Monday, January 3, 2011

Rocking the Hurricanes

The first ACC win is in the books, and that's cause to celebrate. We have a lot to get to in this post, but let's start with the grades.

Nolan Smith: A. Bad. Ass. The other day in the comments, reader Jonny wrote his name like this: KNOWlan smITh. As in, KNOW IT. I love it, so I'm going to add a hyphen, keep the caps, and make this his new nickname. KNOW-IT was straight dirty last night, playing all 40 minutes, going 9-15 from the field and 4-7 from three for 28 total. It was like he could score at will. He had 5 assists to only 2 turnovers, nailed all 6 of his free throws, and grabbed 5 boards for good measure.

There was a delightful viciousness to his game, too. Several times, a Miami guard got up in his grill, and Nolan scored as though he was making a point. And nobody peacocks better than KNOW-IT. The way he bugs his eyes out and stares at the crowd as he kind of glides down the court, both hands stiff at his sides like he's holding something down, is just wonderful. His run of threes at the end of the second half had me up and shouting at the tv (granted, it doesn't take much), and when he dunked, my reaction made my mom look up from her book in alarm. So I guess my two main points are that Nolan Smith is my hero, and everyone's ready for vacation to be over so I can go back to North Carolina. One last thing: people need to start talking about Nolan as a NPOY candidate. We keep hearing it about Singler, and that's great, but Nolan's the guy who has a real shot, especially now that Kyrie is down.

Young Threezy: A-. Slow start, but he came back hard in the second half and ended up having a beautiful game. I continue to absolutely love Dawkins. In his second year, he's become a natural scorer. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that if Coach K turned him loose, he could average 16-19 a night. His shot is deadly, and it opens up his drive when defenders are forced to play up. I'm actually kind of annoyed that until yesterday, Coach K limited his minutes. After he put up 28 on Bradley, here were his minutes prior to the Miami game: 18, 32, 23. Okay, that second game isn't as bad as I thought, but still, this dude should never be playing less than 25 minutes, particularly in the few games after he had a huge confidence boost with 28 points. Ride the hot hand, baby.

Baby Dawk gets an A- instead of a straight A because of his defense. He's kind of a conundrum on that end. On one hand, he's got great intelligence, and he gets a lot of steals (4 last night) by anticipation. On the other hand, he lacks a bit of quickness. Speedy guards seem to blow by him with ease, and that led to a couple easy buckets for Miami. All in all, though, slow and smart is better than slow and stupid, and for a guy with his scoring ability, I'll take it.

Plumblefuck the Lesser: F-. You didn't think I'd just be effusively positive, did you? But let me put out a disclaimer before I begin: I know there is some disagreement about this guy. At halftime of yesterday's game, I tweeted grades (@SCurrSavesDuke OMG FOLLOW ME LOL) for each player, and I gave Miles an F. Several people took issue with that grade, and others have contended in the past that I'm too hard on him. So maybe that's the case; I don't know. I'm only trying to be honest with what I see, and what I see is an alarmingly poor basketball player.

In the past few games, Coach K has tried to get him in the flow. I get that, and it's smart. Some people thought he played really well during that stretch. Personally, I thought he benefited from crappy defenses and just made a lot of dunks on alley oops and fast breaks. And he got a few blocks too. But the Bradleys and St. Louis' and UNC-Greensboros of the world are easy pickings. I wasn't going to praise a guy for great performances against them.

Here's what I saw yesterday: Miles has an almost comical lack of coordination. He's almost never in good position for a rebound. When he is, he usually cannot catch said rebound. He commits really stupid fouls on defense, particularly after he's been out-rebounded. He's far too aggressive trying to block. This leads to more fouls, and leads to easy dishes for opposing guards. (The one time I was pumped up about Miles last night was when he 'blocked' that guy on a dunk...and then ESPN showed the replay, and it turned out he slapped him in the face). He cannot set a pick to save his life. He plays terrible interior defense.

Q: Why won't Miles Plumlee be consuming food between the hours of noon and 3pm for the next 7 days?

A: Because Reggie Johnson ate a week's worth of his lunch.

He has no offensive moves. He's more likely to travel than he is to put together a solid post move. The lowlight of his night came at the end of the first half, when Nolan found him underneath on a baseline inbounds pass. Miles made the correct choice to try an up-and-under reverse with his left, but he airballed the lay-up.

