "Los is da bomb!!" Evans

[elvis14]

Stayed up and watched the Phx game last night just to see Grant Hill and Nash play. I agree that GH is going to be a great fit in Phx. I still love watching him play, he's so smooth and can still take about anyone off the dribble. I know last year Phx was one of the media darlings and I lost lots of sleep staying up late watching them run and gun like Duke playing Shaw. Hopefully I get to see them a bunch this season too since it'll be even more interesting with GH in the mix.

[mr. synellinden]

Stayed up and watched the Phx game last night just to see Grant Hill and Nash play. I agree that GH is going to be a great fit in Phx. I still love watching him play, he's so smooth and can still take about anyone off the dribble. I know last year Phx was one of the media darlings and I lost lots of sleep staying up late watching them run and gun like Duke playing Shaw. Hopefully I get to see them a bunch this season too since it'll be even more interesting with GH in the mix.

I stayed up to watch the game too because I was so curious to see how Grant fit in with the Phoenix offense. He looks great and it is a perfect situation for him. If his health remains, he could be the Finley-esque veteran piece to a championship puzzle - and I would love to see him win a championship. However, I was surprised to see him shooting 3s so much. I know that is the Phoenix offense but I think he is much better creating offense off the dribble and with his court vision. I still think he could have been a point guard (I remember all the way back to his McDonald's All American game when he played point guard for a stretch and the team looked actually like a team, even though it was an all-star exhibition). Being with Nash he is not going have the ball in his hands so much but his greatest strength for Phoenix will be as a player who can run and finish off the break, feed the post effectively and who can create offense off the dribble, not as a three point shooter who benefits from Nash's dribble penetration. The other problem I saw for Phoenix was a lack of post defense, especially when Amare was in foul trouble. Chris Wilcox got too many easy post up baskets last night in my opinion. I don't know if Phoenix will be able to overcome the loss of Kurt Thomas should they see the Spurs in the playoffs.

On another note, Houston looked very impressive last night beating Utah on the road. If Yao and McGrady play a full season, they will challenge for the western conference championship. It's nice that we have a guy on three top contenders in the west - I'm rooting for one of those teams to win it all.

[Exiled_Devil]

Another night, another NBA surprise for me.

This Garnett guy in Boston is fun to watch. How come we haven't seen much of him before? Oh, right, he was exiled in Canada without support.

This could be a good NBA season ... I'm confused by that thought

Edit: Canada, Minnesota, It's all the Great White North.