Isaiah Thomas: Butt Nugget

[mrWalrus]

Showed some flashes tonight. Still obviously trying to feel out the speed and rhythm of the league every game and still hit front rim a lot...tried to compensate for his lack of legs a couple times by over-launching which is no good either. But also showed good moments of burst and playmaking.

Anyone who knew a damn thing said when he came back it would be still be a slow grind and a process and it will be. But I have seen enough to at least legitimately believe in IT.

We actually may have had a chance to keep it close in the 4th if he could have stayed out there instead of Wade jacking up 18 footers with a hand in his face over and over.

Yeah. It was Wade's fault. /s

 

[Randolphkeys]

Showed some flashes tonight. Still obviously trying to feel out the speed and rhythm of the league every game and still hit front rim a lot...tried to compensate for his lack of legs a couple times by over-launching which is no good either. But also showed good moments of burst and playmaking.

Anyone who knew a damn thing said when he came back it would be still be a slow grind and a process and it will be. But I have seen enough to at least legitimately believe in IT.

We actually may have had a chance to keep it close in the 4th if he could have stayed out there instead of Wade jacking up 18 footers with a hand in his face over and over.

The worst part about the Kyrie trade is that it made the first 2/3rds of this regular season not matter at all. That's why the Cavs got even value, they have to be clearly the worse team until Isaiah is fully back. After that, they might break even. Next year, if the Cavs still have that lotto pick, they might even be better long-term.

The problem will always be Kyrie forced a different time table than a veteran team would ideally want. It's a kick to the crotch the Warriors didn't have to endure, and if Kyrie wasn't a pussy neither team would have had to endure.

But Kyrie being a cunthole, we get to wait it out and see. But the Cavs we saw tonight? Never believe this is the best they got in them.

 

[fan0283]

His offense cant be judged yet but the biggest bummer for me is his defense. Watch him off the ball, he's yet another guy with poor defensive awareness and instincts. Originally thought it was just his physical limitations.

 

[PIP]

IT on the court reminds me of Lil Sweet..

https://youtu.be/-1H_CaCR46M

 

[billmac91]

I thought at moments last night, our offense looked amazing. I think IT3 needs a bit more time to find his rhythm, and he's still getting into shape.

We fell apart in the second half, not surprisingly when IT3 seemed to slow down. He missed a lot of second half shots that were in his wheelhouse in 2016.

I know I'm in the minority, but I came away pleasantly surprised in that loss. I thought we played them even, even looked better, throughout the first half.

The glaring weakness (defense) is something the FO will have to figure out. Obviously Kevin Love as your rim protector is asking to give up a ton of easy points at the rim. And it was a lay-up line again last night. If they're committed, to Love starting at the 5, I think you at least need a menacing rim protector off the bench that can be inserted based off what is happening situationally throughout the game. I just don't know how much you can give away, for a guy who likely comes off the bench....

Tristan just isn't that guy anymore. He plays Below the rim, terrible at finishing, and even when he does grab you that one of two offensive rebounds, it's offset by his lack of protection on the other end.

 

[inliner311]

I thought at moments last night, our offense looked amazing. I think IT3 needs a bit more time to find his rhythm, and he's still getting into shape.

We fell apart in the second half, not surprisingly when IT3 seemed to slow down. He missed a lot of second half shots that were in his wheelhouse in 2016.

I know I'm in the minority, but I came away pleasantly surprised in that loss. I thought we played them even, even looked better, throughout the first half.

The glaring weakness (defense) is something the FO will have to figure out. Obviously Kevin Love as your rim protector is asking to give up a ton of easy points at the rim. And it was a lay-up line again last night. If they're committed, to Love starting at the 5, I think you at least need a menacing rim protector off the bench that can be inserted based off what is happening situationally throughout the game. I just don't know how much you can give away, for a guy who likely comes off the bench....

Tristan just isn't that guy anymore. He plays underneath the hoop, terrible at finishing, and even when he does grab you that one of two offensive rebounds, it's offset by his lack of protection on the other end.

I came away with similar thinking. The biggest thing I was looking for was if IT could play against the warriors and he showed he was up for the task. He gave us a glimpse of what him and Lebron could do together.

Crowder and Green did what they were brought for, to take the pressure of guarding Durant off LeBron. Which is one piece of the puzzle. Now we have to figure out the rest.