I get that Coach K needs him. I get that he's valuable as a big man. But oh my Lord, if this doesn't prove that he can't excel in the ACC, what will? It was an absolute disaster for Duke fans, and a comic tour-de-force for anyone who hates us. Am I alone in this? Am I making too big a deal of his horrible play? I'm really asking here. I want to know what other people's impressions are, because I feel kind of like a negative nancy sometimes. If I'm wrong, let me know. Maybe I'm in a hate vacuum, because my stepfather yells at him basically the entire game. He thinks he must have hands the size of my mother's. And speaking of her, she usually gets pissed when he yells. But last night even she couldn't help but admit that in Miles' case he had a point. When my mom can pick out a player's uselessness in the scattered moments when she pays attention, that is a problem.

Kyle Singler: B+. Kind of a quiet night for The Sing, but, as usual, the shots he made were huge. When we're nearing a crisis situation, you can always count on him to step up and deliver, even if the rest of his night has been iffy. His shot was slightly off last night (only 2-8 from three), and he seemed sort of lost in the offense, but like a Boo Radley* type recluse, he showed up when required. He also did a great job on the boards, nabbing 8 to help the Plumblebums.

*What about Boom Radley as his nickname? Sort of reclusive, very quiet, but when he shows up...BOOM!

Plumblefuck the Slightly Greater: C. A lot of the same problems as his brother. The difference is a few inches, a touch of coordination, and a cooler head. Mason plays a more intelligent game than Miles, and as such he commits fewer fouls and makes fewer bone-headed plays on offense. But he's still constantly getting out of position going for blocks, and his offense has all but disappeared after some great early performances. Coach K needs to start him, though. He's far more valuable than Miles, and he's capable of actually being good. Even when he's not great, like last night, he's the kind of player who can block 4 shots and grab 10 boards in only 25 minutes.


Ryan Kelly: B+. I'm loving him more and more. He lacks the size and strength of the Plumlees, but he's everything they're not in terms of court smarts and fluidity. He meshes with the offense almost seamlessly, and he plays with a controlled excitement that's really fun to watch. He's a very good 4 for the Duke offense. He would be a great 4 if he was a little better on the boards and could body up on bigger guys on defense. His inability to do so will probably limit him to around 25 minutes per game, and it makes us have to rely on Miles more than is healthy.

By the way, what's his Harry Potter nickname? Marion came up with it the other day, but I've forgotten and I still haven't read the books.

MARION ANSWERS: Neville Longbottom.

Seth Curry: B-. He's still not quite there, is he? I noticed, though, that he's never in the game for very long stretches. It's like Coach K pulls him out to punish him any time he makes a slight mistake. I know that's not the case, but I do wish they'd leave him in for a little continuity. But what really worries me about Seth is the shooting. From 3, he's been great (44% on 46 attempts). But from the field overall, he's only 37% compared to 42% at Liberty. When you subtract 3-pointers, he's 26% from inside the arc. That's really awful. Granted, it's a small sample size (8-30), but the fact remains that he's not hitting the mid-range jumper like we expected. Once that piece falls into place, he'll be fine.

Seth gets a B- instead of a C because he's an instinctively strong defender. I love watching him play D; he's everywhere. Also, it would be unfair to give him a C when the refs seemed to be targeting he and Dawkins specifically. Of Curry's 4 personal fouls, I bet 1 was legitimate. Which brings me to...

These Idiots F. Good GOD. Could they have been any worse? I would say I'm less prone to blaming referees than most, but these guys were horrible. And, to be fair, they were horrible both ways. But Dawkins and Curry got screwed over and over, Miles Plumlee could have been called for about 8 more fouls than he had, and Reggie Johnson got the short end of the stick for Miami. Ryan Kelly had one awful blocking foul called on him near halfcourt when a Miami guard bowled him over, and got jobbed again later underneath. Karl Hess was the man responsible for most of the bad calls, as he usually is whenever he ends up at a Duke game. Here's a picture:


I heard from several places yesterday that he stinks, and I have memories of his poor performances in the past. I'm not saying he's the worst ref in history, but last night was godawful.

Team Defense: B-. Terrible inside. Terrible. Reggie Johnson showed the formula for beating Duke. It was pretty damn unequivocal. On the other hand, I thought our perimeter D was pretty strong, and had a lot do with Miami's miserable three-point shooting.

