KingsFans.com Official Game Thread
Game 34
Sacramento Kings versus Orlando Magic Miami Heat
By Stephen Tetsu, the Sixth BeatleGame 34
Sacramento Kings versus Orlando Magic Miami Heat
For three quarters against the Blazers we looked like our old non-defense-playing selves but for one starling quarter we looked like we actually realized it's alright to stop the other team from scoring. That third quarter of the Blazers game was a thing of beauty, twelve whole minutes of boxing out, closing out on the perimeter, rotating onto the man, denying easy post access for the other team's big men, and general defensive hustle. For a brief moment, you got just a glimpse of how Mike Malone intended the team to look. Then the fourth quarter happened and things got crazy.
Featuring a score greater than that of many high school basketball game, the last quarter of the game seemed to last the duration of an entire regular game of basketball. While it seemed as if the Kings were poised to pull away from the Blazers early, an ill-timed whistle from the refs ended Rudy Gay's night early and ignited the fire under Damian Lilliard's behind.
In an Isaiah Thomas-esque performance of epic proportions (Dear Grant and Jerry, there are other guys on the Kings besides the Hustling Huskie or the Pizza Guy or whatever else you want to call him), Lillard quite simply caught fire and entered complete and total hero ball mode, totally disregarding his teammates for the sake of chucking up pull up three pointers from three feet behind the arc. The sad thing is that his gambit nearly worked as we reverted back to our stupid ways to close out the game.
Seriously, a team dropping forty points on you in a single quarter is not a good thing, no matter how you spin it. Damian Lillard scored more points in that single quarter than his entire team did in the third. With any sort of production from anyone not named Lillard in the last six minutes, not only would the Blazers have dropped a clean fifty on us, they'd have won the game.
But a win's a win and, at the end of the night, a barnburner counts as much as an ugly slugfest.
Observations
- I don't know what the Blazers did to pee him off but Demarcus absolutely has their number. He's dropped thirty points on them every time we've met this season. Sure the Blazers interior defense may have improved but it's still futile when it comes to slowing down DFC.
- Marcus Thornton got the surprise start against the Blazers and Malone has since confirmed that it's a permanent move, which means he'll be starting until Pete finds a team willing to take on his contract in exchange for someone with a pulse.
- In other news, I thought Ben McLemore looked better coming off the bench against the Blazers although the numbers won't really show it. His defense looked less shaky though that may have been a product of him playing against Portland's underwhelmingly meh bench. He also successfully drove to the hoop for the first time as a Sacramento King. Progress.
- Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy are role players who know their roles and genuinely seem to be happy in them. These are the sort of players we've been missing for the greater part of a decade.
- IT showed some real effort on the defensive side of the ball for the first three quarters of the game. On the offensive end, he was a little more passive than what we're accustomed to, which I thought was actually an improvement. There is a time and place for hero ball and, for most of the night, I thought IT played his part well.
Newcomer Quincy Acy giving Kings plenty of support (SacBee)
Demarcus Cousins moves up one spot in All-Star voting (SacBee)
Magic send Vucevic home (Pinstriped Post)
The View From the Other Side (Blazers Edition)
A random assortment of comments by Blazers fans during the game as retrieved from BlazersEdge.com. (Presented in Chronological order.)
5:34- Not one comment in the Preview thread about this being a trap game? Admiral Akbar doesn’t know what to do with himself.
6:06 -Time for the Blazers to open up the paint to Rudy Gay. If the Blazers let Rudy think he can take over and get him to resort to his ball-hogging ways then the Blazers can get back on track with a road win before playing worse teams at home.
7:11 Woah. The Kings sideline reporter is miiiighty fine.
7:15 Cousins is a knucklehead but he is a damn good baller
7:27 Good to see that Sacramento is at least mostly filling up their court. Not a Kings fan, but I am glad that they managed to avoid having to move.
7:39 Aldridge is getting MVP chants on the road, whoda thunk it
7:43 So, we didn't play too well, and the Kings played pretty good defense But yet we still take an 11 point lead after 1. I kinda like this team.
7:44 I think the Kings' player meeting-induced defensive intensity has waned and we’re going to steadily blow them out and at the end of the game there will be another classic Mike Malone rant.
7:47 Man the crowd at this game looks like an Addams Family lookalike convention
7:50 Seems like these other teams' benches are full of nobodies, too. How come their nobodies are always better?
8:00 THats why I cant love Meyers##Trob 4 Life##
8:01 If this quarter were a sitcom, it would be one of those awful cringe comedies.
8:03 It's nice having the two best players in the game. We should do that more often.
8:07 I'm starting to think Lillard can't be a great all around point guard. He almost never gets 10 assists in a game. Starting to look like Lin out there with the turnovers. Bad turnovers too. Just stupid passes.
8:08 The Kings are just good. I have no problem with this being a dog fight. With Horford out the Kings would be right there for third in the east.
8:08 Why does this team always make Cousins look like the second coming of Kevin Garnett. He's a good player but not a superstar.
8:09 Didn't the graphic earlier show he's averaging almost exactly the same Pts/Rebs as LMA?
8:12 Talented player. Also a perfect storm of qualities that make it tough for RoLo to defend: quickness, strength, and an outside shot.
8:14 R. Gay needs to grow his sideburns. It looks like he's wearing a helmet.8:12 Talented player. Also a perfect storm of qualities that make it tough for RoLo to defend: quickness, strength, and an outside shot.
8:19 And that is why Rudy Gay is bad. He's all offense. He doesn't play smart. I certain the Kings are going to trade him eventually. I don’t think he stays there for more than this season.
