What the heck happened to Brandon Bass and our Bench?

[LB3533]

I'm not worried about Bass, he'll come around pretty soon.

[WeMadeIt17]

Well as it goes First I think Smith is a tough matchup for him. Also I think the hawks key in on him because teams saw what he could do in the regular season. Also I think the small ball lineups are hurting him cause they are working. As for the bench, They played well the last two games. Pietrus plays good D, Allen has I want to say 14ppg of the bench. Daniels I think has really played well for not really playing much at all this season making smart plays and playing good D. Dooling had a great shooting night last night. Thats the stuff we need from him. If he can start hitting this team is very very scary.

[BballTim]

Bass has been extremely hesitant.  Turning down jumpshots to just hold the ball or dribble into a more difficult one.

The bad hands we're more used to, but I had hoped the hesitancy was on its way out.

I'd like to see Pietrus hit something at some point.  He was so deadly for the Magic from 3-point range.

  I think the bad hands have been worse in the playoffs. Honestly, if he gets 10 passes to him, he's ready for the ball 3-4 times tops. The time it takes him to get control of the ball and get ready to shoot is longer than he has an open look for.

[jgod213]

To be honest I would've thought the J-Smoov matchup would've worked out ok for Bass offensively as Smith is inclined to help more than most big defenders.  I thought Bass would wind up with a decent amount of uncontested jumpers with Smith straying, but that hasn't been the case.  Hawks are closing out on him well.

Bass is at his best when others are going to the basket.  Last night the C's wings were content to take and make jump shots, which doesn't open things up for Bass.

[guava_wrench]

I always worry about benches on the road in the playoffs.

[CFAN38]

Bass and the bench have been struggling because of two things. This bigest one is poor matchups, the second is lack of plauoff experience.

The poor match ups are the big one. Atlanta is a strange team where they are both big and small at the same time. Horford is slightly smaller then the average C, Smith slightly smaller then the average PF, Marvin williams and T-Mac are above average SFs, Joe johnson is  a large SG, and Hinrich and teague are both average PGs. Smiths ability to close on bass quickly eliminates his open Js while his foot speed is to much for him to drive around. Steimsma isn't a good enough perimeter defender to play against most of Atlanta lineups. There length at 2/3 also allows them to close out on pietrus when he is sitting on the 3pt line.

[Senninsage]

Ray Allen is doing just fine, or haven't people noticed this. He's a major piece of our bench.