The schedule has just been brutal. It would have been nice to have a couple of teams under .500 to play. It is an underrated aspect of the East that all of the good teams play defense. It just means that the offense gets blown up by good teams, and the young players turn it over while being unable to stop the powerhouses on the other end.
Really being in the Orlando game, Brooklyn, and taking Philly to the wire that first time were all good things. They even beat the Pacers, but they have been unable to generate any momentum due to playing Milwaukee 2x, Philly 3x already!, Miami 2x, etc etc.
How cna guys trust the system at all when it seems like it isn't working. I mean yeah, they aren't really executing because they have played more than 25% of their games against contenders at least for the East in Philly, Pacers, Miami, Milwaukee, and the West team they have played twice is breaking offensive rating records with a guy who just broke Michael Jordan's record. Lol.
I mean, which game did they lose they should have won? The one where there was a blown Goaltending call creating a 5 point swing in close game in the last minute against Orlando? The one against Brooklyn where they just fucked up at last minute, or the one where they fucked up against Philly at last minute? Maybe they should have won the one without Love in NYC where the Knicks were dying for a win and just so badly wanted to beat somebody where Cedi had to guard Julius Randle? Any of those wins would have been nice, but a combination of bad luck and inexperience meant they couldn't close. It's not just the kids either, Nance had 2 crucial turnovers wasted possesssions at the end of the Brookly game, and lost Aaron Gordon with Orlando. Kevin missed the wide open 3 against Philly.
The schedule shouldn't be underestimated, and guys on the board have been saying wins were really going to be hard during this stretch months ago. The odds of them getting better right now were pretty low and we need to keep perspective. Look at Atlanta and the Pelicans as well. They both expected like us after 10 games to be fun and competitive and maybe win close to 30 games. Well, the schedulers have decided those 2 teams along with us would have the hardest schedule in the NBA the first quarter of the season, in a season where I think teams as a whole are better than ever. Maybe not everyone is the Warriors, but there are a ton of really solid playoff teams right now, and even the east has 2 more amazing teams in Boston and Miami than they did last year. They want all the marquee matchups after football season, so they are beatijng the shit out of the bottom dwelling teams right now, and strangely all these young teams aren't coping that well with it when they can't get a break.
Kevin Love needs to think about that, instead of ripping on these kids when they get beat badly by the tallest team in the league on the 2nd night of a back to back during a brutal schedule that they have never experienced before. You are supposed to be leading these guys through this stretch. Look at Tristan if you need inspiration.