Be pissed. Its ok.
If you ever wondered how garbage like the above gets published and gains traction, all you had to do was watch tonight's complete disaster of a refereeing job. the worst of it from our perspective certainly centered on DeMarcus Cousins, who put up an utterly ridiculous 33pts 14rebs in 28 minutes. Think about that. But who had to endure three so bad the ref must have money on the game calls, two of them on plays where he ended up on the floor, the last of them on a flying shoulder block to his chest. All three called against him. It was only the tip of a very deep iceberg though. We got the worst of it by far, but my lord were the calls completely random and idiotic. Guys would hack 1, 2, 3, 4 times, finally get called. One time Jimmer couldn't even take a foul because the ref was apparently going to make the other guy slug him in the jaw before calling anything. Next time down somebody would breathe on somebody and there was the call. Their bigs were flat thugging, ours were called 4 times for illegal screens, including the aforementioned flying shoulder block. It was really sincerely terrible, and it made the game a borderline sham. it also served to distract from the terrible play of many Kings for long stretches of the night, from defense that has just reached the completely intolerable level. I'm all for just forfeiting on out the rest of the season rather than having to watch one more King get blown by to the hoop. Still, had the refs, and on at least the first 2 terrible calls it was the same ref back to back bang in the 3rd, not whistled Cousins out of the game we might have own anyway. What's that pace? 40-20 in full minutes? yeah, anyway, anything more I could say about this would likely have law enforcement knocking on my door should any of these refs suffer an accident tonight, so I'm just going to turn it over to the Consortium for their grades.
P.S. If you watched any of the interchanges between Hawes and Cousins it should completely eradicate any ideas anybody had about bringing back Hawes to pair with Boogie. He's probably more likely to send Chris Paul flowers on Valentine's Day.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 30min 18pts (7-11, 0-1, 4-5) 7reb 2ast 1stl 1blk 3TO
Gay ( B ) -- The minute distribution for Rudy was really strange tonight. He was our 2nd best player, but it feels as if he could have had a greater impact in the game if he’d gotten more minutes which he absolutely deserved. In the 1st quarter he was rebounding well but wasn’t really getting the ball on the offensive end for scoring opportunities. He ended up guarding Turner and Turner got two dribble-drives past him for lay-ups and Malone pulled him after 7 minutes of play. Rudy wasn’t playing poorly but perhaps he wasn’t being aggressive enough to demand the ball, but whatever the reason, his first stint had him with a bucket, a TO, a great Pick-n-roll bounce pass to Cousins, and 4 points ceded to Turner. He got back into the game after about a minute into the 2nd quarter and came out aggressive. For a five minute stretch he scored a number of points and was strong on the glass. Unfortunately the last 5 minutes of the 2nd quarter he only got one shot attempt as Cousins/IT dominated the possessions. In the 2nd quarter he also let Turner use a screen to create some space to knock down a jumper, but by the end of the half Rudy was sitting on 11 points and 5 rebounds while only letting Turner score 6 points on him. The third quarter was interesting because once the refs decided that they didn’t want us winning this game by giving Cousins two quick phantom fouls and removing him from the game you’d hope that our 2nd best player would step up and respond. And Rudy did just that. For the next 6 minutes Rudy scored the ball to try and keep our heads above the water. The problem is that Turner was scoring right back on him. For a stretch of about three minutes it was just a 2-man game as they went back and forth scoring on each other. Finally with about 5 minutes left in the 3rd Malone inexplicably took Rudy out of the game. I don’t know what the reasoning was, but Rudy needed to be on the Court with Cousins on the bench in foul trouble. Rudy wouldn’t get back in until about 5 minutes left in the game, and as everyone knows Rudy should have gotten back into the game along with Cousins far earlier than that. Rudy only played 30 minutes in this one and only took 11 shots, hitting 7 of them. He was never in foul trouble. He should have played closer to 36 or 38 minutes and should not have been pulled out in the 3rd quarter as he was being aggressive and scoring well. Rudy didn’t get enough minutes or shots, but he shot efficiently and rebounded well. His defense wasn’t great against Turner, but Evans took 11 more shots and scored only 6 more points than Rudy, while playing 12 more minutes. So Rudy’s defense wasn’t awful and by my count he outscored Turner for the time they were matched together on the court. --Uncia
Stats: 20min 2pts (1-2, 0-0, 0-1) 5reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 2TO
Thompson ( C- ) -- games like this are hard as Jason again did little obviously wrong, but did just as little right and was replaced for most of the latter game. Was quiet again in the early going as he was chasing around on the perimeter -- a chase he, and we, would lose for much of the night although young did more damage against others. Again responded as soon as Cuz went out with a nice post hook of his own, but as per usual, its just the one play. He'll score nicely on a one or two matchups, but neither he nor we ever build on it, so you just get one hoop. I guess every 2pts matter, but... Did not stay on the court long as we went small, which was disastrous for us on multiple occasions tonight. Fianlly reinserted as the Sixers went big and double thugged Cuz inside, and JT contributed with a couple of big man boards. we weren't often getting otherwise. Accomplished nothing in the third, but did get screwed over by the refs on an offensive foul call after they chased Cuz from the game with more buffoonery. that was the last we saw of him as Williams...well Williams was a mess defensively but at least alive out there, and got all the late minutes.--Brick
Stats: 28min 33pts (10-16, 0-0, 13-19) 14reb 2ast 2stl 1blk 5TO