I do agree with the players who say we have a redundancy of talent. Outside of IT on offense and Wade leading the offense when LeBron is off he floor, we have alot of question marks at the guard positions. I've said we are a team filled with hybrid SG/SF and SF/PFs with not much else on defense. If we use numbers for positions, we are a team that can guard 2.5 to 4. We are trying to shoehorn that depth to guard 1-5 and that's the problem.

 

[billmac91]

I came away with similar thinking. The biggest thing I was looking for was if IT could play against the warriors and he showed he was up for the task. He gave us a glimpse of what him and Lebron could do together.

Crowder and Green did what they were brought for, to take the pressure of guarding Durant off LeBron. Which is one piece of the puzzle. Now we have to figure out the rest.

I do agree with the players who say we have a redundancy of talent. Outside of IT on offense and Wade leading the offense when LeBron is off he floor, we have alot of question marks at the guard positions. I've said we are a team filled with hybrid SG/SF and SF/PFs with not much else on defense. If we use numbers for positions, we are a team that can guard 2.5 to 4. We are trying to shoehorn that depth to guard 1-5 and that's the problem.

Agreed...

The great thing with IT3, was his ability to move the ball. He was able to knife through the defense multiple times, and create either easy dunks at the rim for LeBron, or wide open corner threes for Crowder/Love.

If I could tinker one thing, it'd be the insertion of Wade in starting line-up. Wade provides better defense than JR, and if one thing this new revolution of basketball has shown, it's that more ball handlers the better. I'm cognizant of burning Wade out prior to the playoffs, so I'd still try and keep his minutes in the mid 20's, but come playoffs, I want as much IT3, LeBron, and Wade as possible with Crowder/Green, and Love.

For the time being I'd insert Wade into starting 5, let him go first 6 minutes, then bring in JR. At the 8/9 minute mark, I'd bring in Korver for IT3, and let LeBron play rest of quarter as PG.

At start of second period, Lebron gets his 4-5 minutes of rest and you come back with Wade as PG. IT3 comes back with about 8 minutes left in second period.

This stuff isn't complicated....and I'd certainly want IT3, Wade, and LeBron to get more of a feel playing together.

 

[inliner311]

Agreed...

The great thing with IT3, was his ability to move the ball. He was able to knife through the defense multiple times, and create either easy dunks at the rim for LeBron, or wide open corner threes for Crowder/Love.

If I could tinker one thing, it'd be the insertion of Wade in starting line-up. Wade provides better defense than JR, and if one thing this new revolution of basketball has shown, it's that more ball handlers the better. I'm cognizant of burning Wade out prior to the playoffs, so I'd still try and keep his minutes in the mid 20's, but come playoffs, I want as much IT3, LeBron, and Wade as possible with Crowder/Green, and Love.

For the time being I'd insert Wade into starting 5, let him go first 6 minutes, then bring in JR. At the 8/9 minute mark, I'd bring in Korver for IT3, and let LeBron play rest of quarter as PG.

At start of second period, Lebron gets his 4-5 minutes of rest and you come back with Wade as PG. IT3 comes back with about 8 minutes left in third period.

This stuff isn't complicated....and I'd certainly want IT3, Wade, and LeBron to get more of a feel playing together.

I agree that the minutes shouldn't be hard to figure out. I'd prefer that Wade off the bench in his current role and IT helping him with the bench unit. I'm hoping Rose can help with keeping more ball handlers on the floor, even if it's just 12-15 minutes a game.

The hole I still see is a two way SG that can hold down guarding PGs to help mask IT. If we put Wade into the starting unit, asking him to guard the opposing teams best guard is going to be alot more wear and tear on him even if his minutes don't go up. I don't want to box Wade into just that SG role. The greatness of Wade on this team is his ability to switch minute by minute or possession to possession between PG, SG, and SF.

 

[kookoo]

I think IT had a great game last night. He started off terribly and still took some really bad shots. I'd much prefer to have him attack the rim directly vs pop up for a jumper but you can see what he's able to do. That one crazy high off the glass banker to end the 3rd was special and I think something he can do constantly. You can say if he hit a couple of his wide open jumpers the game would be different. Some of the huge positives are that he took a beating and still kept at it. Looked timid amidst Durant at the rim but I don't think Steph has any chance of staying with him so I think we can exploit that matchup.

