Ok, well, I'll have to look up the last time a Kings team had 3 guys score 24 or more points, but this is a game we should not have lost -- we don't look like a less talented team out there anymore. And we at some point here need to have a serious discussion about Ben McLemore. Who seems like a real nice kid...who unfortunately should just be bagging your groceries. Seriously, there is a disconnect going on now. Cousins is busting his ass and ready to win. Rudy Gay is a vet ready to win. Isaiah , when he controls himself, is going to compete. The coach wants to win. But our amateur front office started hopping around like idiots on draft day when they drafted this kid, and right now he is just a really really terrible NBA basketball player. In fact he really doesn't look like he belongs at this level at all. And he didn't singlehandedly kill us, that would not be fair. We allowed the Spurs to score 112 points again as the mantra just is defense defense defense now -- you do NOT lose games where your top three guys go for 29-14, 27-9, and 24-9. You don't unless you fail miserably on D. But the kid is a huge part of that, and its just really unfair right now. Guys busting their butts, we're playing right with the Spurs in San Antonio, and then they are burdened, and I do mean burdened, by this clueless rookie who just obviously is overwhelmed everywhere on the court and making mistakes left and right. That's not right. If I thought he ever had any confidence I would say its being destroyed. But certainly any team's heart and fight will get worn down by that sort of self-inflicted nonsense. Yes, some pre-draft sites had him ranked #1. Then again, look at what the actual #1 pick is doing. He's not remotely ready. He's killing our chances at big culture building victories which is making me begin to despise seeing him out there. I suspect I am not alone. That's not healthy for anyone.
Your Consortium Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
and probably not Rainmaker
Boxscore
Stats: 39min 24pts (10-20, 0-2, 4-6) 9reb 2ast 1stl 2blk 0TO
Gay ( A- ) -- well, I couldn't really give Rudy a better grade than the other two legs of our tripod, but suffice it to say this was another really good game for him. Came out with a couple of good defensive possessions right out of the gate, which was handy at a time when the defense was otherwise splotchy. But took a while to settle into this one offensively again. Was operating more as a passer than scorer early, and in fact had both of his assists in the first quarter. Finally got a nice post move to go over Green, but it wasn't until he returned that he truly began to get aggressive, in fact at times too aggressive as he forced several tough shots into double teams rather than passing. Had a nifty play with Cousins on the out of bounds play blasting it to Cousins at the top of the circle, running in, and taking the return pass from Cuz for the dunk. And again showed some good defensive hustle getting back on defense on the break to block a shot from behind. In the third first Rudy, and then IT joined Cuz in the battle, and the result was an offensive explosion as Rudy worked the left block and baseline, IT had one of Those Quarters bombing from outside, and Cuz peppered in jumpers and drives. Got an amazing shooters bounce on an out of rhythm jumper, as the ball seemed to be bouncing away from the hoop and somehow spun back down. Started to really help on the glass as well, and grabbed a really tough d- board at the end of his 3rd quarter stint which he then unfortunately took up court and got a little selfish in not kicking it ahead to Thornton who was begging for it on the wing. Of course Thornton is just one of those repulsive smelly SG things, which have no status on this team, so I guess it was understandable. Took a few minutes to warm back up after returning in the 4th, but once he did began draining shots again and looked to have the best matchup as IT cooled right back off, and Cuz was having to battle Duncan. but as things melted down, barely got to touch the ball as we lost our head, MT then OT went 1 on 1, Cuz found nobody to pass to, so forced up an airball etc. As I noted above, with these kind of performances form our main guys, no reason to have lost this. Just inexperience and dumbness. --Brick
Stats: 37min 7pts (3-8, 0-0, 1-1) 11reb 1ast 0stl 2blk 1TO
Thompson ( C+ ) -- If I were to pick out one word to describe JT's game, it would be "Almost". He came so close to having a very good game. He started the game by picking up two very quick rebounds. Then on the next offensive possesion, he put the ball on the floor and drove past Duncan for an easy layup. He continued his good start by blocking Duncan's shot on the right baseline. He then scored off a nice pass by Cousins, and was fouled, for the and one. He then went to the bench at around the five minute mark of the 1st quarter, and didn't return till the 8:54 mark of the 2nd quarter. For the most part, his 5 points in the first quarter made up most of his scoring for the night. He did manage a putback in the second half, but that was it. But he had other opportunities. He missed an easy basket on a give and go from Jimmer. He had two offensive rebounds in a row with two putbacks that missed. On another occasion, he and Cousins traded turns on putbacks with neither of them scoring. For the most part, he played good defense. He did have a couple of lapses. In the first half, he lost Duncan for a moment, and Duncan laid it in. In the second half, he got caught in a switch, left Duncan open and he scored. He also rebounded the ball well with 10 boards, but to be honest, about three of those were missed put backs. Offensively, I felt as though JT was rushing things a bit. I also felt that he disappeared at times as well. But all in all, not a bad game. --Baja
Stats: 37min 29pts (11-23, 0-0, 7-9) 14reb 3ast 1stl 1blk 0TO
Cousins ( B+ ) -- I know he had a nice boxscore line tonight, but I'm not sure it tells the whole story about DeMarcus' game tonight. There are really three things that we need Cousins to provide for us: Scoring, rebounding, and defense. Cousins gave us two of the three tonight, and since the scoring and the rebounding are easy to see (and expected), I figure that if I'm supposed to closely watch his game I ought to focus on the defense (and defensive effort). Cousins put up 29 points tonight, but he allowed at least 24 points in return (it's not always easy to assign blame). I've got three occasions in my notes where I used the word "matador" to describe his paint defense - all three leading to Spurs layups on penetration. Considering that he didn't commit his second foul until under three minutes left in the fourth, and considering that Cuz is good at taking charges (as well as having that reputation with the refs), I'd definitely have liked to have seen Cousins try to step in there a few times and try to take the charge. That wasn't the only complaint I had, though. Cousins played very bad transition defense in the first quarter. On one play he went for a steal in the backcourt, leading to the lane being wide open for a Tony Parker layup; on another play he inexplicably picked up Manu Ginobili instead of Tim Duncan, giving the unguarded Big Fundamental an easy path through the lane for a layup. On yet another play when he was only up to halfcourt by the time Jimmer turned it over on the dribble, he inexplicably moved towards the Spurs dribbler in what was now the backcourt instead of retreating into the paint, leading to Aron Baynes getting a small defender on a layup (even though Baynes did miss). In the first half, and even some of the third, Cousins was consistently the last player up and down the floor going both ways. I don't know if he was conserving energy because Duncan isn't so fleet of foot anymore, or if it was something else, but he was spending a lot of time on the perimeter. I didn't start counting until the third quarter but I saw at least three non-fast-break possessions where Cousins hadn't even gotten to the three-point line by the time we had taken a shot in out half-court offense. Cousins' defense always seems to tighten up a bit in the second half, and tonight was no different as his effort picked up as the game wound down, but I'm not sure what that's about. At any rate, Cousins clearly did two of his three jobs tonight, but I felt like he didn't put in anywhere near enough effort on D over the course of the entire game to earn an A. --Capt.