8:34 I know I bashed Cousins earlier but looking at the numbers I think he's an all-star this year. PER of 27 this far into the season is damn impressive.
8:38 He has hall of fame talent and a hall o' fame body too. If he can stop just being a (really good) one way player, he’d be the best center by far.
8:41 We oughta change the name of this team to the Portland OMGs8:44 Lillard, just gun it
8:50 LMA almost tipped it in for the Kings. Can we get both hands on a rebound, please?
8:53 plz play t rob he can at least get rebounds
8:56 The Kings are playing at a high level. Cousins is a borderline allstar. Gay and Thomas are good. Thompson is solid. Williams and Acy are ok off the bench plus they are at home getting an entire quarter of make up calls.
9:02 ABANDON ALL HOPE!!!
9:02 I noticed when other teams run P&R against us their guards get open shots or their screen setter gets a pass. We usually get neither. They hedge and Dame has to make a bad pass. If they don’t get to Dame he hasn’t been getting a shot off.
9:03 Derrick Williams seems to have forgotten that he sucks
9:04 Its over. Please don't let this be a blowout
9:06 This is sad. Then we have that tough road trip coming.. Something is def up.. Time for a players only meeting
9:07 Ever since trob has been benched, we have been on a downfall.
9:09 these announcers trying to be cute with the lame rudy gay names
9:12 LMA misses again And Throbb called for a foul on the rebound. And Gay lays it in. Too easy. Blazers down by 18 to the Kings. Ok, I’m shutting this off so I can go barf in the woods.
9:14 seriously just let damian chuck everytime
9:18 as much as i love rolo he can’t check cousins at all, put LA on him he’s faster. He’s dropped like 30 on rolo everytime
9:18 DamnArcus Cousins
9:21 Somebody tell The Blazers We’re playing The Freaking Kings111
9:26 Cousins is unstoppable . Wesley is losing his mojo
9:26 Wow, Gay is fouled out already Anyone want to keep complaining about the refs?
9:27 lol, stupid kings fans chanting refs you suck in a game where they have got every call the entire game.
9:29 Its to bad Lillard can't run a fast break. I don’t think I have seen an NBA point guard as bad a running a 2-1 or 1-1 fast break as Lillard. It makes no sense.
9:32 stupid Pizza Guys.
9:32 here comes the patented blazers push gotta make it not look like we played like trash
9:38 It's so funny the Kings shilling Shaq stuff I mean, I understand the ownership thing, but he caused that franchise so much heartbreak in the early 00’s
9:41 How the heck do we still have a mathematical chance at winning this game
9:42 D-Fence! 82 points in this quarter so far. If flag football had a basketball equivalent, this would be it.
9:43 Game over- We Win.
9:46 If we win this game I don’t know what to think. Definitely wouldn’t be deserved, except by the Lillard 4th quarter effort.
9:48 If we played the entire game the way we do 4th Quarters when we are behind, we would score like a gazillion.
9:51 LOLOL The Kings are doing everything possible to give this game away except for turn back the clock
9:53 Enjoy the win Sacramento, that's the highlight of your season!
Awards Time
T-Rob Award for Excellence in Being Thomas Robinson - Thomas Robinson
Having been demoted from third big to guy handing Gatorade to the third big, T-Rob entered the gem for the Blazers when things were looking dire and looked just like the out-of-control deer in the headlights that we were used to last year. In his three and a half minutes of action, T-Rob put up a stellar line of 1 offensive rebound and three fouls. It can't get much more T-Robby than that.
Tony Delk Memorial Award - Damian Lillard
Yes, Lillard is good but that's still no excuse for him dropping 25 points in a single quarter. While the rest of his night leaves much to be desired (Check out that assist to turnover ratio), that 25 point fourth quarter actually kinda gave me flashbacks of the night Tony Delk went video game mode on us.
Tonight's Game
Things get even easier with the recent injury to Nik Vucevic, Orlando's good young big man out of USC. Without him, the Magic have resorted to small ball, starting Glen Davis at center and rolling with Afflalo, Oladipo, and Nelson as the triple backcourt. With Glen Davis not exactly known for his defensive presence, Demarcus could be in for another big night, though, considering the rapid rate of his development, that's pretty much just a foregone conclusion now. The other active big men on the Orlando Magic roster? Youthful bench big Andrew Nicholson, tweener Tobias Harris, undersized effort man Jason Maxiell, 6'10" 240-lb center Kyle O'Quinn, and perennial roster fodder Solomon Jones. In other words, there's nobody on that roster even capable of slowing Cuz down.
Out on the wings, KingsFans.com arbitrary-fantasy-trade favorite Aaron Afflalo is having his best scoring year as the go-to man for the Magic, though the fact that he is being asked to score 20 points a game is probably indicative of the general lack of talent on the Magic roster. The dual point guard tandem of Jameer Nelson and Victor Oladipo is nice if only for the defensive potential of Oladipo who, while still undoubtedly raw, is probably the runner up for rookie of the year. At this point in his career and the development of the Magic team, Nelson is relatively useless, a role player without a star to riff off of. (Fun fact: Jameer Nelson was once an all-star)
While none of these wings is really good enough to cause most teams an intolerable amount of trouble, our Paris as the Nazis were invading defense means that we're probably going to let Nelson score thirty points tonight, which should be fun.
The key is to pretend they're the Heat. I'd like to see us demolish a bad team for once rather than get our butts kicked by a team without any real big dog. Please let that be today.
Prediction and Closure
I can't predict these bad games anymore. Going off of our track record, I think we'll lose 104-89 but maybe the Kings will surprise me and win a game against a lesser opponent for once.
GO KINGS!
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