To slightly edit the words of rapper Pitbull, “Hotel, motel, Days Inn.”
As referenced Friday, I spent New Year’s weekend making the trek to Springfield, Mass., with three close friends, each of whom sat courtside for the Armor’s home games against Iowa and Erie on Friday and Saturday respectively. Tek immediately became one of the world’s two biggest Armor fans (we’ll get to the other one later), Ernie managed to air-ball a free throw during a promotional contest between quarters, and Acks spent two days making snide remarks to everyone within earshot as is his custom. Great times for all.
The MassMutual Center is a nice place to watch a game: ample seating capacity, cheap parking nearby, decent views of the floor from anywhere in the building, a crowd atmosphere that picked up impressively during fourth-quarter spurts for the home team in both games, friendly and helpful staff members. My only issue of note would be that since the place is used as a hockey arena for the Springfield Falcons as well, there is a ton of empty space behind both baskets. That said, in the event that Springfield starts drawing larger crowds, it should be easy enough to place several rows of seats behind each baseline. While my eyeball guesstimate made me dubious of the reported 2,000-plus attendances for both games, it’s not easy to draw fans en masse as a 2-11 minor league squad. When the team improves, it seems reasonable to expect a jump at the turnstiles will follow. As for the skeletal versions of the basketball we witnessed…
…Friday night saw the league’s best team wait until the final minutes to pull away once and for all from the Eastern Conference’s worst. Iowa’s 110-99 win doesn’t do justice to the run the host Armor made in the fourth quarter. Though they had to play catch-up through the last three quarters, Springfield cut a 16-point second-half deficit all the way down to two in the midst of the fourth, and the Armor still trailed by just six before a back-breaking three-shot foul on JamesOn Curry with less than two minutes to play. Iowa had burnt the entire shot clock and barely got a desperation three off, but a trying-to-stand-straight-up Curry was whistled for apparently stepping under the shooter as Mark Tyndale landed. Ninety seconds and change of desperation later, the final margin stood at 11.
…Both teams involved in Saturday’s afternoon matinee had to deal with quick turn-arounds as Springfield had the aforementioned Iowa game, and Erie got into town after midnight Saturday following a loss in Maine. Heading into the fourth quarter of a tie game, BlogTalkBayHawk‘s Matt Hubert tweeted that the game was close if not good, which seemed about fair considering the abundance of sluggishness and poor shooting from the field. But credit the Armor defense for stepping up to hold a shorthanded Erie team to just nine points in the final period while riding another big scoring effort from Morris Almond to an 87-75 victory.
Feel free to check out the D-LeagueDigest Twitter account for retroactive then-live tweets from both games, and click through the jump for a myriad of other points of intrigue from two days at MassMutual.
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In spite of not playing a second in the first quarter Friday night, Iowa’s Mark Tyndale managed to come off the bench for 30 points in 22 minutes. This is ridiculous. To say Springfield had no answer for him would be quite the understatement. Tyndale did whatever he wanted, and he did so almost exclusively by attacking the rim. Against both man and zone (we’ll get to the later) defenses from the Armor, Tyndale drove right hard and had little trouble finishing at the bucket. He completed two three-point plays and took just three jump shots for the day, the third of which resulted in the three-shot foul that sealed the deal. He finished 11-for-14 from the field and 8-for-11 at the line.
I found myself especially amused by Tyndale’s second and-one, on which he careened behind the basket for an extended fist pump, then made a point of stepping toward the fans seated on the baseline and said, “Thank you.” After conferring with Acks, he confirmed the fans had not said anything prior to incite Tyndale. Good stuff.
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As noted above, Armor coach Dee Brown went to zone on a couple of occasions against Iowa, both early in the first half and down the stretch in the fourth quarter. The Armor seemed a bit lost in it early on as Iowa wound up with a couple of waaaaaaay too open looks on the wings and in the corners. The zone looked more effective later when the defenders were more active and forced Iowa into a few contested shots that missed from the outside.
Particularly against an Iowa team that has several guys who can shoot the ball a bit from the outside, which is what the zone encourages, the decision seemed a curious one on Brown’s part. His explanation when I asked him about it after the game: “It was a very difficult decision because they shoot the ball so well, but after they missed a couple shots, and it worked, we stayed in it. Iowa played five perimeter players [at times]. We’re never gonna switch up our personnel like that because we don’t play that way. You gotta show different defenses to keep them off balance. The way we were guarding off the dribble, we had to go to a zone to keep them out on the perimeter.”
Agreed that the Armor had a lot of trouble in man. Eventually, Tyndale got through the zone late in the fourth anyway, but there was a brief stretch that quarter when the Armor seemed best defensively in the zone. Iowa coach Nick Nurse seemed nonplussed with the way his team responded to it.
