July 12, 2007

DET vs DEN – VSL Game 4

AGAIN???!!! Today and ENTIRE ROW of #$*@s plant themselves in front of me while recording the 3rd qtr. Are they intentional plants of The Man? WTF???

Honestly, this game really didn’t deserve a write up, but I will suffer the task regardless.

Points of note: No Jason Maxiell Today: Go figure.

1st Qtr
Maxiell looked to be getting a rest today by not starting. No wonder, he’s been eating the rest of VSL for lunch. DET started this game off shooting fairly well, although not getting much from the reserves. Mejia looks to have a good start today.

2nd Qtr
DEN started this qtr being much more aggressive than DET at driving the lane. To make matters worse, DET wasn’t getting much out of their offense to start this game either. DEN is also drawing some fouls and managing to finish at the basket.

3rd Qtr
I blacked out this qtr as I was so infuriated with the pack of geriatric fans that plopped down right in front of me, that I actually lost focus on the game after having to pack up the laptop, camcorder and notebook and move 10 seats away. All the while getting the, “What’s his problem?” look from the RowHeads. Mind you, the gym is only at about 40% capacity. There are dozens of other empty rows they could have taken. At the end of it all, there was some back and forth, but nothing of note.

4th Qtr
This qtr was played as though it was just necessary. DEN is building a lead and maintaining control of the action AND pretty pleased with their efforts. Hell, they SHOULD BE with Lamond Murray, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, and Jelani McCoy on the court for their SL team. DET looked as if they would make an attempt at a comeback, but really fell short and took the L today.

Individual Notes:

Stuckey
Stuckey was a mixed bag today. He seemed aggressive at times and stagnant at others. Overall an average showing for Rodney today.

Afflalo
Afflalo wasn’t overly involved today. He didn’t look to be lacking effort, just not a ton of results.

Don’t take my comments to mean Afflalo didn’t produce. I simply mean that it was one of those games that players have where they might score 20 pts, but you never knew they were on the court. He did contribute today, but it came across live as a very quiet 20. Many of you know what I’m talking about when mentioning a quiet 20.

Samb
Samb has been equally disappointing this year at VSL as he was surprisingly impressive last year. You hate to say a guy can’t do something before he has the chance, but without weight training and improved reaction times, this may be the last we see of Samb.

Mejia
Sammy looks like he puts out maximum effort every time out. Again, he wasn’t a dominant factor, but he finds away to keep himself involved in the action.

Maxiell
DNP - Day off.

Well, this was a pretty dry game today, but I think that’s to be expected at some point during VSL. The overall talent level across the board just isn’t there and today was a perfect example of that. My guess is that coaches used this opportunity to evaluate the players individually as opposed to overall team/game performance.