One thing I really want to see more is Lue incorporating a IT/Love pick and roll or pop. Or just IT passing it into Love. We have not done a great job trying to get him into the game and I think it's hurting our overall chemistry. It seems like we're just trying to force Thomas back into the game, which is something Lue loves to do. He's the type of guy who tries to jam a puzzle piece into the wrong slot because it looks like it might fit...

Anyway, I'm pretty confident Thomas will look much better within the next month. He'll get a nice little break over the allstar weekend as well. This team needs practises in a bad way though.

 

[TitleTown]

The IT/LBJ pick and rolls have me very excited. I think IT looked good against GSW given that he's still out of shape and still finding his rhythm.

He'll definitely give us that extra scoring we need.

 

[texascavsfan]

The worst part about the Kyrie trade is that it made the first 2/3rds of this regular season not matter at all. That's why the Cavs got even value, they have to be clearly the worse team until Isaiah is fully back. After that, they might break even. Next year, if the Cavs still have that lotto pick, they might even be better long-term.

The problem will always be Kyrie forced a different time table than a veteran team would ideally want. It's a kick to the crotch the Warriors didn't have to endure, and if Kyrie wasn't a pussy neither team would have had to endure.

But Kyrie being a cunthole, we get to wait it out and see. But the Cavs we saw tonight? Never believe this is the best they got in them.

Alright, Keys!... Kyrie, pussy and cunthole are interchangeable as far as I'm concerned... Bravo, I feel you bro...

 

[Randolphkeys]

Alright, Keys!... Kyrie, pussy and cunthole are interchangeable as far as I'm concerned... Bravo, I feel you bro...

Totally appreciate the shout out. I do think "pussy" and "cunthole" have distinct differences.

This is pussy:

It's adorable and harmless, it makes silly mistakes and sounds, it can't really defend itself.







This is cunthole:

Cunthole ruins your evening, maybe your whole week. Cunthole has bits of crusty stuff clinging to it's thigh mustache. You have to be absolutely wasted to even think about cunthole.



I hope this helps!

 

[texascavsfan]

Totally appreciate the shout out. I do think "pussy" and "cunthole" have distinct differences.

This is pussy:

It's adorable and harmless, it makes silly mistakes and sounds, it can't really defend itself.







This is cunthole:

Cunthole ruins your evening, maybe your whole week. Cunthole has bits of crusty stuff clinging to it's thigh mustache. You have to be absolutely wasted to even think about cunthole.



I hope this helps!

Uhhhh, I stand corrected and somewhat uncomfortable...

 

[Cavatt]

They can't guard him. That was a big positive to me. His playmaking was crucial in the first half. He fell off and tried to iso ineffectively in the 2nd.

cavs have to run sets in crunch time against these guys. We saw some sweet plays that were effective in the first half and they totally went away from it. IT was bad off the bvall on defense, but did a better job on curry than I thought he could. I think he can play him to a draw at least.

I suggest getting Robin Lopez and focus on getting stops on GS the rest of the year, while getting IT and Love working together.

 

[Turk]

it's too early to bury this guy. I know most people here upset about losing Kyrie but it's happened and we have to deal with what we have. Gsw was not able to guard this guy and this won't change until June because he is too quick comparing to Curry and Klay even he did not play for 7 months and only 2 weeks after he's back, he still was quicker than those 2 guys. IT3 was able to find good shots but he was not able to make them but we all know when he's ready he will make them for sure.

IT3 is a defensive problem for GSW because they don't have players to defend him. Who's going to stop him dribbling ? Curry, Klay, Iggy or Livingstone ? none of them will be able to... and last night we also saw IT3 was able to find the right guy when he was contested and those all are happening after 2 weeks so we should be patient with this guy because he's the only one can make difference here. And everybody here is complaining about his size but he's only 4 inches shorter than Curry, get a tape measure and look for 4 inches, it's not a big deal and IT3 is much more athletic so I don't think size is an issue here while competing against GSW.

and I will make a very very bold prediction here as well. I don't think GSW has assets to stop Westbrook and I know he will bring his A game when they match up against GSW and if PG13 and Carmelo bring their A game as well and if the rest of the team becomes defensively tough, I believe OKC will beat them in the playoffs.