In Reply to: Game thoughts posted by Cachorro on November 03, 2026 at 09:24:23
We used our depth well in first half. Not so much in second half. We are deep and athletic. First half we played 9 players major minutes and ran them off the court. It was fast, hectic, chaotic, and a little sloppy. In that type of game more often than not the deeper more athletic team comes out on top.
2nd half we slowed things down and role players got less minutes. Our offense was predictable and we had a harder time getting stops on the D end and their size advantage started paying dividends (although Krivas had a poor game). Hard to make firm conclusions after a single game but I would think the best way going forward to overcome our lack of bigs is to keep playing fast and using our depth.
I love Perry, and he hit some big shots (and his free throws) but we relied on him to create his own shot too much in 2nd half. I thought offense looked smoother and faster in first half with Petty running point when Perry was on bench with foul trouble. Going forward, I'd like to see them sharing point guard duties as they have different styles and using both will keep defenses off balance.
Kusturica looks great. His shot looks nice even though he isn't making any 3s (keep shooting a few a game and hopefully they'll start going in). But defensively he is amazing (his foot speed for his size is fantastic - got a couple garbage block calls against him where he actually recovered perfectly to stop drives). And his length on interior can also help us compensate for our lack of 7 footers.
Props to Cronin and his staff for putting this team together. I have been critical of Cronin (especially for the Mara debacle) but this team looks like it has a ton of potential. Hope Cronin can find the right way to utilize this roster effectively, which is I think is to make use of our depth and play fast even when we have the lead.