It’s New Years Day, I’ve been busy packing the house since I’m moving this month, so understandably I missed news throughout the day. I won’t lie, I packed a couple plates and then had an extended FIFA session where I got crushed. Honestly, it’s my defense. I can’t seem to tackle people, which is a big problem when playing soccer. See, whenever I activate my defender I end up taking him away from the ball which also is a bit of an issue when you’re trying to stop the guy from scoring.
I’ve even played a few readers of this site now, and I think they’re just being nice to me and only beating me 2-1. I swear, I used to be awesome at this game in 2005 before EA changes the player movement controllers from digital to analog, but that’s another story.
There’s also this couch I own. It’s been used a lot so it’s go that curvature in there where only the middle spot is comfortable and if I even use the left or right spots, BOOM! Back ache. This brings me back to FIFA because nothing is worse than losing 4-1 in the first half and having your back hurt with tons of things that need to be packed just staring back at you.
I checked out some couches online and good one, like a proper couch, runs you upwards of $3000. I’m not joking, that’s what a good couch costs. Prove me wrong and you better not send me a link to Craigslist where some dude with a neck-beard is selling me a stained couch which he may or may not have pissed on (he totally did).
I better get to the point of this post which is DeMar DeRozan, who finally had a full practice and whose return is anticipated:
As well, DeMar DeRozan went through his first full practice today since his injury. Likely to return at some point on upcoming home stand.
— Eric Koreen (@ekoreen) January 1, 2015
Koreen also wrote a piece about this and you should read it. The only additional thoughts that I might add that the article didn’t mention is that the assists without DeRozan have gone up from 19.6 to 22.1. Even though we miss DeRozan’s FTs born mostly out of isolation-drives (down in 7 FTAs), it has resulted in a more socialist offense, and we’ve seen the emergence of Terrence Ross as a ball-handler and attacker (granted, he still hates contact).
We’ve seen some good things from this team without DeRozan in the lineup, and the real pressure here isn’t on DeRozan to return to being a 20-point scorer, but for Dwane Casey to maintain the balance of DeRozan’s scoring, while still boosting Ross’s role. One shouldn’t come at the expense of another, because at the end of the day this team’s future is all about organic development and Ross’s production could be the difference between a playoff exit and a playoff run.
Back to clutch offense, though, consider these stats in “clutch” offense, which is the last five minutes of a game with the score being within 5 points:
| Off Rtg | Def Rtg | Reb % | TS % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| With DeRozan | 144.5 | 106.7 | 86.7 | 65.6 |
| Without DeRozan | 85.6 | 105.3 | 61.9 | 45.1 |
Those are some insane numbers, man. I mean, look at that offensive rating! We are struggling without him when it counts. We’re even worse defensively as a team, which is a little surprising as well.
So yeah, let’s look forward to DeRozan’s return, and more importantly to how Casey handles it. Back to FIFA, er, I mean packing.
