[Grades] Grades v. Warriors 10/29/2014

[IfAt1st]

This was a brutally disheartening game - not a normal opening night.
It just really seemed to immediately deflate any optimism Kings fans may have had for the season.

The team looks hapless and hopeless out there, and DMC/Gay were just terrible. There is no way in hell they are going to win 30 games playing like that.

 

[Siranthony]

Well it wasn't all bad I have to say. They looked like they where playing good defence for awhile. They had the lead but no one could hit the shots when it counted to build a lead. JT getting a tech for complaining about a non call was just too familiar a site for me. I was proud that DC didn't give in to getting angry when he got fouled. But he still gave up the cheapy fouls to take him out of the game. When it unraveled it looked very bad. Like a poster said, keystone cops bad. Too much ISO by Gay. No offence production by BM. JT should back up DC as many have said.

I want to see more of Stauskas. We need a real PF (no duh).

The futility of the last qtr and a half was hard to take.

This was a brutally disheartening game - not a normal opening night.
It just really seemed to immediately deflate any optimism Kings fans may have had for the season.

The team looks hapless and hopeless out there, and DMC/Gay were just terrible. There is no way in hell they are going to win 30 games playing like that.

 

[Chubbs]

That was not good.

Not surprising either. Did you all see NBA 3.0 positionless basketball? It's a sight to behold. 13 assists/26 turnovers.

 

[kupman]

It is a bad sign when total TO's nearly exceeds 2nd half points.

 

[Kingston Jamaica]

True, the team leaders Cousins and Gay did not have a good night. Sessions had a poor night and he can and will do much better. I think Collison, Casspi and Stauskas were OK. Not a shining game from Casspi, but he does good work in organizing the offense (and even the defense). Stauskas did good, considering that this was his first game in the NBA regular season.

Unfortunately people tend to be trigger happy and throw in trade options immediately after a (bad) loss. Look, GSW is a team that has been together for a while and knows how to play together. They are also a ligit playoff team. I can see some trades in the air. They should not be based on this game. However, some of the players are simply too pricey for their contribution and the roster needs to be balanced accordingly (3 expensive PFs is not good planning).

IMHO Cousins will produce best when Casspi moves the ball in the perimeter. I hope that the other wing players, and especially the guards, will follow suit. The way the offense worked in this game, Cousins gets unnecessarily mauled (especially when he doesn't get the calls). Move the ball to get him open. That requires player movement without the ball. It didn't happen in this game, but there are 81 left.

 

[mac]

If we intend to have a motion offense we're going to need a lot more movement and screens being set off the ball. I can see the players making an effort to move the ball around more on the majority of the possessions, but most of the time it's just useless swinging if nobody is actually getting open from off-ball movement. We're still not forcing the defense to scramble, to have to run around screens etc ... Until we can do that ball movement on its own is not going to lead to easy baskets.

 

[ESP47]

So Malone has an entire summer to think about what he's going to do this season. In particular game 1. What he comes up with is to try and out small ball a team who's small players literally do everything better than our small players.

So his bright ideas were to play:

Evans at center.
Landry at center.
Casspi at power forward.
Williams at power forward.
Stauskas at small forward.
McLemore at small forward.

For the love of god just start Evans next to Cousins and bring JT off the bench with Landry so we can have some sort of human out there who resembles a center when Cousins isn't on the floor.

Also I think it's about time we give some serious thought to signing TWill while sending McLemore down to the D League. The guy doesn't belong on an NBA court. The thing that worries me is that he wont be sent down because he's the new "Pizza guy".

I didn't think our D looked that great. The only reason why we were even in the game until the 3rd quarter was because Golden State was shooting 1/14 from beyond the arc. It wasn't because we had a hand in their face or were forcing them to take bad shots at the end of the shot clock. They were just missing their shots. It happens sometimes. I was thinking they were going to explode in the 2nd half if they just shot normally from there on out and that's exactly what happened.

 

[King Baller]

who was the designated cherry picker of the night?

Draymond Green.

 

[Kingster]

Our starting frontline accounted for 13 TOs and just 1 assist. If you make ball movement a priority in summer league, training camp, and pre-season and then come out in game 1 and put up a 13:26 assist to turnover ratio, something has gone horribly wrong. If any one area from last season needed improvement, that was it. That was the reason you swapped out IT for Collison and he did what he was supposed to do tonight -- keep the shots and turnovers down while contributing across the board and playing defense. Rudy and DeMarcus in particular have to do a better job of taking care of the ball this year. If we can't get a positive A/TO ratio out of those two, the team as a whole is going to struggle.

Yep. I don't think that's exaggerating.

 

[Rockmeister]

Yea, I know it is just ONE game into the season, however its the same old song and dance. No ball movement, played very selfishly, struggle to take care of the ball. Lack of willingness to move the ball, with the exception of Collison. Looks very similar to the Kings of last season.