Cousins ( A ) -- ok, have extensive notes on this one, some of which we'll get to, but I think this is more of a story grade than a details grade. Here are the big points here. 1) this was an angry game by Boogie. Multiple theories as to why include that his teammates did not come out playing as a team, that the refs completely and I do mena completely cheated him out of a signature career game (more on that later), that the Sixers were really hammering and hacking at him while the aforementioned refs called fouls on HIM, and an x factor in case people did not know: he doesn't like Spencer Hawes (in fact they jawed at each other all night, and exchanged pleasantries after Cuz fouled his soft ass out in the final minutes) and especially Daniel Orton, his old backup at Kentucky who talked smack about being better than him. Now on the former (Hawes) front it was a complete blowout of a matchup. Half the time you could not even tell if old Soggy was trying to stop him. But on the latter, it was kind of a disaster, as Boogie and Orton clearly weren't playing in a Kings/Philly game out there. It distracted Cuz immensely, he wanted so badly to smash Orton's face that he hacked at him on defense because he didn't want to be scored on by him, and forced things on offense because he wanted to posterize him. And meanwhile, and here was the critical thing, Orton was allowed to get away with bloody murder, and in the Game 7 Lakers/Kings defining moment for the refs in the mid third, Orton first threw Cousins to the floor...for a 3rd foul on Cousins(!), and then went down the other way and got into a wrestling match with him again...for a 4th foul on Cousins. Effectively capping what could have been an historic night for Cuz. What's that you say? Well, Cuz put up a ridiculous 33pts 14rebs in 28 min last night. 28 minutes. If you tell me oh, yeah I've seen that before, you're full of it. Checking basketball-reference's database which goes back 28 years, in the past 28 years only ONE other player has ever put up 33pts or more and 14rebs or more in 28 min or less. That was a single game by Alonzo Mourning back in 1993, 20 years ago. That's it. Cuz was having as prolific of a big man game as the league has seen in many years, and some incredibly mysteriously bad whistles ended it. here's more for your conspiracy bit: Cuz was whistled on the very first play of the game for a ticky tack illegal screen 30 feet from the hoop that was barely if it was. He picked up his 5th foul soon after returning to save us in the early 4th when he was again called for an illegal screen when tony Wroten launched himself in the air for a flying shoulder block that again knocked Cuz to the ground...and got a foul called on him. I don't know what to say. I pondered A+ing this just for Cuz not going ballistic and popping one or more of the refs heads like zits. Classic game BTW where our soft ass little team gets exposed for what it is. This is the game where that tough guy enforcer frontcourtmate that great centers have so often had comes in handy. Anyway, I lied a bit about the details as I've already rambled too long. Suffice it to say that the Sixers had absolutely no hope of stopping Cousins through any means, but the refs sure could. These are the games that have so ruined NBA refs' reputations over the years. --Brick
Stats: 23min 0pts (0-5, 0-3, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( D- ) -- Oh Boy. This was painful. What can I say about Ben McLemore that hasn’t already been said? What can I say about this game, period? He didn’t do anything. Nothing. There is barely any evidence that he actually played basketball tonight. He took 5 shots and missed all of them. Three of them were 3’s that didn’t even look close. Oh, and his shoddy ball handling was also on display the few times he tried to make a move. He had one really quick drive to the basket early in the game that almost looked all right, but he blew the finish. That was his only semi-positive moment in this game offensively. Defensively, he had the luxury of matching up against Hollis Thompson who he defended reasonably well. But this is Hollis Thompson we’re talking about here. Not exactly Michael Jordan. I don’t know what you do with McLemore at this point, but Malone has to be thinking about going to someone else.--Mass
Stats: 36min 23pts (7-18, 4-9, 5-6) 1reb 7ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
Thomas ( B- ) -- There was quite a bit of angst about IT's job tonight in the game thread, and I'm not sure whether it was all deserved. Defensively, Thomas spent much of his time on the much-taller Michael Carter-Williams, but MCW didn't really get the best of him, scoring only 5 points - 2 on a fast break when IT stayed in front of him, 2 wide open when he reversed on a down screen when IT tried to go over the top of it, and 1 on a free throw (the foul happened during an interview - an irritating trend in the third quarter when IT committed two shooting fouls and must have been peeled off Wroten on a screen a third time - ALL off camera). By contrast he forced MCW into four misses and generally stayed in front of him on the drive (so I count 5 points on 7 shots for MCW), nor did MCW tear up IT with his passing over the top of a shorter man as MCW had only 5 assists on the night. Wroten had a bit more success against IT, scoring ten points total on him, but seven of those were from the charity stripe - two of those came off of a good foul on a fast break and three were true charity, coming off of a great defensive stand where IT refused to let Wroten go by, but Wroten got bailed out by a foul he didn't earn and a technical the refs definitely did earn. All things considered, IT was not a liability on defense tonight - this may be largely because Philly didn't rely heavily on playing IT into the pick-and-roll, which exposes him much more than one-on-one defense. On offense, IT didn't have the greatest night. Throw away the half-court heave before halftime and a garbagetime miss in the lane and he was still only 7-16 on the night. Two of those were threes deflected by MCW. But though he got to the line only 6 times on the night, it could be argued he was fouled about three more times. He did start the game looking for his own shot, taking 6 shots early in the first quarter, but thereafter he started moving the ball much better and while he only ended up with two assists in the quarter, I counted eight other shots that he set up that didn't go. He finished the game with seven assists and twelve setups to only three turnovers (one of which came on a nice pass to Acy that simply was not caught). He really had a pretty good game - maybe a bad stretch or two, but overall a net positive on a net-negative night.--Capt.
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