Through his first three preseason games, Sixers rookie Michael Carter Williams has 16 assists and just 1 turnover. In Orlando, during summer league action, MCW averaged 4.8 turnovers a game, which was the highest in Orlando.
But Sixers coach Brett Brown wants Carter-Williams to play faster and even more uptempo, he tells the Intelligencer’s Tom Moore: “I actually think we can play faster and he can play faster,” Brown said. “I think we can get it out of the net on makes better. I really feel that’s where we want to place a lot of our focus.”
The risk is MCW’s turnover issues from the summer return if he plays out of control trying to match the uptempo pace Brown is favoring with his young team.
Here are some more links from around the Atlantic division on this Saturday night:
- Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony told Marc Berman of the New York Post that he took a “huge risk” this season by not having surgery on his left shoulder.
- Anthony actually had a torn rotator cuff to go along with a partially torn labrum, but elected not to have the surgery because doctors told him it would be a 4-5 month recovery because of the severity of the tear and he would have missed the beginning of the season.
- But now, ‘Melo says he “feels nothing,” as the twin tears healed themselves.
- Knicks coach Mike Woodson says he needs to see more toughness from Cole Aldrich, and that he needs to do the “dirty work,” tweets Al Iannazzone of Newsday.
- Jeff Green has shot just 28.6% from the field (8-for-28) through the Celtics‘ first three preseason games, but coach Brad Stevens says it’s too small a sample size to accurately judge, reports the Boston Herald’s Mark Murphy.
- Stevens thinks Green needs more paint points for the C’s, and tells Murphy, “Getting an and-one, an offensive rebound – something that’s a more difficult thing to do but with an easier finish. That can open the floodgates.”
- Brook Lopez came to camp this year at 290 pounds, tweets Pistons.com’s Keith Langlois. That’s 15 pounds heavier than last year’s playing weight for the Nets center, and Langlois says Lopez “looks massive now.”