 

[ElRey]

Here are the two changes I would make to starting lineup

1. Start Staukas instead of Ben... How many times can a team win when your starting sg gets the Hawaii 5-0?!

2. Start Landry over JT. JT is still the same low basketball IQ, clumsy, fumbling player despite being a longtime veteran now. Seriously whenever I see him touch the ball, I'm waiting for a turnover. No wonder we couldn't trade him.

 

[kingsnation]

2. Start Landry over JT. JT is still the same low basketball IQ, clumsy, fumbling player despite being a longtime veteran now. Seriously whenever I see him touch the ball, I'm waiting for a turnover. No wonder we couldn't trade him.

I could see it coming after the 2nd or 3rd possession of the game. JT tried to put back a missed shot and was (fouled? Maybe?). He started yelling at the ref after there was no foul called.

It looked like the frustration you see out of a player in game 75, not the 3rd possession of game 1. That concerns me.

 

[Spike]

Well, that was a pretty disgusting display all around. The stretch to start out the 3rd quarter was one of the worst I've ever had the opportunity of seeing. Boogie just can't have that bad of a game. He just can't. We know the SG position is a void, and hopefully the FO now sees it too.
That said, we at least looked somewhat competent defending the Warriors, and that should keep us in some games...unless we are actually witnessing the Steve Kerr effect, which did cross my mind.

 

[MassachusettsKingsFan]

I'm having a hard time taking anything away from last nights game. The Kings played terrible. Hard to make worthwhile observations when everything goes wrong.

Cousins and Gay need to be better. I expect them to be better. It would be much easier to analyze this team when they are playing at their average level.

 

[FaStRmAn]

Well that pile of manure smelled very reminiscent of the pile of manure on the floor at the Sleeptrain Stables last season. Ben McLemore is not an NBA player. He is a bust. There I said it. No WAY he should be playing this poorly this far into his NBA career. The coaching staff can keep hoping he is going to turn it around but I believe the Ben Jet is going to make it all the way to the crater. Might as well start Stauskas, because BM is not gonna get the job done. The W's are not known for their defensive prowess, especially in their back court. Yet somehow BM squeezed out an 0 fer 5 and 26 minutes of aerobic defecation.

Big Cuz had a terrible opening game. Layups were not going in. If he had not gotten some foul calls (he could have gotten 3 times as many calls but the ref's wont call them all) he would have had a terrible line. 4-14 aint gonna get it done. Should have dominated a small and undermanned W's front line.

Gay had a very bad game. If moving the ball was the goal, he must have missed the memo. He was a black hole that couldn't hit the ocean with a rock on the beach. 5 - 15 aint gonna get it done. And the majority of those shots were weak sauce forces that had no hope of going in. Lets hope this was an aberration of a game for Rudy because he has to play better.

JT is a bench player. Starting him is always going to cost the Kings. Always has. The fact that he is still on the team is a testament to how little value he has. He is good for a turnover, a foul, or a bone headed play at least one out of every 3 trips down the floor. Lowest BBIQ of any player I have ever seen. Passes when he should shoot. Shoots when he should pass. Just completely inept. Need to get an NBA caliber PF for this team to move forward.

Collison looked pretty good. He looked like he cared! That is important on a team with such poor body language and erratic effort. Collison was playing hard till the very end. Why Sessions was allowed on the floor for more than a breather for Collison is beyond me.

Casspi was exactly what we thought. Ineffective and a defensive liability.

Stauskas is a rookie. He gets a pass. Played like a rook. Some good, mostly bad.

Landry is not a good defender. But he did get some rebounds and put backs. Still better than JT, which isn't saying much.

All in all a VERY SLOPPY game against a team that is superior in every way. Even though the W's were having an off night, they still are so much better than the ragtag group Malone had on the floor, they still were able to blow the Kings out by 20.

 

[pshn80]

Yea, I know it is just ONE game into the season, however its the same old song and dance. No ball movement, played very selfishly, struggle to take care of the ball. Lack of willingness to move the ball, with the exception of Collison. Looks very similar to the Kings of last season.

What's similiar to last season? Cousins, Gay, McLemore. Replace Ben, send Cuz to school and don't hesitate to hit

Yea, I know it is just ONE game into the season, however its the same old song and dance. No ball movement, played very selfishly, struggle to take care of the ball. Lack of willingness to move the ball, with the exception of Collison. Looks very similar to the Kings of last season.

What's similiar to last season? Cousins, Gay, McLemore. Replace Ben, send Cuz to school and don't hesitate
to whack him across the side of his head when needed. Cuz wan't playing moition offense, wasn't moving the ball, wasn't passing out, wasn't giving himself a chance to be effective against a challenging defense. The coach needs to tell the best player on the team to get with it.

