We got 2/3 of our 3 players back for this one, and they largely played like themselves. Rudy with flashes of brilliance until suddenly falling apart late and helping sink us. Isaiah chucking up his nightly 20+ shots and showing all the reasons you don't want him running the team, but finally clicking into offensive gear late in the game and hitting repeatedly to give us a chance. In the end its not enough against a good team. Maybe next game we can get all three of them back together and see how we do against a weak slate of opponents through Feb/March.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Rainmaker
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 34min 23pts (10-16, 1-4, 2-2) 2reb 5ast 1stl 0blk 5TO
Gay ( A- ) -- I was on the border between giving Rudy an A- or a B+ but considering he was coming off injury, timing was off a bit due to the time away and his touches were limited in the 2nd half, I thought he played a very good game and decided to go with the A-. Came out more as a facilitator/decoy, maybe partly by design but also likely to allow him to get his rhythm back without forcing up shots out of the gate. Showed his patience in the post on a few occasions as he waited for the help to come, then set teammates up for open looks, including twice setting Isaiah up for open 3's. Started to get into attack mode when he checked back in in the 2nd, where he ripped off 10pts before halftime. Rudy really excels in iso post-up situations on the wing with a live dribble and space, where his versatility and ability to score in multiple ways is highlighted and that's what he did in the 2nd, either rising up for a jumper, turning baseline and hitting his fadeaway or getting by his defender and taking it right to the rim. Came out aggressive in the 3rd, picking up a quick dunk and banking in a 3 from near straight on. Hit a tough jumper about halfway through the 3rd and was sitting on 19pts on 9-14 shooting at that point, then was subbed out a few mins later. I didn't think he got enough touches after re-entering down the stretch as after being 9-14 halfway through the 3rd, he went only 1-2 the rest of the way. Effort was good on defense and he provided help in his rotations but it should be noted that Prince isn't much of a threat to do much of anything on the offensive side at this point in his career. There was a brief scare when it appeared he re-injured his achilles in the 4th but he stayed out there and played through it. Did have a couple bad turnovers towards the end and I wonder if the injury had anything to do with it, but those turnovers at the end were the only negatives that really stood out tonight. Rudy did his job defensively, set guys up on offense as a facilitator(5 asts), looked for his own shot and did so efficiently while pushing through apparent pain towards the end. He wanted to win this one against his former team. Unfortunately he didn't get enough help on the night. --Rain
Stats: 31min 6pts (3-8, 0-0, 0-0) 7reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thompson ( C+ ) -- of course tasked with slowing Zach Randolph on the evening, and for the most part did a pretty decent job of making life hard for him. About a third of Randolph's numbers all came during a stretch with no JT on the floor. But it was a fairly singular focus, and he was so tied up in it that he never did have much effect on the boards beyond ending a few Grizzlies plays enthusiastically as he looked around at his teammates and realized he had to be the guy if anybody was going to be. On offense all three of his hits came on long catch and shoot jumpers where the Grizz didn't want to follow him. Everything else was a miss. There was effort here -- once he went tot he floor diving amongst 4 Grizz to save the ball, did so, but as he knocked the ball away he landed right in the hands of the 5th Grizz player. Disappeared in the late going when he was often paired with Landry, and interestingly whiel the two were on the floor together Landry was playing as another one of Malone's seemingly preferred backup 6'8" centers while JT stayed at PF. --Brick
Stats: 23min 4pts (2-5, 0-0, 0-0) 6reb 3ast 2stl 1blk 0TO
Gray ( C ) -- Aaron got the call in place of DeMarcus yet again and had an OK night. He grabbed six rebounds, but five of those came in the first quarter, with only one rebound in his 11 minutes after that, and he twice failed to keep Gasol off the offensive boards for a ball that should have been his. He was only credited with one block, but he clearly had two, one on Conley in the first and the second on Z-Bo late in the third. All in all his help defense (on top of those two blocks) was quite good, though it was more of a strength than his man defense. He allowed 12 points on 11 shots, mostly to Gasol on jumpers, though there was one play where he blew the coverage on a pick and roll, allowing Marc to go right to the hole for a dunk. Gray made two shots on the night, but one was a really ugly hook in the lane which encouraged him to take a yet uglier running hook two plays later that had literally no chance of going in. He also missed a complete bunny at the rim. The rest of his offense was a bit better. He made two nice passes - one touch pass to JT that resulted in a missed shot, and one assist to Jimmer from well above the key as the clock ran out on what was beginning to look like a lost possession. But most of all, his offensive contribution was in his screens. I counted Gray setting 18 solid screens on the night which resulted in 7 open shots. Screens aren't sexy, but good ones are good ones, and Gray knows how to set a good one. --Capt.