Three more quick thoughts:

1) The lineup I really want on the floor is Mason-Singler-Dawkins-Curry-Smith. I realize we sacrifice some rebounding that way, but I really think we could run teams off the floor for short stretches. We'd also create a ton of turnovers. This combination only happened once, with 13 minutes left in the second half, and it only lasted for about 45 seconds of game time.

2) I want Reggie Johnson on our team so bad. We'd be unbeatable. He's quite the player. 9-10 from the floor, 5 offensive boards, and he makes his foul shots. If he plays like this for the remainder, he'll be first or second team All-ACC.

3) Thanks to bluefaceddevil in the comments for reminding me about the Top 5 plays and the subsequent interview from Duke Blue Planet. This particular interview, given by Kyrie to Nolan Smith, is hysterical. It's probably the best one yet, and it includes a discussion of blown kisses. It's amazing to me that we have players who are this witty and funny. How can anybody not love these guys?


Okay, moving on: there's bragging to be done. Singler was the Hot Potato yesterday, and he scored 14 points. Yours truly had the closest guess with 15, and I therefore extend my Hot Potato lead to 6 points. Can nobody catch me??? I KNOW BASKETBALL SO WELL! READ IT AND WEEP, LOSERS!


Second-to-last order of business: Jenn Hildreth. She's the sideline reporter for Fox Sports Sunday Night basketball, and I've noticed that her interviews are routinely pretty solid. It's rare that I notice, much less like, a sideline reporter (for anything but looks, if I'm being completely honest), but she seems to know her stuff. Her interview with Nolan after the game was awesome; she managed to bring out his funny personality and get past the rote answers, which should be (and largely isn't) the main goal of any sideline interviewer. Nobody cares that player X thought his team played hard. What's weird or funny or interesting about you? So I say well done, Miss Hildreth, you graduate of the Emory School of Journalism. I predict big things for you.


Last order of business: Commercials. I'm pretty harsh on bad commercials, beer ones especially, so let's take a moment to be positive: the new AT&T 'Rethink Possible' ads are pretty hilarious.

Disclaimer: AT&T is the epitome of corporate evil. They're the largest lobbying group in Washington, by far, and one of their main goals now is to oppose net neutrality. They want to make us have to pay for fast internet, and create preferred user paths so poor bastards like you and I (I'm assuming you're poor too. If not, congrats!) will be cast back into the DSL stone age if we don't want to fork over a pretty penny. And let's face it, we'll have to fork over that pretty penny. Slow internet sucks, and so does AT&T.

THAT BEING SAID. These two commercials are pretty great. The guy's expression at the end of this one cracks me up. He is too cool for school:


And I dug this one too:


That will do it for today. Happy Monday, happy ACC win.

17 comments:

  1. Can't wait to see how I did, though it was really interesting to see how things looked back on 12/11!

    Two great nicknames in "KNOW-IT" Smith and "Boom Radley" Singler - I likes very much.

    Dre may be outgrowing "Young Threezy" in skill set and maturity (though I love that moniker). He keeps growing his game the way he is, I suggest we go with "Dagger Beast" or "Dagger Beast Dre." That's if he continues using his "move 'em out with the three, go around 'em for the jumper" possession sequence.

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  2. Thanks for the shout out. It made me feel better after having to accept that I keep slowing creeping down the hot potato standings.

    As for Karl Hess, I can remember being in Cameron as a student and groaning every time that guy was at the game. One of those dudes that seems to hold grudges and take shit way too personally.

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  3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o51X7xXNZsU
    This DBP interview is a must-watch!

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  4. READ IT AND WEEP, LOSERS!

    Is is me or does your spreadsheet have you in 11th place?

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  5. Anon, you're right, I made a mistake and didn't save the new standings. I am on this.

    Jonny, more and more I'm hearing the same thing about Hess. Egomaniac refs are my least favorite things in the world.

    BFD - DBP is such a great site. We're really lucky to have those guys.

    Dan - I like those names, and you're right, the tragedy of the baby-face type nicknames is that he's growing out of them.

    -Shane

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  6. (1) I cannot find the words to express how much I love Nolan and Kyrie. How can they be so much more awesome than everyone else who walks the Earth? I don't know, but I love them.

    (2) I agree about Miles -- he gets wayyyy too much credit for a few dunks on crappy, small teams, and then sucks it up in every other situation. I don't understand how someone with his size and his vertical can be so bad. That said, it is always scary to doubt a Duke big man because of the big F U that was Zoubs-turn-around-2010. But, Zoubs had injuries and Miles has no excuse.

