Niang?????
- Thread starter TDclones
- Start date
I was going to start a thread about this. With McKay on the floor things look pretty different for us. Seth Greenberg was right about Mckay hurting us in terms of spacing but what he brings to the table in terms of defense and energy makes him extremely valuable. Couple that with our poor outside shooting lately and there is some cause for concern.
As Niang said on the post game show though what it will come down to will be getting used to playing with McKay. I trust Niang and Fred will figure it out.
The only thing I am questioning is why isn't Niang playing inside more than he is currently? Last year whenever we needed a basket, especially at the end of games, we would slide him inside and he would get us one. Now, we never really go to that. Any ideas why?
I think he was making the joke whenever u look at web md u go from a stuffy nose to a terminal disease in 5 minutes. That site is evil
I heard through the grapevine of this person knows this person that knows this person that knows someone on the team that the flu is going around the team and named Naz specifically being one who likely has it. Naz lives with Georges so he could be sick or getting sick too.
Spacing may be an issue in the future, but I don't think thats the problem now. Niang gets a good 5-6 minutes to start teh game without McKay and he hasn't been doing much during that time either.
If we start to see Niang to well without McKay and poorly with, then I'd look at the spacing factor.
And thankfully we have dbags whose butts get hurt if anyone dares mention anything or asks a question on why a player is struggling.....from their own couch.
Anyway.....smh....I'm not terribly worried about Georges....IMO collectively we are not playing that well, not horrible, just not what we have come to expect or how most feel we need to play to hit lofty goals set by the staff and team.
But he certainly is our engine.....we can sometimes get by without his best, but we need it if we are going to go where we think this team can. We are fine.
Maybe Fred is trying to make us multidirectional with our seven man rotation.
Loved to see Hogue drive the lane. He looks pretty nasty good.
Hope niang does get it going. This team has not been finishing games well like we did last year and thats because niang was our closer last year n this year has been struggling
Is the poster who wrote about Naz having the flu serious? Georges really does look like he's sick. It might just be as simple as that. His fatigue is affecting his shot and causing him to make poor passes. I can understand the part about McKay clogging the lane for Georges but that doesn't explain why Georges has become cold from the outside and why he is passing the ball out of bounds.
Niang will get it going offensively, and I don't really have much doubt about that. He's too good of an offensive player to keep struggling. My issue with him is still that he's still a defensive liability, and I think he may even be worse than last year. Check out this key play from last night. ISU up four, 1:00 left. The guy Georges is guarding isn't spaced out at all, so Georges is in great position to stop this. And then - https://vine.co/v/OphWBWJ57T2 - he just does nothing. At all.
This - on important defensive possessions late in games - isn't that tough of an issue to fix. There was a timeout right before this play, and Hoiberg took one right after it. So if this is the best Niang can do, there's really no need for him to be in the game on a key defensive possession like this.
This - on important defensive possessions late in games - isn't that tough of an issue to fix. There was a timeout right before this play, and Hoiberg took one right after it. So if this is the best Niang can do, there's really no need for him to be in the game on a key defensive possession like this.
It looked to me like on that play, had George came over quicker to stop the layup, Forte would have dished to #20 for the slam. I thought McKay should have had the block on that one.
Forte made a nice play on that one. He was driving with his left hand for a left-handed layup. However, Niang didn't come over, which left room for him to switch hands and shoot the left-handed layup with his right hand. In doing so, he was able to shield McKay off with his body just enough to prevent the block. If Forte shoots that left-handed layup with his left hand, it probably does get blocked.
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That is pretty much what help defense is. Niang should have rotated quicker, and forced Forte to make a difficult pass in traffic, rather than just give up an open layup to a good player
