Post by DERRENMATTS on Apr 22, 2019 1:37:34 GMT -5
What say you — has this team finally got it together?
I believe we have turned the corner, and we’ll only get better as each players owns his role. One of the biggest things I see is guys are not fighting against one another, but have fallen in line and are fighting for each other. With the resurgence of Hayward to his normal self, the players acknowledge the hierarchy is Kyrie, Horford and Hayward as the veterans who will lead the way, with Tatum and Jaylen the younger brothers who occassionally step up and take the lead. Rozier and Morris are background players who fill in when need be (though Bad Morris reappears now and then to try and play the lead role).
Its a huge thing for each man to know, and own, his role — to accept his place on the team and embrace it, and do his best in his role.
After 82 games, they’re finally figuring it out.
The disastrous team that struggled for most of the year finding it’s identity might have taken all 7 games to finish off the Pacers (or possibly even lost the series). We would have ended up beating ourselves, sulking and blaming each other. But this reborn team is finding ways to win, by doing what they need to do. Look, the Pacers weren’t a cakewalk — the hardest teams to beat sometimes are the overachieving ones who play with a chip (that’s how we used to be during the IT era). The way we lost big leads, and allowed the Pacers to be in striking distance at the end of games would have cost our old team a game or 3. But this new team found a way to sweep the rough and tough underdog Pacers who gave a valiant effort to win every game.
At the very least, we are not the same team we were a couple of months ago. Conservatively speaking, we are a team trending upwards and meshing like we haven’t all year, with potential to ride a massive wave to a championship trophy.
I believe we have turned the corner, and we’ll only get better as each players owns his role. One of the biggest things I see is guys are not fighting against one another, but have fallen in line and are fighting for each other. With the resurgence of Hayward to his normal self, the players acknowledge the hierarchy is Kyrie, Horford and Hayward as the veterans who will lead the way, with Tatum and Jaylen the younger brothers who occassionally step up and take the lead. Rozier and Morris are background players who fill in when need be (though Bad Morris reappears now and then to try and play the lead role).
Its a huge thing for each man to know, and own, his role — to accept his place on the team and embrace it, and do his best in his role.
After 82 games, they’re finally figuring it out.
The disastrous team that struggled for most of the year finding it’s identity might have taken all 7 games to finish off the Pacers (or possibly even lost the series). We would have ended up beating ourselves, sulking and blaming each other. But this reborn team is finding ways to win, by doing what they need to do. Look, the Pacers weren’t a cakewalk — the hardest teams to beat sometimes are the overachieving ones who play with a chip (that’s how we used to be during the IT era). The way we lost big leads, and allowed the Pacers to be in striking distance at the end of games would have cost our old team a game or 3. But this new team found a way to sweep the rough and tough underdog Pacers who gave a valiant effort to win every game.
At the very least, we are not the same team we were a couple of months ago. Conservatively speaking, we are a team trending upwards and meshing like we haven’t all year, with potential to ride a massive wave to a championship trophy.
