Kleines Trainingscamp-Update meinerseits:
Gestern gab es ein "thunder-internes" Testspiel in Yukon, Blue Team (mit Durant, Thabo, Maynor, White, Mullens, Aldrich) vs. White Team (mit Green, Westbrook, Ibaka, Peterson, Ivey, E.Millsap). Die Blues haben das Spiel mit 57:53 gewonnen. Thunder-Writer Darnell Mayberry hat ein paar Notes zusammen gestellt, die ich hier mal poste.
* James Harden, Nick Collison, Daequan Cook and Nenad Krstic were all out due to injury. Brooks said Harden and Cook will be reevaluated again Saturday, adding that both have improved after leaving Thursday’s practice after butting heads.
* The Blue team was made up of Eric Maynor, Kevin Durant, Thabo Sefolosha, D.J. White, Cole Aldrich, Byron Mullens, Tweety Carter and Jerome Dyson. The White team had Russell Westbrook, Mo Peterson, Green, Serge Ibaka, Royal Ivey, Elijah Millsap and Longar Longar. The Blue team won 57-53.
* Sefolosha sealed the win with a great hustle play. When Millsap had a run-out that looked like it would end in an uncontested layup, Sefolosha darted back and blocked the layup attempt to preserve the Blue squad’s 56-51 lead with 25 seconds remaining.
* The team has preached defense throughout camp, and the effort was good. The offense was rather sloppy, however, especially later in the game. The mix and match lineups had a lot to do with it, as players are still getting acquainted with one another.
* Durant’s playmaking was perhaps the highlight of the night. During the fourth quarter, Durant had the ball in his hands and orchestrated the offensive sets, bringing the ball up and running pick-and-rolls with the bigs or reading and reacting to whatever he saw. Durant set up Aldrich and Mullens for uncontested dunks and also got White an open baseline jumper. He looked much more comfortable with the ball in his hands, as he did in the FIBA World Championship. “Kevin is a terrific playmaker,” Brooks said. “Every year we’ve challenged him to get better in a lot of areas and he has. He’s come back a better defender and a better playmaker. That was the two things that we challenged him with every year since I’ve been here. And every year he’s improved a little bit. We expect another jump out of Kevin. And tonight he showed what we’ve been working on. Actually, all camp long he’s been a terrific playmaker. He can score. But when he passes the ball, it really opens up his game offensively.
* To those who are now used to seeing Durant score effortlessly from anywhere, or Westbrook look like a bolt of lightning on drives to the rim, Elijah Millsap was the man of the hour during the scrimmage. The undrafted rookie out of Alabama-Birmingham is turning heads in camp with his toughness and defensive tenacity. Millsap, the younger brother of Utah’s Paul Millsap, defended Durant for much of the night and constantly found a way to impact the game with his hustle and hard work. He had at least two steals and made things tough on Durant on the perimeter and on the block.
* Jeff Green at Monday’s media day promised to be more aggressive this year and he gave us our first look at what he was speaking of. Well, in the first half he did. Green used the first half to mix things up with hard drives to the basket and a few long-distance attempts. But in the second half he began hoisting one 3-pointer after another. To his credit he made his share, but that’s not what the staff is looking for out of him this season. “Jeff is one of our better3-point shooters. It was definitely by flow,” Brooks said. “We don’t want him to become where that’s all he is. Jeff attacks and gets to the free throw line and his mid-range jumper is good. But his 3-point shot, the last 40 games or so I thought he shot a very good percentage, maybe 38, 39 percent. But he’s definitely a big part of our offense. When he makes that it puts a lot of doubt in the opponent’s mind.” Said Green on his numerous attempts, “I was open.”
* Aldrich has been praised for having a nose for the ball, and you definitely saw that tonight. The rook always seems to be where the ball is, whether it’s on the offensive end or defensive end. If he can’t do anything else (and I think he can), that knack alone will help the Thunder win more possessions.
* Eric Maynor’s ability to knife his way to the free throw line either in transition or halfcourt sets is a joy to watch. Once there, Maynor is going to finish a play with either his patented floater, by finding a cutting teammate or a spot-up shooter or smoothly sinking a conventional pull-up jumper. Getting to that spot puts so much pressure on a defense, and Maynor is heady enough to know just what to do when he gets there. Maynor overpenetrated a few times, but even while going head-to-head with Westbrook for much of the game he continually got to his desired spot. Based on pure athleticism, there’s no way Maynor should be able to have his way offensively with Westbrook like he did. That says less about any of Westbrook’s deficiencies and more about how good Maynor is.
* Brooks said he was pleased with Ibaka and Mullens. Brooks surprisingly mentioned Ibaka’s mid-range game. “When he shoots it, you kind of feel that it’s going to go in…It’s slowly getting better and we want to continue that pattern.” Brooks also said he liked Mullens’ effort on the defensive end, moving his feet and using his length.
DM neigt dazu, immer ein wenig zu überschwänglich positiv über die Thunder zu schreiben (bisher zumindest), also sollte man ein wenig vorsichtig damit umgehen.
Richtig gut gefällt mir die Leistung ovn Elijah Millsap. Das scheint ein Kampfschwein vor dem Herrn zu sein. Der Small Forward verteidigte gestern praktisch die gesamte Spielzeit Kevin Durant und soll das ziemlich gut gemacht haben. Er selbst vergleicht sich mit Thabo, Artest und Luc Mbah a Moute, was ganz gut zeigt, welcher Spielertyp er ist. KD meinte gestern, dass wenn es einer schafft sich ins Team zu spielen, es Millsap sein würde. Blöd ist nur, dass wir bereits 15 garantierte Verträge für die kommende Saison haben. Bleiben also zwei Möglichkeiten, wenn man Millsap behalten möchte. Erstens: Man waived oder tradet noch vor Saisonbeginn jemand anderen aus dem Roster. Zweitens: Man spielt auf Zeit und parkt Millsap zunächst beim Thunder-D-League-Team Tulsa 66ers bis sich ein Rosterplatz im Laufe der Saison ergibt via Trade oder sonstwas. Ich will Millsap jedenfalls behalten. Solche Spielertypen braucht jedes Team.:thumb:
