Melo unloads 45 points on the Pacers...

Observations so far, mainly from Pacers-Nuggets Game 2 (Beijing)

Positives:
- Afflalo looks great, he really focuses defense, especially to rebound the ball and just stop people. He looks more comfortable catching and shooting in motion. From the corners, he should be automatic all season. He doesn’t always finish around the basket, but what I like is he keeps trying at it… hard and the right way. It looks like it’s his nature to help the bigs crash the boards, and on possessions where we need to shut down someone (like last possession of a quarter) he will do the job, he will get a lot of minutes this way. Afflalo is a better defender than Dahntay Jones. He defends you hard but not gets out of line. DJ is only effective when the player loses his cool… but Afflalo plays perfectly legal defense and just shuts you down.

- Lawson looks solid, aside of his off shooting, he’s hard to stay in front of and can almost penetrate whenever he wants to, finish or get to the line. Moves the ball especially well to the teammates at right spot to keep moving the offense. This will get him some meaningful minutes as AC can’t do this.

- Malik Allen is very active, just rebounding the ball, cutting, setting picks, boxing out, those are what we need from a backup big… he should take minutes away from Johan Petro all season unless Nene, KMart, Birdman, or Allen himself gets injured (knock on wood). His occasional 15 footers are bonuses.

- For the very first time ever, I saw J.R. attempt a turnaround jumpshot off a post move. If he can add this dimension to his game, he can easily jump his PPG from 16 to 22+… easily. But it looks like he won’t do it often. I wonder why? I don’t want to sound ridiculous, but when he did that turnaround jumpshot he looked just like Kobe. He has been a face-the-rim player all his life, time to add a bit post move young man, it’s gonna make you ridiculously unstoppable. His unselfishness and passing skills are as fantastic as ever.

- Melo was doing what he was supposed to do… but in this game he was fantastic. After DJ intentionally lowered his shoulder and hit him in the chest, Melo decided to school him… also intentionally elbowed DJ twice in the mouth but got called for offensive fouls twice :P But DJ tried everything in the third, didn’t work, Melo went for 17 pts.

Negatives:
- Aside of some defense here and there, Graham is virtually useless… esp on half court offense sets… He can’t finish around the rim, yet he still tries taking straight to defenders. He’s gonna get cut imo
- Draper is gonna get cut with Lawson playing well and looking ready to be at least 3rd string PG
- Petro can’t play.
- Why did Karl only play White garbage minutes? :(

DJ is dirty as hell. At one stage he did a Bruce Bowen and put his feet where Melo was landing after he took a jumper. Glad Melo showed everybody in Indiana what a great defender they picked up. Nene looks good. But they hardly gave him the ball! Especially when the Pacers looked like they were gonna run away with the game! Nene needs to be the go to guy in those instances because he draws fouls and gets a more high percentage shot. Heck, i still think if Danny Granger didn’t get thrown out we might have lost. And it helped that Melo was shooting the lights out. Then again, the opponent’s star player and Melo having a crazy shooting night wont happen too often during the season. Especially on the same night! But overall a good performance. Give Joey Graham some time. I think he’s just a little eager yet. He can be a solid contributor once they teach him what he’s on the team to do. And that isn’t to run iso plays for him and let him try score on his own.