Just some food for thought. Let me get this out of the way first, Castle is my fav player but he is just in a huge slump at this point
. I was in denial for several games and finally came to the realization he’s hurting us at times. I was very encouraged for a few possessions at the start of the game with Fox initiating and the Spurs look better in the first few minutes. Then it went south quickly. I thought Castle had some really good passes as secondary playmaker without turnovers in the beginning. In fact, I thought he was very measured going into the lane and dishing out instead of forcing his way a few times. Hopefully that’s a coaching point going forward.
I would have said that that I'm a top 5 Castle fan up until the past couple of weeks, but he's starting to lose me. The turnovers, the piss poor decision making trying to bully his way to the rim to draw the foul. I can live a little bit with him not hitting shots, but he also stopped taking that mid-range shot, which I believe is a huge key to him being anywhere close to an all-star level player on offense. He is playing dumb. I don't like players who are trying to just draw the foul. Manu and D-Wade, I loved their games because they were looking to finish/score and draw the foul as a bonus. Castle's looking like he just wants to get the contact and draw the foul, not even looking to finish on some of those plays, and that's just not the type of game I like. It's closer to those foul baiters like prime James Harden.
I didn't want to say it as I was hoping he'd turn the corner and I wanted to believe the best in him, but in those workout videos where he can't even string a few shots in a row to go in, it's the absolute sign of someone that has zero feel for shooting the ball. Now, I did give him the benefit of the doubt as I thought maybe they've got the bad stuff on video (which actually I thought was really good if they showed that rather than him excelling and hitting shots) and he's actually able to string a bunch of shots in a row, but I'm not there to see the whole workout and his shooting, so I thought I shouldn't comment. I'm not starting to think there wasn't too many moments where he is stringing 5-10 shots to go in a row.
Wtf was the coaching tap thinking when that second unit brought them back and then totally despairingly keeping them on the bench. Absolutely gave me a headache. A bright spot, CB has given me some hope the last two or three games. Has really brought the energy and played very very well off the bench. He still needs some run in the G league though.
Exactly what I was saying. That was one of the worse points of the game. Those reserves played with energy and brought them back, the Mitch decides bench most of them and finish off with Castle who had done nothing to earn the right to close that game out.
It’s pretty obvious the Spurs success coincides with their shooting three at a decent clip. We were horrific again there tonight, and the worst of the season at the stripe. The latter point is unacceptable for sure. FT’s cost us a game basically. My wife looked at me as I was yelling WTF for fucking 4 FT’s missed in a row by Victor and KJ. TBH, I’m not hopeful at the deadline of solving the perimeter shooting issue. Although I have thought about going to church and praying (
).
I actually wasn't too mad at those 4 missed free throws. As it was happening, I was saying "good, you don't deserve this win." The basketball gods said no way are we letting you win this game when you've played this poorly and didn't put anywhere near the right effort to win. They didn't respect their opponent, the didn't match them, and lost to a team with one of the worst records in the league.
two days of rest
"We are just missing Vassell"
