Al Horford Finally Responds to the Many Haters

Good game Al. Do I still want you on this basketball team? Absolutely not. However, I do appreciate you playing well in front of your future team so they will absolutely, most definitely, positively agree to this very fair trade.

All jokes aside, a +41 is unbelievably impressive and he definitely passed the eye test as well last night. He was rebounding and he was getting timely buckets, but what I really noticed about last night with Horford was his passing. One thing that we were looking forward to this offseason was adding a big who has such a good eye for finding the open man. Al has normally been an excellent passer in his career but last night was one of the first games this year that we really saw this on display. Along with Al, fellow max player Tobias Harris also stepped the fuck up.

He has been getting a ton of shit as well this year, but honestly he's been a good player. We just haven't seen enough of the alpha mentality out of Tobi that we were hoping he'd develop with his second year on the team. There was one play last night that really caught my attention though. 

The Kings cut a 20 point deficit to 6 in a 4 minute stretch and had completely taken over the momentum of the game. Tobi demanded the ball here and made up his mind that he was going to get a bucket and stop this run. This is the exact sort of play that elite guys need to do in the NBA. It was a tough bucket fading away in a pivotal moment of the game. It ended the Kings confidence and allowed us to push the game back to a blow out. It's not a play that will go viral on twitter but it's one of the better buckets Tobi has gotten all year. 

We are learning a lot about this team right now. We are learning that we have guys on this bench that are bucket getters. Alec Burks absolutely has the ability to jumpstart a bench unit.

Mike Scott is back to getting buckets.

Fuck, even Raul Neto was making shots last night…I take it back. I do not want Raul Neto getting meaningful minutes down the stretch of the season. Nonetheless, I've said this before, but I do think that injuries to teams can be positive. It allows players to gain confidence in their game. Shake Milton is obviously the perfect example

I love Shake. He is playing out of his fucking mind right now and I know it's not sustainable but I fucking love this man. I am so happy that he got this opportunity because he is legit. He can dribble, he can pass, and he is lights out when shooting an open three, which is not easy to find in South Philly these days. I'm worried that Brett does not view him the same way as I do because there were moments in the game yesterday where Brett just completely went away from him, even when he looked like the best player on the court.

Whatever. Great win for the boys last night. Lets' go take down born-again Steph and the Warriors tomorrow night. I would be ecstatic with a 2-2 finish on this road trip.