“Thought we got some good looks, and we had some chances to knock a few down, but we didn’t do so,” Nurse said. “It gave the zone a bit more longevity.”
Brown’s defensive strategy also brings up a bigger question about using zones in the D-League in general. Though the NBA changed its illegal defense rules several years ago to allow teams to play zone, it still isn’t seen all that often in the Association. In a league focused on development for the next level, how much time is worth spending getting players acclimated to playing together using that approach?
Though Brown did go back to the zone a bit against Erie, it doesn’t sound like he’ll be putting in a ton of time with it going forward: “I don’t like playing zone because it’s a passive defense, and it makes guys less aggressive.”
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Earlier this season, I observed that Taylor Griffin has been spending a lot of time out on the wings and beyond offensively. Chatting with Nurse and Griffin confirmed that turning him into a small forward is the primary goal of his assignment to Iowa from the Suns. Audio from both below:
Nurse:
Griffin:
It’s nice to get one right every now and then (not that I’m some visionary for noting a guy not playing with his back to the basket, but still, it’s better than being completely off target).
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You knew this already, but Morris Almond can really fill it up. He shoots the three, scores from mid-range, goes to the post when he has a size advantage and slashes to the rim as well. Two more performances of 34 and 27 points, the second of which was completed with a made right-corner three-pointer to ice Saturday’s win as he was getting knocked on his rear end.
As Brown noted Friday, Almond is facing more double-teams and efforts to deny him the ball than ever before, and the key now is developing the rest of his game, particularly his decision-making with the ball. Both coach and player stressed the value of better passing out of double-teams going forward.
Expect there to be plenty of buzz around Almond at this week’s Showcase.
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Highlight of Saturday’s game: Armor superfan Scott Darcy screaming “Much better than last night’s refs!” early on, which led to official Ben Taylor spending the entirety of the ensuing Armor possession laughing.
Darcy is a real kick. He hasn’t missed a game this season and heckles opponents and officials so that most of the arena can hear him from his seat in the second row. I look forward to seeing him and Tek duke it out for top Armor fan honors, though Tek may lose some points by not making it back up from Long Island again this season (but he has sworn to start watching the games on Futurecast).
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Both Erie and Springfield went to two-point-guard sets throughout Saturday’s game. I found myself less than thrilled with Cliff Clinkscales’ play. An 0-for-5 from the field coupled with another day largely devoid of penetration does not a great game make. Cedric Jackson is at the other end of the spectrum, attacking the rim with abandon, sometimes to a fault. He had a quiet 18 points in that he looked awful finishing around the bucket (just 4-for-13 for the day) but caused enough havoc inside to earn himself 11 trips to the line. With Donell Taylor no longer part of this team, aside from Jackson, the BayHawks are heavily reliant on outside shooting. On a day when they weren’t making their jumpers (just 3-for-13 from the three-point line), scoring proved to be of great difficulty.
Meanwhile, the Armor offense looked good with Chris Lowe handling the ball and starter JamesOn Curry as the de facto off-guard. It’s something Brown would like to use more often: “At the next level, he’ll play point guard, but he’s such a dynamic scorer, that you gotta get him off the ball and coming off screens sometimes. The last two games, JamesOn had 16 assists and 10 assists. It was good balance to have the ball in his hands and have him play off the ball a bit to look for his offense.”
Speaking of Curry’s assist numbers, I’m not sure how the 26 over two games happened. Definitely the quietest back-to-back double-digit assist games I’ve watched. He didn’t seem to do anything spectacular from a distribution standpoint in either game, yet the figures were there at the end.
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I would be remiss to sign off this piece without a special thanks to several people who made the experience in Springfield a terrific one. Nicole Hoffman and her intern Amanda Goldsmith in the Armor’s marketing and PR department were tremendously helpful in getting me settled in and showing me the ropes inside MassMutual, and Bryan Gamroth was terrific as well. I really enjoyed talking hoops and journalism with broadcaster John Chandler, the Springfield Republican‘s Ron Chimelis and CBS 3 Springfield’s Ezra Broder.
Thanks again to all of you. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I look forward to my next visit.
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We end today with the quote of the weekend, courtesy of JamesOn Curry regarding the absolute facial he gave Jackie Manuel for a fast-break dunk in the first half Saturday. On the last thought he had before launching himself toward the rim, Curry said, “Finish. I shoot those lay-ups, they don’t call fouls for me, so I’m like ‘I gotta try dunking,’ I guess.”
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Flying to Boise as you read this. Catch ya on the flip side from the Showcase.
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