In a big ole celebration of Sacramento basketball all the pillars put on a good show, the crowd broke the noise record, Boogie kept his cool and impressed (especially impressed Doris Burke
), and Vivek aced his 2nd quarter press table interview.Unfortunately other than our Boogie/Drummond frontline combining for 41pts 31rebs.....oh wait! There IS no Boogie/Drummond frontline, because Geoff Petrie is a freaking idiot and damaged our franchsie for the next decade with an idiot mistake taking a 6'8" lightweight in TRob rather than the monster in Drummond. Ok. Sigh. I'm not over it. Never will be. But anyway, other than Big Cuz in there battling we just could never establish any consistency from anybody else, and Grevis and IT were throwing/dribbling the ball all over the arena, combining for a ridiculous 12 TOs as we were ragged as could be. Still, I think overall it was a good show for the city, for the franchise, for Boogie. In this case all fo that trumps the actual outcome.
Tonight the Consortium:
Bricklayer
Capt. Factorial
Spudfan
MassacheusettsKingsFan
Bajaden
Boxscore
Stats: 16min 3pts (1-4, 1-2, 0-0) 4reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Salmons ( D ) -- John continued his lengthy streak of contributing nothing, but this time Malone kind of made him pay for his lack of production. He only played 16 minutes tonight, which is on the low side for a starter especially when the backup at his position (Outlaw) was injured in the second quarter. He was forced to play against the much bigger Josh Smith, and Salmons actually held him mostly in check during the first quarter (then Smith got rolling). He hit one 3 off of a Jason Thompson offensive rebound for his only points of the game. I don’t know how much longer Malone will allow Salmons to start and play empty minutes, especially if Mbah A Moute keeps producing. --Mass
Stats: 28min 4pts (2-8, 0-0, 0-0) 9reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( B ) -- Thompson started the game strong by scoring the first two points for us tonight. He would finish the night with only 4 points and although there wasn’t much going on for him on the offensive side he still earns a solid B tonight. It would have been an easy A if he had been a little bit more efficient on that end. Where he really earned this grade tonight was the solid defense on Monroe. All night long JT frustrated Monroe by playing amazing defense while holding him to less than half his season averages in both points and rebounds. With our offense being so sluggish and turning it over so much we would have been completely out of this game if it wasn’t for JT. Being in the starting lineup has been a good look for JT and he is validating Malone’s choice to swap him for Patterson more and more every game.--Spud
Stats: 36min 26pts (12-23, 0-0, 2-3) 13reb 2ast 0stl 3blk 4TO
Cousins ( A ) -- This wasn't a perfect game for Cuz. Actually it was an ugly game the way it started. I thought for a while that the ref's were running a test on Cuz to see how much he would endure, and to his credit, he kept his cool. First I want to congratulate him on his post defense. I personally counted 4 blocked shots, but he only got credit for three. He was a real presence in the post, changing shots if not blocking them. Not sure what he ate before the game, but give him more of it. Cousins scored 26 pt's in 36 minutes of play, and shot better than 50% doing it. And he also added 13 boards as well. Yes he had four turnovers, a couple of them unforced, and at least one questionable, which I thought was a foul. He started the game running a pick and roll with Vasquez, but there was a foul before the basket. He then got called for a ticky tacky foul at the other end, that seemed to set the tone for the first half. He missed a bounce pass from Vasquez on another pick and roll for a turnover, but when I reviewed it, he was clearly grabbed by Monroe. But enough about that. Cousins was the best king on the floor tonight, and dominated inside against Monroe and Drummond, getting both in foul trouble. He clearly had both frustrated as the game wore on, which is the opposite of what I expected going into this game. I thought about a B+ because of the 4 turnovers, but in my opinion, this was one of Cousins best defensive games in the post, and in some of his rotations to stop the ball in the lane. In one instance in the second half, Smith took a long rebound, drove around the top of the key and to the basket. Cousins stepped out and clearly affected Smith who somehow got the ball to Drummond who then had his shot blocked by Cuz. It was a great defensive sequence. Offensively, the Pistons had no answer for him. No, I didn't like some of the outside shots he took. But if you end up shooting better than 50%, its hard to be critical of the results. Except for a brief couple of moments with 2 minutes left in the game, where it looked like Cuz was ready to throw in the towel, he played with energy and determination. I'll allow him those few moments of frustration. All in all, a very good game. Unfortunately, he didn't have much help. Cousins may be on ESPN's highlight reel tonight with a down the lane dunk on a feed from IT.--Baja
Stats: 32min 7pts (2-6, 1-4, 2-2) 6reb 2ast 1stl 1blk 0TO
McLemore ( D+ ) -- I will attempt to refrain form several very obvious notes I could make about the general state of our SG position, and instead just note that our rookie continues to rook it up. For the second time this season he maybe got over amped by a big noisy crowd and missed a chance to bring the roof down as he missed another big flying dunk down the lane in the early going. And in most ways, that was his only real push to matter on offense. When he finally did get a jumper to fall, Josh Smith promptly came right back down the other way and schooled him in the post. For most of the night his contributions were limited to being of a bit of help on the defensive boards and...well kind of that. He continued to have problems losing his dribble, and just even the slightest step or shift seemed to throw off his jumper. He had his lone little burst of helpful play in the 3rd, when he finally did hit a three, and late in the quarter he made a nice play grabbing a defensive board and making a nice outlet pass to IT for a layup. Only real reason he got the minutes he did though was because we lost two guys to injury, and Ben was less awful than Marcus. If things were supposed to get easier for him working with the starters, he's certainly not making it look that way yet. --Brick
Stats: 29min 13pts (5-10, 3-6, 0-0) 0reb 6ast 0stl 0blk 8TO
Vasquez ( D ) -- Greivis' good shooting night (3-6 from three, 13 points) was completely overshadowed by his unacceptable eight turnovers. Vasquez seemed to spend the first half of the game looking for new and interesting ways to turn the ball over - losing it on a drive, bad post feeds, setting a moving screen on a handoff, and finally violating one of this year's new rules - when Greivis went and stood out of bounds to avoid playing offense he was called for a violation and his fifth TO of the first half. You've got to know the rules, Greivis. He didn't start the second half any stronger, making a bad pass on the first possession. He then worked his grade straight into an F when he committed a traveling violation at the 10-minute mark of the third quarter for his 7th TO of the night. From there, things got a bit better, as he first hit back-to-back threes to get us into a brief lead, and then feeding the post heavily in the fourth quarter (hadn't done that since the first), including three possessions in a row to Cousins on the block. Of course, then he decided to go away from what was working, missing a dumb shot on a drive and then throwing a full court pass to the Pistons on a break with us down 11, basically sealing our fate. He did have three assists in the fourth quarter to make his line look decent, but it was not a good night. --Capt.
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