Only concerning thing was Mann passing up shots after missing his first 2 early. Would rather he go 0 for 10 than 0 for his first 6. I don’t think his ankle is fully right yet, but it’s getting there. Prior to this game, he was around 33% from 3 in his prior 9 games or so. Gotta keep putting up shots so that the other team doesn’t double off him and clog the lane. I liked that Lue gave him some extra minutes in garbage time to get some good shots up and he made 2. Hopefully that carries over to the Boston game. Also, I do wonder if Mann is hesitant to put up more shots b/c he doesn’t quite trust Lue to stick by him and keep him in the lineup. The connector play and defense keep him in the starting lineup because he’s doing something the big 3 don’t want to do, but if he takes shots away from the big 3 and they get upset about it, he could be shifted out. I do think that for this team to reach a higher gear, it’s with Terance Mann averaging 10-14 points a game as an effective two way player. Hopefully, the team is working towards that goal.

Also don’t think Lue was patient enough with Zu. He was on the court when we briefly held a lead and then Lue took him out for Theis and we got smoked. IoW, just because an opponent has a stretch 5 it doesn’t mean that Lue needs to concede and go small. Zu finds his rhythm the more minutes he plays, and in that Q3 the Clips had something going with him on the floor. It’s a weakness that Ty has that you want to see him get better at managing. We’re playing Boston on Saturday and they have a stretch 5. Are we going to take Zu off the floor there and get pummeled by Boston the way they pummeled Sacramento? You’re not beating the best teams in the league with Zu off the floor in key stretches. In that game, Holmgren was scoring, but we were gaining ground because we were able to protect the defensive glass and challenge folks b/c of Zu’s presence and finally get some shots to fall at the other end.

Lue deserves credit for turning this team’s trajectory around, but his weaknesses are his weaknesses and it’s ok to put some scrutiny on coaches to improve from game to game as fans typically do with players.

We should be ready for Boston, but they played mad against Sac after losing that game to GSW. Should be a competitive game.