 

[Bricklayer]

Should have dominated a small and undermanned W's front line.

one note:

7'0" 260 Bogut
6'11" 265 Ezili
7'0" 260 Kuzmic

=/=

undersized

they were just missing Lee, who isn't much for defense anyway (although has mysteriously casued Cuz problems at times)

 

[HereWeBoogie]

i can already tell we are going to see a lot more small ball this year than any of us can tolerate.

Position-less basketball!

 

[Dime Dropper]

Can we cut everyone and start over?

Including Malone and his ridiculously idiotic small-ball.

 

[rainmaker]

What's similiar to last season? Cousins, Gay, McLemore. Replace Ben, send Cuz to school and don't hesitate to hit

What's similiar to last season? Cousins, Gay, McLemore. Replace Ben, send Cuz to school and don't hesitate
to whack him across the side of his head when needed. Cuz wan't playing moition offense, wasn't moving the ball, wasn't passing out, wasn't giving himself a chance to be effective against a challenging defense. The coach needs to tell the best player on the team to get with it.

At some point, we're going to have to go over what a motion offense actually is. But in general, no matter the type of motion offense we might run, it's not going to be Cuz who's going to be cutting/slashing all over the offensive end. What you'd want to look for is movement/cutters/spacing off Cuz, or off Rudy, our focal points.

There basically was none. I know it's become popular to single in on Cuz and Rudy and their jacking up shots as not buying into the "motion" offense, but it really is the wrong way to be looking at this. A motion offense will consist of movement which takes advantage of the attention they draw, usually with weak-side misdirection and movement. The large majority of the time either had the rock, guys stood and watched. That is what should be worrying everyone. Passing the ball to Sessions/JT/Ben/Landry/Evans/etc just for the hell of it, doesn't equate to good ball movement or a motion offense, nor is it really a good idea for sets to be ending with those guys having the rock.

Maybe I'll dig up some of the videos I posted a while back showing various sets we used to run under Rick, but the first thing people would notice is when we had Webber or Vlade at the high-post, the "motion" came from the screens/cutters/misdirection off them, almost always with better spacing than we show. When we had Bibby or Doug in a P&R situation up top, we were running off the ball flares/cuts off multiple screens for a guy like Peja to get open. If it was Webber on the wing, he'd often play a two man game with Peja or Bibby off their movement while on the weakside we'd have Doug diving. It was both strong and weakside movement, ala the Spurs. The whole point of off the ball movement is to create options, multiple options. No movement, poor spacing, there's not going to be any options. That's our issue. That's quite worrying in regards to Malone's coaching acumen as well given these guys looked like they've never played together after a full training camp. We're not even getting Cuz and Rudy the ball in good spots. Actually, for some reason I can't figure out, we're giving Reggie freaking Evans the ball in the high-post and running cutters off him far more than we do with Cuz, which makes no sense at all.

This in no way a Cuz issue for not buying in or "trying" hard enough. Bogut is a tough matchup for him. And as far as Cuz and Rudy go in this "motion" offense, first thing to look for is the movement and options off them. When the movement/options aren't there, it's an issue with our system and roster construction.

 

[Albatros]

This is the good stuff. *sigh*

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Stats: 21min 2pts (1-3, 0-0, 0-0) 7reb 0ast 2stl 1blk 4TO
Thompson ( C ) -- if it hadn't have been for the sloppiness (there is no excuse for notching 4 TOs when you only take 3 FGAs) this would have been an ok little roleplaying effort. Offensively he got an early post move, and then that was it. He was done and gone and contributed nothing but turnovers and clumsy offensive fouls thereafter as he appeared to be sort of fighting his offensive irrelevancy and wanting to do something he could not. One particular clumsy drive into a defender for an offensive foul on the break particularly stood out as fitting in with the general theme of the night that guys weren't making the extra pass. Had some trouble with Draymond Green's stretchiness, but he was active on defense and on the glass, and at a time when Cuz was not winning the battle of the big bodies inside JT was often the guy cleaning up in there and being physical. He was less settled when he returned, and we were treated to DeMarcus Cousins, level head, coming over to counsel him when JT picked up a technical. Came up with some good open court rim protection when Cousins went out in the third with foul trouble, but with us completely unable to score after half Malone went away from him while searching for more offensive punch.

I would stipulate that every word in this paragraph is true, but I still say that one of Thompson's turnovers belongs to Collison. I remember that play when Thompson committed that idiotic offensive foul by trying to bull his way to the basket; well, the only reason he had the ball in the first place is because Collison had looked McLemore off in transition, pulling it back out to "set up" the offense, instead of finding McLemore wide open for a layup on the break.

Sorry, but that play really irked me.

