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[QUOTE="FireballPhil, post: 2002979, member: 553"]
Guard play is the missing piece right now by far. There are a few defensive lapses but that will improve -hopefully- throughout the season. Gillion has trouble seeing over the defense, and his inability to finish under the rim is frightening. Now sure how many he missed , but had he made the majority of them we would have won the game. But the blame doesn't lay solely on his shoulders. Howard has to seriously expand his vision. He often tries to drive, but when his plan is closed off to him, and he is unable to recover because he forgets where his teammates are at. A lot of this is due to size, the bigger teams will close in on him and cut off his vision along with his route to the basket. Against the smaller teams it is no problem, he just looks over them and finds the open guy. But if he is going to drive the lane he needs to do one of three things-finish the drive, stop and pop, or dish to an open teammate because he drew the defender away from him. Unfortunately I don't think this is a short term fix, unless he is told to stop driving the lane. But the result is simply passing the ball around the perimeter hoping someone will take the shot. Installing some good cutters into the offense will help here, something Roberson and Battle should be able to bring to the table easily, should help. But let's see what the coaches have in mind...they surely have a plan-they always do. We will get better. But unless our guard play gets a ton better...
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