Jeff Green plays on TNT tonight

[balla]

10pm EST

[prhoya]

Thanks for the heads up!

[strummer8526]

How'd he do?

[GUHoya07]

I watched and he looked pretty solid. He showed some great moves on offense but struggled a little bit defensively at times. It's just a little strange seeing him playing on the perimeter so much, especially when he is one of the guys defending up around the 3 pt line in a zone defense. In terms of numbers he scored 13 pts on 6-13 shooting in 23:22 of play. He also is listed as having 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals.

www.nba.com/games/20071018/SEALAL/boxscore.html

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

guhoya2007 said:

I watched and he looked pretty solid. He showed some great moves on offense but struggled a little bit defensively at times. It's just a little strange seeing him playing on the perimeter so much, especially when he is one of the guys defending up around the 3 pt line in a zone defense. In terms of numbers he scored 13 pts on 6-13 shooting in 23:22 of play. He also is listed as having 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals.

www.nba.com/games/20071018/SEALAL/boxscore.html

I hope that zone defense is not PJ Carlissimo's idea of competing in the Western Conference - that thing did not look terribly effective - the Lakers just picked it apart with their jumpers everytime the zone over-rotated.

[Dhall]

guhoya2007 said:

I watched and he looked pretty solid. He showed some great moves on offense but struggled a little bit defensively at times. It's just a little strange seeing him playing on the perimeter so much, especially when he is one of the guys defending up around the 3 pt line in a zone defense. In terms of numbers he scored 13 pts on 6-13 shooting in 23:22 of play. He also is listed as having 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals.

www.nba.com/games/20071018/SEALAL/boxscore.html

I have to disagree. I think he looked very bad. Getting outmuscled and outrebounded by 2nd and 3rd string players from the Lakers and also unable to guard those same reserve players. He seems to be much too small to play the four and too slow to play the 3 right now - he also does not have NBA 3-point range, yet he hangs around out there a lot. Much of this is coaching and inexperience and the fact that he was also playing with reserves from a bad Sonics team, but he will need to get stronger and improve on some of his skills to make an impact in the NBA. Loved him at Gtown, but the NBA is a lot different. Good luck to him. Hopefully in 2-3 years he will be starting somewhere.

[kghoya]

i didnt think he looked good either...but hey its a preseason game

[prhoya]

It was his first game and he played like it. One of the announcers predicted that Durant and Green would go #1 and #2 for ROY.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

didn't see it but the stats aren't bad at all. I guess he struggled on defense, if he can consitently put up like 15, 5, 3, 2( pts, reb, ast, stl) i'd be pretty happy.

[NickSixers]

I'd like to thank PJ for playing only 6 players in the one quarter I got to watch (the third), Green not being one of them. Now I'm struggling to get through another day of surfing the web and reading at work and don't even have the pride of having seen Jeff play last night. Thanks PJ. Looking forward to a great year of your coaching excellence!

[hoyaboy1]

prhoya said:

It was his first game and he played like it. One of the announcers predicted that Durant and Green would go #1 and #2 for ROY.

Actually I think it was his 4th.

[rkerby15]

Yes, it was his fourth game and not his first.

[Filo]

Yeah, glad I kept it on until the 4th quarter so I could see Jeff. I don't disagree with some of the criticism above but I think it is a bit too harsh at this stage.

I thought he looked pretty good -- happy to see him being aggressive and looking for his shot. He will have to work on his 3-pointer, though - he had a couple of pretty ugly shots. I agree that he looked overmateched on D a bit, mainly when he was trying to cover Bynum in switches. But Bynum is most assuredly NOT a 2nd or 3rd stringer, and pretty much killed everone last night. It wasn't exactly a defensive masterpiece on either side of the ball...

[strummer8526]

It's the NBA. How often do you see "defensive masterpieces"? (Not criticizing your post. That's just what I don't like about the NBA.)

[Filo]

Being an exhibition game, everyone's defense (if you can calll it that) was even worse than usual, but good point.

[chep3]

How has he been doing in the first three games? Was this game just an off game that everyone happened to see or has he been struggling so far?

[SFHoya99]

Gee, four games into exhibition season.

Brand new coach. Two top scorers from last year gone. Two very young rookies to incorporate.

I think some slack for Jeff and the Sonics needs to be given here. They are young, not used to playing with each other and have a brand new coach.

[Filo]

Haven't seen his earlier games, but I doubt this one was much different from the others.

Yeah, I wouldn't say he was struggling. Seems to be the usual rookie adjustments in the exhibition season. (But I do think he needs to work on that 3-point shot).

[joey0403p]

i saw most of the game, but turned it off after the third quarter. Jeff didn't look good, but as people have said he is a rookie and the team is young. On defense, man to man he looked fine. But the zone they played was just terrible. The whole team looked bad (jeff esspecially - but i was concentrating on jeff so I didn't really notice others weaknesses.) I wouldn't worry too much about the zone because they aren't going to play it much if they keep getting torched like that.

As for his offensive skill set - I think he is being underused or misused. As was said he was hanging around the 3point line much of the game... and that is simply not his game. Secondly there were times when he was just standing there got a pass...passed it away and made a cut - but did not get the ball back. It seemed to me that the sonics wanted to give him the ball on the wing and let him make a move. But we have all seen that jeff is much better moving or creating of others.

All in all I think much of this is due to the new team, new coaches, new players etc. I think once they establish an offence (it really didn't look like they were running anything last night) Jeff will find his role and excel in it. It will take some time though and the other players are going to have to realize jeff likes to pass the ball - then get it back (if they don't jeff will have to change his philosophy).

Doug Collins was the anouncer who kept saying how much he liked both KD and Jeff. He said he wouldn't be surprised if they finished 1 -2 in the ROY voting. I like the optimism and Collins is respected in the b ball world (coach / announcer).

I hope they do a lot more sonics games this year.

[hifigator]

prhoya said:

It was his first game and he played like it. One of the announcers predicted that Durant and Green would go #1 and #2 for ROY.

They are both going to be solid players, but I have a hunch Al Horford might have a say in the roy honors. He already has 2 double doubles and missed by one two other times. He's one of the few rookies ready to step in and start on both ends of the floor immediately. I do wish Jeff all the best however.