    One final thought on this: I love Nolan for having faith in his teammates, but why does he keep feeding it to Miles?!? He CANNOT catch it! At least he cannot catch it unless it's above the rim. Miles and Mason need to find some way to define themselves outside of the Plumlee Bros. dunking company -- rebounding, scoring, defense, blocks, ANYTHING ELSE!!!

    Thanks for the invitation to rant about Miles -- it gives my husband a break from hearing it :)

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  7. Jo, no problem, and thanks for confirming. And yes, I forgot to add that...it DRIVES ME NUTS when they pass in the post to him. It's literally the worst scoring option on the floor. They'd be better off bouncing it off Reggie Johnson's head and hoping it went in the hoop. To actively seek him out for offensive production is maddening.

    As to your point 2, I think Duke fans have a tendency to be wayyyy too optimistic. It's the only thing that can explain people raving about Plumlee against scrub teams when all he did was convert open dunks. Too many rosy-eyed supporters.

    blueface, I put that interview in the post. Absolutely hysterical. I'll be looking for Nolan's blown kisses next game.

    -Shane

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  8. My name is Tom and I'm learning to make comments on a blog.

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  9. Great article. Excellent calls on Dawkins, our interior defense, and definitely on AT&T. While we're on the subject of commercials, can we all agree that the goddam gifting of cars in a huge 25-foot ribbon -- whether said car is presented in the driveway, in the living room (WTF), or attached to a string of christmas lights -- has gone too far? What's wrong with a sweater or an f'ing gift card? We have to give automobiles for the holidays? I think I speak for plenty of people when I say that I'd like to take a dump on the December to Remember, Hyundai Holidays, The Season of Reason, and the Cadillac Holiday Event. One last thing, if I ever meet the dude who has incessantly remarked "Let's be honest. No one ever wished for a SMALLER holiday gift..." in a dark alley, it's not going to be pretty. That is all. Sorry for venting. Keep writing!

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  10. Ouch! Ryan isn't Neville-level geeky, my goodness. If we must hand out Harry Potter nicknames, then KSing is totally The Tallest Weasley Brother. I've been calling him that ever since I saw him in his Hogwarts sweater at the 2009 Banquet.

    I still think you're too hard on Miles. *shrug* I'm not saying he deserved an A or anything, I just think he's not as bad as you're making him out to be. If we could just find a way to secretly put some Stickum on his hands so he could hang onto a few more rebounds, I think he'd be alright. I certainly don't see him doing that much worse than his brother, most of the time.

    (But seriously, don't they do drills where they practice hanging onto rebounds?! Because it's not just Miles, it's the whole effing team that has butterfingers this season.)

    I can't stand Jenn Hildreth. Haven't liked her since she did a feature story on JJ back in 2006. I find her obnoxious. Any interviewer who asks questions longer than the likely answers annoys me, particularly when said questions are being asked in a raucous atmosphere to begin with. She just gets all up in her subjects' faces and shouts at them. Ugh.

    One thing you and I can agree on, however, is that Dre is tearing it up. I absolutely love watching that kid. I said on my blog recently that I wanted to see him continue to come off the bench for now, because he's such a spark when he hits the court, and I still believe that to be the case. It reminds me of when Jon was the sixth man during his sophomore year.

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  11. Yes! Thanks Marion, I've updated.

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  12. Hilarious commercial rant in comments above

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  13. Agreed with above, great work anon commenter.

    Lara, Miles Plumlee may tear us apart. I'll have to see more of Jenn Hildreth, but I can't give ground on StumblePlum.

    -Shane

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  14. Dylan, great to see you've pulled ahead of Mr. Intrigue and Carrie! (see what I did there, Shane?).

    OK, on top of all these funny comments, "Tom test" was hysterical. I hope we get to see his entire "learn how to use the interweb" sequence live, on this blog.

    DBP has figured out that only 1/2 the clip need be the top 5 plays, saving the back half for the simply incredible interviews (also, I'm not sure how Kyrie got my hat, but I want it back!). Funny, funny kids. Great tweets. Great interviews. Great role models for my sons.

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  15. I compared him to Neville (the movie version of the character) not because I think he is geeky but because as his awesomeness on the court steadily improves, so does his gawkiness.

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