Weird game. Under the circumstances, I'd have felt pretty good if we hadn't taken the lead but lost because we missed 14 FTs, gave up 22 offensive rebounds and turned it over 18 times.
Sidy was great. Start with that. He was just great. And we drew fouls and got Cunningham out of the game and almost got Thompson out.
Shaedon was great for about 40 minutes. Then he missed three shots in the restricted area and committed two of his eight (!) turnovers and looked like Kris Murray, not wanting the ball down the stretch. He got the ball twice where he didn't even look at the hoop and immediately threw it back where it came from. That was disappointing to see.
That left it all to Deni, who nearly had a triple-double but also was 9-for-15 at the stripe.
Clingan had another double-double, but it really felt like he didn't play as well as his numbers because Duren was even better, but, more importantly, beat Clingan for several important rebounds down the stretch.
In the big picture, though, this was probably the optimal outcome. We came back from 20 down against the best team in the East and made them sweat but lost, but many of the mistakes we made were by younger players being asked to do a lot and most of those were correctable. Shaedon needs to tighten up the handle and get a better idea of how to draw contact instead of getting blocked or forcing up tough shots when he attacks the rim, but he can do that with good offseason training. He also had five steals tonight. Deni will become a more consistent free throw shooter as he continues to get there. Sidy will add elements to his game, I believe, to maximize his effort. We were competitive, we lost, we will learn and we remain on track to pick up another asset through this draft, so, all things considered, I'm only mildly disappointed and only in the present.