Stats: 31min 5pts (2-7, 1-3, 0-0) 0reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( F ) -- Ok, I'll play the heel here: Ben really sucked. A deer in headlights, and looked completely unprepared to play an NBA game against this opponent. Check out the boxscore above. Note the terrible shooting again (and the non-3pt hit was a dunk in the open court). More importantly note the complete lack of anything to the right of the scoring columns. That's how useless he was out there. For 31 very long minutes. But since I took notes, let's break it down: Started the game just at this point predictably missing open jumper after open jumper. These are not hard shots for a shooter. These are not hard shots for a non-shooter actually. But clang, clang, clang, not matter how in rhythm, how cleanly set up, he shoots like me after a night of binge drinking. On the other end in the early going he was at least giving a notcieably improved effort guarding Leonard, and trying to guard Manu, but was just so miserable on the other end it was another night of a giant win-sucking blackhole at SG. Got stripped again just standing there on the perimeter, something that has been happening more of late as I think the word is out about his handle the same way it got out about Jimmer's. Despite the effort, Manu was proving too clever for him on offense, rubbing him off on screens, using that Reke-like Eurostep to dance right around him. It was sweet relief when finally, finally with a minute to go in the half Ben hit a wide open three. But there was no time to celebrate, as Manu went right down the other way and scored on him again. Blew another interior dunk thingie to start the 3rd, but stayed out of the way and did not kill us as all three of our guns went off during the quarter and we stormed out to a lead. Added his only other bucket on an open breakaway dunk during this time. After many minutes of wobbly Thornton action, we brought back Ben in a dubious move that soon went form dubious to disaster. Tried to make a pass on the move while cutting down the lane, but missed, the ball was knocked loose, dove on the floor, and ended up burning one of our timeouts. Just a little late on closeouts around the perimeter as the Spurs began bombing threes form all angles as we allowed another team to drop 30+ 4th quarter points on us. Still, we had our chance. With 3 minutes to go in the game despite our wobbliness, it was still a tie game, and we had the ball with a side inbound. At which point Ben unleashed a terrible entry pass that caused Cuz to cross the midcourt line for a backcourt violation. the Spurs went down the other way and got a 3pt play from Duncan, and we never did recover. Wanting to complete the impression Ben then proceeded to let Manu slap a ball away from him, and be late on every single closeout for the remainder of the game as the Spurs pulled away. So we have a shooter who can't shoot, can't defend, and just looks scattered and clueless out there. What I said both above and below this grade is this: Ben was abysmal, and its not fair to the other guys who are doing enough to beat the very best teams in the league. Nobody in any endeavor likes to see their good work spoiled by an incompetent coworker, and this isn't basketball daycare. Right now he isn't playing like he belongs anymore than Jimmer did 2 years ago or TRob did last year.--Brick
Stats: 36min 27pts (10-17, 5-6, 2-2) 4reb 9ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thomas ( A- ) -- I thought Isaiah Thomas was fairly effective for most of the game. He was very quiet early offensively (and in foul trouble). He didn’t even score his first point until there was only 6 minutes left in the 1st half. But his low point total meant that he was doing a little more ‘team running’ and Cousins in particular benefitted from that. It felt like they ran the pick and roll a hundred times and it worked more than it didn’t. His numbers tonight were a little inflated because of his ridiculous 15-point 3rd quarter. Seriously, that was an A+ quarter for Thomas. He found the perfect mix of passing and scoring for those 12 minutes. It was also the best quarter of the night for the Kings as a team. Things finally tailed off for Thomas and the Kings towards the end of the 4th quarter. The ball movement stopped (as the Spurs defense picked up) and Thomas certainly deserves some blame for that. He had 8 assists by the end of the 3rd quarter and would only finish with 9. At one point in the third quarter he had 7 assists and 0 turnovers. Hard to go anywhere but down from there. I thought his defense on Tony Parker was fine. I mean, it wasn’t great, or even good, but it wasn’t horrible either. Parker hit some tough shots that Thomas just cannot contest due to his height. I’m not giving Thomas a pass, but that is reality. He’s short. At the end of the night, it would be unfair to look at Thomas, Gay, and Cousins and put this loss on them. All of those guys more or less did what we need them to do. If you’re asking Thomas for more than 27 points on 10-17 shooting, 5-6 on 3’s and 9 assists you probably have your expectations set to high.--Mass
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