Aaron Brooks was scorching last night, going 11-14 from the field, 7-7 from 3, to lead the Houston Rockets with 31. Eddie Winslow carried the Memphis Grizzlies with 30, giving Chuck Hayes all he could handle.
Random Musings:
- The box score shows Hasheem Thabeet as having only 4 blocks, but it seemed as if he had 10. The big man was everywhere, establishing his presence from the very start. I’m not ready to don him the next Dikembe Mutombo quite yet, but I definitely feel he will be an impact player in this league, at least at some point in the future. The sooner we erase this stigma associated with the D-league, the sooner more organizations can glean benefit from its existence.
- Aaron Brooks did anything he wanted last night and this backcourt is beyond lethal, with Kevin Martin chipping in just 18. I’ll go into this in greater detail in a later post, but what makes these two so dangerous is that they’re essentially the same player (with some key distinctions, of course, chief among them being Kevin’s ability to draw fouls). We’re basically playing two catch-and-shoot shooting guards in tandem and they’re killing people, creating off the dribble and then finding each other for the spot up.
- Rudy Gay was held to 14 points on 6-17 shooting while OJ Mayo scored just 4 points on 1-6 from the field. Trevor Ariza had 7 points on 2-7 from the field; we already mentioned Brooks and Martin. Which team’s perimeter trio would you prefer, going forward? I would undoubtedly choose ours. Conley, by all accounts, is horrible, while Ariza has looked salvageable, now playing very nicely in the same role that helped the Lakers to the title last year. What about duos? Mayo is an absolute stud, but despite their big-name lottery credentials, are he and Gay better than Brooks and Martin? I don’t think so, in fact I would without a doubt choose our duo over theirs, but I wonder how much of that is my bias. It would be an interesting question to pose to the generalists.
- Luis Scola rolled along with 20 points and 7 boards, a down-game in comparison to what we have become accustomed. Not many more thoughts on this. I still would upgrade if possible. As a complementary piece, it doesn’t get better than Scola (hell, if the Cavs had had Scola out there rolling to the hoop last season when seemingly noone but Lebron or Delonte West could buy a basket, they would have beat the Magic). Still, to beat the Lakers, we need a hub. Yao is not a hub.
- Jordan Hill continued to impress with a career high 9 rebounds.
- With Lowry back, Ariza playing a more natural role, Jordan Hill on the boards, Brooks/Martin gunning, and Scola running the floor, this team is just a joy to watch. It’s amusing that shortly after the trade, as the team took a nosedive in the standings, some pointed the finger at Morey, short-sightedly claiming they had been vindicated in their criticism of the deal. I said we were losing because we did not have Lowry. On that front, it looks like I was right. I’m not one to toot my own horn – the point is that Daryl Morey is usually right; the team struggled because of injuries beyond its control, not because Martin was somehow a bad fit. Martin and Brooks are frightening together and the team hasn’t missed a beat up front.
