[Game] Kings v. Pacers 1/24/14, 7pm PST, 10pm EST
- Thread starter Tetsujin
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Can't believe people are blaming this one on IT. If we even wanted to stand a chance you IT and Thornton were gonna have to have career nights, they did and we had it, that 4 pt play killed us, otherwise the board is praising IT for his clutch shots in the 4th. The problem tonight was getting nothing from Williams(worst game as a King), JT had to give us something other than solid D, Jimmer had to come off the bench in attack mode and none of that occurred. The OT period was too much IT, but Indiana smothered Thornton out and Gray, Landry and Williams were gonna give you nothing. If Cousins and Gay are playing this doesn't happen. IT showed how tough he is today though, probably his best defensive performance and the guy is tough as nails, doesn't take crap from anyone. Great team effort, but really that 4 pt play decided the game.
I think the issue would be this: in the final 8 minutes of the game (crunchtime + OT), Marcus Thornotn took 1 shot. He hit it. Isaiah Thomas over that same stretch took 11 shots, hit 4, missed 7, turned it over twice, missed the game winner in regulation, turned the ball over on the game tying attempt in OT etc.
I'm probably the most anti-thomas guy here, but the rest of his teammates literally did nothing the entire game. You can talk about how many great screens Gray sets, but almost all his fouls came from horrible screens. Look at the team tonight.. D-Will made a poor decision.. he fouls George when he was taking that 3, attacks the rim with 3-4 Pacers in front while IT is wide open, and gets his shot blocked. Gray has no offensive game at all. It's either him or Thornton taking the shots. I think he should have gave Thornton more looks, but you can't complain because he stepped it up big time when everyone else sucked.
For people stating others are just looking to bash IT, here's out last four possessions:
1) IT quick pullup, step-back, off-balance 3 up top early in shot clock, missed(17 on shotclock)
2) IT forced off-balance fade over West, miss
3) DWill it transition, stopped by Hibbert at the rim
4) IT picked clean by George
Draw your own conclusions. Thought he made some big shots but as a PG, I thought his actual PG play was very shaky down the stretch. It's beyond makes/misses, it's clock management, taking good shots and organizing the offense so at the least you get a decent look, not just rushing into the first one you find and maybe, I don't know, looking to set up the guy sitting on 42 points more than one time in the last 7+ mins. And this late game execution isn't just tonight without Rudy/Boogie. It happened twice on the road trip as well and is now very shaky PG play down the stretch in 3 of our last 6 games. Saying he can score is a different issue and meant to deflect. He can score. The issue is PG play, running the offense, clock management, good decision making and really, being a steady presence. Too hot and cold for me.
1) IT quick pullup, step-back, off-balance 3 up top early in shot clock, missed(17 on shotclock)
2) IT forced off-balance fade over West, miss
3) DWill it transition, stopped by Hibbert at the rim
4) IT picked clean by George
Draw your own conclusions. Thought he made some big shots but as a PG, I thought his actual PG play was very shaky down the stretch. It's beyond makes/misses, it's clock management, taking good shots and organizing the offense so at the least you get a decent look, not just rushing into the first one you find and maybe, I don't know, looking to set up the guy sitting on 42 points more than one time in the last 7+ mins. And this late game execution isn't just tonight without Rudy/Boogie. It happened twice on the road trip as well and is now very shaky PG play down the stretch in 3 of our last 6 games. Saying he can score is a different issue and meant to deflect. He can score. The issue is PG play, running the offense, clock management, good decision making and really, being a steady presence. Too hot and cold for me.
With Boogie/Rudy out, whole team cold and MT frozen by the end of the game I don't know, what people expected to see.
Great entertainment.
A few positives out of this game:
Travis Outlaw with +19. Really liked his defense. Was put on the floor every time PG started to heat up. Maybe it was this player, that Petrie thought he was picking up.
MT23 is finally alive. If he remembers how to shoot, plus keeps his defensive intensity, he might just have some value after all.
McLemore dribbled in traffic and kept firm control of the ball. He becomes more and more confident in the open court. As for shooting...
Great entertainment.
A few positives out of this game:
Travis Outlaw with +19. Really liked his defense. Was put on the floor every time PG started to heat up. Maybe it was this player, that Petrie thought he was picking up.
MT23 is finally alive. If he remembers how to shoot, plus keeps his defensive intensity, he might just have some value after all.
McLemore dribbled in traffic and kept firm control of the ball. He becomes more and more confident in the open court. As for shooting...
Yeah, this makes perfect sense: Gray missed an easy hook shot! I MUST NEVER LET HIM TOUCH THE BALL AGAIN!
It's not like he was 1-20, he was 1-3. I would have given him, oh, I don't know, at least one more attempt to get a dunk, or a layup, or something! "They would have just fouled him anyways"? And you base this on, what? The brilliant "Hack-a-Gray" strategy that resulted in a whole two free throw attempts?
How about you just get him a ****ing layup, how about that? He's the point guard, that's his job! Nobody said they should have handed the ball to Williams up top, and run the ****ing 1-4: how does a guy who tied his career high manage to not get anybody else on his team an easy look at the rim?
It's not like he was 1-20, he was 1-3. I would have given him, oh, I don't know, at least one more attempt to get a dunk, or a layup, or something! "They would have just fouled him anyways"? And you base this on, what? The brilliant "Hack-a-Gray" strategy that resulted in a whole two free throw attempts?