Stats: 17min 2pts (1-2, 0-1, 0-0) 0reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Thornton ( B- ) -- Thornton, the man of controversy after this one, as apparently Malone called out his poor defense for his lack of playing time in this one. And I have to admit that it’s one of the few times that I’ve really disagreed with what Malone has had to say. I love the fact that Malone wants to play defense, and I do believe that playing energetic on the defensive end should be a requirement to getting a lot of minutes, but to single out Thornton for his play in this one was completely uncalled for. Thornton made two defensive mistakes in this game. One not fighting through a double-screen which allowed Lee to get a clean 2pt jumper at the 10 minute mark of the 1st quarter and another mistake when he just died on a Gasol screen which let Lee get another clean look at the 5 minute mark. Other than those two defensive lapses, he stayed close to Lee the entire time, not letting him get free for easy scoring opportunities. Lee plays the game like we want Ben to play it, by moving with-out the ball and then running to the corner when someone drives or posts up. So Thornton had to follow him around to make sure he didn’t have easy catch-and-shoot opportunities, and he had to stick close to him to prevent the easy kick-out scores.
In the 3rd quarter Thornton had his one stand-out defensive play where he doubled hard on Randolph and stripped the ball for the steal, but I see that they didn’t credit him for the steal for some reason. That happened at the 9:30 mark. So those were the three stand-out defensive plays for Thornton in his 17 minutes of play. Two poor jobs and 1 steal, resulting in his man scoring 4 points. On the offensive end of the floor…what a difference a day makes. After getting 55 FG attempts in the last 3 games, Rudy got back into the line-up and Thornton got up 2 whole shots. He was completely ignored on the offensive end in this one. Time after time, he’d run around a screen and hold his hands up to get a pass that never came, or be open with a hand up ready to get the ball and instead see the ball either shot up, or passed elsewhere. He was open plenty of times, but didn’t get to touch it. He had a single scoring opportunity in his 1st 8 minute stint where he got a hand-off pass, and decided to make a hard drive into the lane. He scored on that play which was the only shot he got in the 1st half. In the 3rd quarter, in the offensive possession after he got his steal (9:30 mark), he actually got to touch the ball, and rather than shoot it, he whipped a pass to JT who had good position under the basket, and he watched as JT traveled with the ball for the TO. About 40 seconds later he took his 2nd (and last) shot of the game. It was a selfish shot, as he got the ball, and then off his own dribble he launched a 3pt shot that missed everything. Of course, to be fair after 15 minutes of play it was only his second FG attempt. Malone pulled him 2 minutes later, and Thornton never saw the floor again. So Thornton scored 2 points on 1-2 shooting, while the man he was guarding (Lee) scored 4 points on 2-4 shooting. It’s hard to see how Thornton would get called out for a bad defensive performance in this one. And the fact that he only got 2 shooting opportunities after getting 55 the last 3 games….it’s impressive that we didn’t see an outbreak from MT on the bench. He was completely ignored on the offensive end, and even with that he did give a pretty decent effort on the defensive end. He was a net-positive on the floor in this one (actually the best +/- of the starters), his man didn’t kill us, he did his job by spreading the floor on offense, and though he didn’t get any scoring opportunities he didn’t hurt us with poor efficiency…so I’m not giving him a really poor grade, despite what Coach Malone seemed to think. --Uncia
Stats: 39min 24pts (10-21, 4-10, 0-0) 1reb 5ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thomas ( B ) -- I admittedly have a tough time grading Isaiah Thomas because I can’t help but fall back on the argument of “well, where would they be without him?” It was that kind of game again tonight. He had a really good first quarter that involved him knocking down his open 3-point attempts, and easy transition layups. He scored 10 of his 24 points in that first quarter, and his defense was pretty good. Then he had two completely ineffective, hard to watch quarters that highlighted all of the frustrating parts of Thomas’ game. There were the forced shots (and the bad pullup 3’s with 20 seconds left on the shot clock) and his defensive effort wasn’t as good as it was in the first quarter. Then the fourth quarter happened, and Isaiah Thomas was doing good Isaiah Thomas things again. It was another 10-point quarter (that means he only scored 4 points in the 2nd and 3rd quarters combined for all you math majors out there) and he really brought the Kings back into this one with a chance to win it in the final few minutes. I didn’t love a lot of what I saw out of Thomas tonight, but relative to the rest of his teammates he had a pretty decent game. I found it incredibly weird that he didn’t shoot one free throw all night. He got hammered a few times going to the rim, but the calls just weren’t there. I think it’s important to note Mike Conley’s huge game even though Isaiah Thomas wasn’t the only reason why he got off. Conley is having an incredible year, and Thomas (in most cases) did what he could to chase Conley around the court. There was a lot of miscommunication defensively tonight, and I attribute that to Conley’s big night more than anything else. I don’t know if we were over helping, under helping or just playing it wrong all together, but it wasn’t pretty. I’m not excusing Thomas for his performance on that end, but I’m not putting all the blame on him either. And he played 39 minutes tonight (coming off a game where he had to leave with stomach issues) which leads me to believe that Malone was reasonably happy with Thomas’s defensive effort considering the hard ‘I will only play guys who play defense’ stance he took after the game was over. So to recap – there was a lot to like, a lot to dislike, but if he wasn’t on the court tonight the Kings may have lost by 20. One thing is becoming clear – he’s much better with DeMarcus Cousins.--Mass
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