Chris Wilcox & JaJuan Johnson Should Get More Minutes

That was my feeling when they got him and the season finally started. I just don’t have that much confidence in JO.

but id rather lower Rondos minutes (which doc wont allow) by a bit to avoid any injuries.

I’d just as soon give those 2 minutes to Pietrus or even Pavs.

I’d also like to see JJ get at least 8 minutes whenever he appears in a game, just to make sure he gets a chance to really get into the flow. He can be a point-a-minute kinda guy if we use him right. But he can’t be expected to be efficient if he’s yanked on and off the court in short bursts.

RA/RR/PP will have to play those minutes because they would run the plays for whatever squad is on the floor.

Looking at this squad, we have some great ‘around the basket’ finishers. Just wish we finished much better but I’m sure that will get better

I guess what I am proposing is balancing the Bass minutes more with JJ.

Again, this is not because Bass sucks. It’s because he offers more of what we already have on the O end: jump shots.

In spots, we need a change of pace to break the ice and get the O flowing again.

Now, maybe JJ can’t really do that much. I think he’s worth a try, but if he and Wilcox can;t shake things up on the offensive end, my conviction is that our defense will, once again, be nowhere near enough.

You have to keep scoring. And to do that, you need to score inside. Outside of JJ and Wilcox, who can do that?

And think that a certain percentage of scoring has to come from the low post. They have problems with anything that deviates greatly from their Platonic ideal form of what basketball should look like. They’ll accept it if the team is doing well, but panic when the team runs into problems.

As I say, I love Bass in a general sense.

But he is a jump shooter. He struggles to score inside.

Now, I am not saying that JJ is the 21nd coming of Kevin McHale.

I am saying that he and Wilcox offer a kind of vertical athleticism that can change the pace of the game and score points in the paint.

How often do we see the C offense degenerate into an endless string of missed jumpers? Bass is a fine addition, but he does not change the plot. He will shoot J’s.

We settle for J’s because we don’t have a true low post scoring option. Neither JJ nor Wilcox are guys you just dump the ball into down low. But both can move and leap and hit the O glass. They are showing that they can change the pace and help us break through the frigid stretches when no one can hit a J. We need that pretty desperately.

The last 2 years, we failed to win rings largely because our J-oriented offense went south so often for long stretches of time. If we don’t find some alternative ways of scoring, we are going to come up short again.

JJ and Wilcox are the closest thing to athletic, inside scoring that we have. Let’s develop them.

totally agree i just said that before i read your post that dont make sense to cut bass minutes hes way better than johnson, but still get jj a few minutes as we can.

No Way!!