How about you just get him a ****ing layup, how about that? He's the point guard, that's his job! Nobody said they should have handed the ball to Williams up top, and run the ****ing 1-4: how does a guy who tied his career high manage to not get anybody else on his team an easy look at the rim?
I think the Coach should have drew up more plays for Thornton. There were many plays at the end where I saw Thornton just standing behind the arc with the defender right by him. He had no intentions of shooting or getting a shot. There were clearly many plays drawn up specifically for IT. I think Coach should have put the 2nd unit in during the 3rd quarter. The starters were in there way too long and that's when the lead starting slipping. I think sometimes Malone puts too much faith in IT. I wanted to see Thornton bring up the ball and attempt a pull up 3. I think he played his heart out, and that's all you can ask for. The other guys.. not so much.
Yeah, this makes perfect sense: Gray missed an easy hook shot! I MUST NEVER LET HIM TOUCH THE BALL AGAIN!
It's not like he was 1-20, he was 1-3. I would have given him, oh, I don't know, at least one more attempt to get a dunk, or a layup, or something! "They would have just fouled him anyways"? And you base this on, what? The brilliant "Hack-a-Gray" strategy that resulted in a whole two free throw attempts?
How about you just get him a ****ing layup, how about that? He's the point guard, that's his job! Nobody said they should have handed the ball to Williams up top, and run the ****ing 1-4: how does a guy who tied his career high manage to not get anybody else on his team an easy look at the rim?
It's not like he was 1-20, he was 1-3. I would have given him, oh, I don't know, at least one more attempt to get a dunk, or a layup, or something! "They would have just fouled him anyways"? And you base this on, what? The brilliant "Hack-a-Gray" strategy that resulted in a whole two free throw attempts?
How about you just get him a ****ing layup, how about that? He's the point guard, that's his job! Nobody said they should have handed the ball to Williams up top, and run the ****ing 1-4: how does a guy who tied his career high manage to not get anybody else on his team an easy look at the rim?
The point is tonight we needed IT to score a lot of points, his teammates were giving us nothing. Thornton was great, but Indiana took him out of the game down the stretch. When Cousins and Gay are back, you will not see this. I was telling myself why Malone went back to Williams on George, Outlaw was doing a very good job in his stints with his length, Williams was giving you nothing, missing free throws and making bad decisions, he shouldn't have been in the game down the stretch and that 4 pt play capped it off. The game should have never gone to OT to begin with.
You contradict yourself in the same sentence.
Hard for teammates to give much on the offensive end when your PG is scoring a lot of points, and taking 31 shots in the process of scoring those points.
You don't get it both ways. When you assume most of the offensive load, you assume most of the responsibility. When you keep creating for teammates and they keep blowing opportunities, then they assume most of the responsibility. What you can't do is dominate the ball, jack it up 31 times as a PG, THEN blame your teammates for not doing enough. You either take it upon yourself to get them going and feed them, or you take it upon yourself to assume the scoring load which IT did. When you do the latter, you don't get to sit back and blame others.
When guys like Rose or Westbrook take most of the shots, they don't blame it on teammates.. They say they didn't do enough themselves. Just imagine Westbrook taking 30+ shots, then blaming a loss on Sefolosha or Perkins not doing enough offensively. It doesn't work that way.
Hard for teammates to give much on the offensive end when your PG is scoring a lot of points, and taking 31 shots in the process of scoring those points.
You don't get it both ways. When you assume most of the offensive load, you assume most of the responsibility. When you keep creating for teammates and they keep blowing opportunities, then they assume most of the responsibility. What you can't do is dominate the ball, jack it up 31 times as a PG, THEN blame your teammates for not doing enough. You either take it upon yourself to get them going and feed them, or you take it upon yourself to assume the scoring load which IT did. When you do the latter, you don't get to sit back and blame others.
When guys like Rose or Westbrook take most of the shots, they don't blame it on teammates.. They say they didn't do enough themselves. Just imagine Westbrook taking 30+ shots, then blaming a loss on Sefolosha or Perkins not doing enough offensively. It doesn't work that way.
Care to respond to Brick's post about IT's performance down the stretch or do you want to continue to blame any poor stretches on his teammates? It's the same stuff the pro-It crowd does with his defensive deficiencies and does anytime other players are struggling to hit shots. But suggest that having Gay and Cousins helps explain improved assist performance and you freak out. Its very convenient.
The problem is there are some reactionary fans on here that muddy up the actual discussion around IT (and other people). Ignore those folks and participate in actual conversations instead of feeling the need to defend It against nonsense.
The problem is there are some reactionary fans on here that muddy up the actual discussion around IT (and other people). Ignore those folks and participate in actual conversations instead of feeling the need to defend It against nonsense.
The other guys had plenty of looks, realistically from the guys who played tonight only Williams, JT, Landry, Thornton, IT and Jimmer are guys you want to run plays for. Williams was playing terrible, shot was off and he was making all kinds of mistakes, Landry hit a couple of shots but you can tell theres a lot of rust stilll, doesn't have his legs under him, Jimmer was turning the ball over, couldn't dribble the ball comfortably. Thornton was on but he had cooled off considerably in the second half and Indiana was really taking him out of the game. Other than Thornton and IT, who else did you want taking more shots than they got? The only time I felt there was too much IT given the circumstances was in the OT, I would have loved to get MT some looks in OT, but Malone didn't seem to be running any plays for him, or the Pacers really froze him out, I would have to see it again.
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