 

[Guy Larboni]

looked great for the first half: even when both our leading scorers really couldn't hit anything - Kings came down after 2 with the lead. this is something.

but the 2nd half was really bad. The ball wasn't movint, bad shot after another, lots of turnovers... I just don't get why Malone is so obssesed with McLemroe playing so much: he was really bad the entire game and Nik, on the other hand, fired the crowd up with his shots and his efforts on the court. Why would McLemore play instead of him at any point in the 3rd? (besides resting of course...)


The Warriors are a better team yeah, but on a night when they can't get anything from 3 point range - you just gotta beat them. It's a shame we could hang on and collapsed like that...
also, Sessions was horrible. Like, more or less at McLemore's level. Why they insisted on signing him and didn't let Ray play I'll never know.

 

[John Galt]

DMC had a bad night, therefore we had no chance. He has to beast for us to win. He couldn't finish at the rim so you knew it was gonna be a long day. Thank god he can shoot free throws pretty well in general.
I've been stubborn but I give up on Ben now. Start Nik Friday - but he has a lot of work to do in the weight room. And... with a SG who can fill it up like that, he has got to be running around more - tiring out the guy who MUST stay on him. He can't just camp in the corner (Malone's fault I think).
Gay had no fire. Maybe he will be a trade centerpiece later in the year. Disappointing to me but he does not seem bought in at all.
Collison was terrific I thought. Only bright spot.
JT has a cool haircut.
Sessions was hard to watch - literally made me cover my eyes a couple times. I thought he would harass opponents pg up and down the floor more. What a disappointment.
Casspi seemed determined to make something happen - he had heart he just couldn't finish and seemed like a liability to me. He needs to settle down a little.

Coach Malone... I don't know he seems to have no offensive acumen. I like his personality a lot, but his x's and o's - not so much.

 

[Bricklayer]

grades finished

 

[VF21]

I gave Boogie a C, but with a caveat. I don't know how much of it came across on TV, but he was being used as a tackle dummy most of the night. He was goosed numerous times by Bogut, along with other "contact" that was simply not cool. The refs just pretty much turned a blind eye - until part of the crowd chanted "I am blind and I can't see, I should be a referee." I think it was part of the Crown Downtown crowd that we were sitting right next to. Oddly enough, the very next foul was called in Boogie's favor.

Cousins deserves a big A for not totally losing his cool, ripping someone's arms off and beating them to death. It is very clear that he has worked incredibly hard on keeping his cool. Since, as Brick said, Bogut is about the biggest thorn in the side Boogie will face this year, this is a good sign.

It was a dirty, dirty game. Steph Curry was jumping up and down on the sidelines like it was game 6 of the WCF instead of opening night. There were nowhere near as many Warriors fans as in years previous, but it was interesting that they were pretty quiet for the most part until about half-way through the 4th quarter.

I've had it with Jason Thompson. No more excuses from me and no more passes. He was a whiny cry-baby all night and it was embarrassing. I was hoping someone would find a way to get Brad Miller to suit up just for the night since he was there anyway. If we're gonna have to put up with a whiny cry-baby, I'd rather it be one with talent.

I don't know if it came across on the TV, but Eric Moreland is a great bench guy - always encouraging his teammates and even going out to meet DMC coming back to the bench after a particularly egregious foul against him that was, of course, not called.

I'll restate what I've said elsewhere - IMHO our need for starting NOW talent at the 2 and 4 is paramount.

Oh yeah...one more thing? Landry didn't exactly suck.

 

[upinsmoke]

I will be on trade machine later tonight looking for a midseason Rudy deal that's for sure. Also Casspi cant be graded higher than D-will they both get D-'s.

 

[jcassio]

Fire Sale - make me an offer!
Ben McLemore
Derrick Williams
Jason Thompson

 

[rainmaker]

Aha, I found my thread. Here's two examples of motion in an actual "motion" offense.

See the options, see the movement?

Again, see the options, the movement, the spacing? That's motion. It's also motion off the focal points. It's also motion/misdirection coming from both the strong and weak side.

We don't run anything similar. Seriously, stop focusing on only the guy with the ball. That doesn't begin to confront the actual issues with our system. The motion in a motion offense is based on the actual motion of the players in the offense, not simply passing for passing's sake.

 

[Chubbs]

Aha, I found my thread. Here's two examples of motion in an actual "motion" offense.

See the options, see the movement?

Again, see the options, the movement, the spacing? That's motion. It's also motion off the focal points. It's also motion/misdirection coming from both the strong and weak side.

We don't run anything similar. Seriously, stop focusing on only the guy with the ball. That doesn't begin to confront the actual issues with our system.

Some people decided whatever happens would be Rudy's fault even before the season began. Now they will sit back and confirm their expectations. It's called confirmation bias.

1. Confirmation bias, also called myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, or prioritize information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning.