T. J. McConnell

You had five key players out in this game tonight.

Of course, I think everybody knows the most common ones were Ben Shepard, Torma Niscus, TJ McConnell.

He's been out all season long with a hamstring injury.

Johnny Furby's still out.

And I thought where you started was the most apt point that you made, you know, not to discredit Jairus, but I mean, it's a three of 12 night, the effort and energy was there, but this really comes down to you have Tyrese Halliburton as a point guard and nobody else.

And we've haven't had TJ all year.

And we've talked about how that has limited the amount of time that Ty and Nem hard can play on the floor together.

And, Quinton Jackson, I like Q. I mean, I want to like him more, but he's not a playmaker, and it just bears itself out.

I think we wanted to work through with Zubats, with Kelly Oubre.

We're not getting the full lineup to really feel that.

I mean, nobody's even played with TJ McConnell yet.

We've had four starting lineups yesterday.

As a small aside, I got asked this tonight.

So this is four injuries, right? Ben Shepard with the meniscus tear, TJ McConnell with his hamstring strain, Ivica Zubats with his ankle thing, and Johnny Furphy's torn ACL.

That's four.

If you remember last year, four injuries was the mark for hardship contracts.

So not having Jay Huff was interesting to me.

I thought he played really well last year and was poised for 10 minutes a game at least this year, which I feel like eventually he might get to that point, but Different rotations when Zubac was off the floor, running more of a small ball with Pascal at the 5, but of course we're still missing, you know, we didn't have Neesmith in the first one, we didn't have TJ, we still don't have TJ, but just kind of different look, but kind of the same paces, you know, you can't doubt them in a comeback.

Yeah, so the comeback was awesome.

Halliburton really kind of showed all of us what we were expecting and what we saw from him in preseason, but he really proved to all of us in this first game that he is who we thought he was and who we thought he could be this season.

Slauson was that, and I really think he earned nine-man rotation minutes after that game because he was the only one who didn't give up or who didn't seemingly give up or take the foot off the gas a little bit.

And I think you need that type of guy in the NBA who's just going to do all the nitty-gritty stuff.

And TJ McConnell has been that guy for us in the past in a lot of ways where he's picking guys up full court and wearing them out and taking charges.

and just a pest.

Your reserves.

TJ McConnell.

Brayton Smith, a guy that can learn from O'Connell.

Ben Shepard.

It's different than Sean Miller, who had traditional point guards who pounded the ball.

Nick Wise, T.J. McConnell, Mark Lyons.

He was more of a combo guard.

The best Sean Miller teams had a point guard, James Akinjo, who was the initiator of the offense, traditional sense.