Be warned! The tie will return.
About the only negative I could take from last nights game was the (in my opinion) horrendous tie Bob Weiss decided to wear for a nationally televised game. Several million viewers were treated to an outstanding offensive game and several glowing spots floating on the coach's chest.
When asked about the tie Weiss advised that the Houston Rockets cheerleaders hold an annual contest for the tie of the year. That tie actually won him the award one year. Unfortunately Bob values wins and the Houston cheerleaders more than my opinion and will be wearing the tie to the next game in hopes of continuing the winning streak.
Not too much insight from practice as Weiss was the only person we got a chance to speak with. He did have a lot to say about Flip Murray.
“Flip came ready to play, he just had it going.†Said Weiss.
I asked Weiss whether he encouraged Murray’s style of play on offense, penetrating first and playmaking second.
“The way you create as a point guard is that you make them come to you and then you make the basketball play. They’re not going to just leave you alone. A lot of the time you have to create a mismatch, you have to create a hole in the defense and then you create an assist.†He said.
Weiss was “only a couple seconds away†from re-inserting Luke Ridnour in the fourth quarter when Murray nailed a contested jumper with seconds remaining on the shot clock. At that point he decided to go with the hot hand.
We also talked about Rashard Lewis and where he sits among the league’s upper echelon players. Weiss acknowledged that Lewis was probably playing at a level above last years and was definitely an all-star caliber player.
In regards to Danny Fortson Weiss stated that he probably deserved the second technical foul, but not the first. I asked him if the ejection was worth it considering the psychological toll that Fortson’s antics took on Cleveland center Zidrunis Ilgauskis. While Weiss would not acknowledge that it was a pretty good trade off for our team he didn’t seem worried about the ejection and praised Fortson and the other Sonics bigs for their harassment of Ilgauskis.
Let’s just say that spirits were good and the team upbeat for the day.