Good golly Ms. Molly.
Every once in a while you get a team coming along that just seems to have "it", whatever "it" may be. Its entirely appropriate to continue mentioning how early in the season it is, but damn if this team isn't showing those signs. Somehow, someway, we're becoming the great Cinderella story again as it was 15 years ago. Quite amazing.
NOTE:the Grading Consortiuum is actively recruiting a new squad of graders for this season. And grading wins is more fun than grading losses. Give us a nudge If interested.
Boxscore
Stats: 48min 11pts (5-22, 1-6, 0-0) 9reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 4TO
GRADING CONSORTIUUM GUEST GRADE
Gay ( D- ) -- All I can say is Wow! What a night, and its a night when Gay should be happy and celebrating, were it not for his absolutely miserable performance on the floor. Knowing that I can be the kiss of death, I'll personally take responsibility for it. Usually I chronicle all the shots throughout the game, but me thinks it would be too painful to relive them. Gay started by missing his first three shots but then looked like Gay we all know, when he zigged and zagged his way through three defenders and easily layed it in. He went on to make two more shots in the half. He opened the second half with a beautiful drive, a spin, and a layup. Little did I know at the time that it would be the last shot he would make until there was only 1.07 left in the second overtime which game the Kings a one point lead. At that point he was 5 for 21 from the floor. He topped off the night with one more miss from beyond the arc. Speaking of overtime, another memorable moment came when Gay was apparently elected to take the last shot of the first overtime. He got the ball with the score tied and a chance to win the game. However he carelessly dribbled the ball off his foot, and ended up throwing up a wild shot as the buzzer went off. About the only good thing I can say about his night, is that he pulled down nine boards. The truth is, if his name was Williams instead of Gay, he probably would have gotten an F. So in essence, I game him a reputation grade. Gay did play decent defense throughout the night, but lost his man a few times, with dire results. There are nights when a shooter needs to have a conscience. This was one of those nights. Had we lost, it would have been fair to say Gay shot us out of the game. Fortunately the Kings got away with a victory. Two weeks from now, no one will remember. And when you win, that's as it should be.
Note: I've read that Gay was battling illness tonight, which would partially explain his poor performance. --Baja
Stats: 33min 8pts (3-6, 0-0, 2-4) 5reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( C ) -- started off this game doing the bulk of what fugly scoring we were getting with Cuz looking oddly uncomfortable and Rudy just struggling from the getgo.. Got an early post move over the good Morris twin (Markief). Got pulled out of the air for a big fall on his back he'll be feeling this morning, and split the pair of FTs. Added an active one handed offensive tip. It wasn't an impressive run, but nonetheless he was getting something done, which was more than could be said for anybody else at that point. But neither he, nor we, were having much impact on defense as in the first quarter all of a sudden it looked like last year, and every year before last year for the better part of a decade. The rest of the team eventually began to lurch into motion and Jason faded back into the background and would only score 3 more points in the next 50 minutes or so of this one. He's still not rebounding, but in this one it was a little more understandable as your PF has to run around on the perimeter chasing the tweener twins. Finally got one of theose really good defensive possessions late in the third harassing Markieff into a terrible shot. Despite lack of production, became a significant figure when we lost Cuz and he had to take over at center. not really able to get it done defensively in that role as you could immediately feel the change in defensive presence around the rim -- makes you realize how good of a help defender Cuz has become. We won, and Jason helped a little early and for the most part did not hurt late. But this really wasn't productive after a while and he was just filling a roster position.
Stats: 35min 25pts (6-14, 0-0, 13-14) 18reb 0ast 0stl 2blk 2TO
Cousins ( A- ) -- there is probably a superstar test where you can tell a guy is at that level when even when he has a bad game he has a good game by most people's standards. Not that Cuz had a bad game here, but it started off poorly. Inexplicably poorly really. Just for whatever reason in the first quarter of this one he did not look comfortable, was playing too fast like this was Andrew Bogut on him or something, almost looked passive about getting the ball, and his guards, even Collison, were being idiots and couldn't get the it to him even when he wanted it. A couple of times it even looked like he didn't know the shotclock resulting in 24sec violations for the team. In what has become a bit of a pattern amongst opposing scrubby centers, Plumlee even dropped a post move over him. Cuz is paying solid positional post defense, but he may want to start moving and taking angles to better disrupt these guys. His first few rebounds were very strong, a precursor to what would follow, but overall he was pretty quiet, and we fell way behind. Finally began to look more like himself in the mid 2nd, it was still scruffy but the Cuz were forced into the same strategy almost every team is using on him now, which is crap, we have no chance to stop this guy, better hack him. And hack him. And hack him. Plumlee and the Suns guards kept making our guards hesitate before making entry passes to him. It was easier against Len, but its still hard to explode and blow up the other team's frontline if your guards can't get you the ball in the first place. When he returned in the 4th he came up with a nifty blocked shot reaching out while being blocked from the play of by his man, and his defense and rebounding intensity picked up right on queue as we charged back into this one and erased a 12pt 4th quarter deficit. Played big down the stretch as we battled to close the gap, and then at the 1:37 mark, after battling short but very stout PJ tucker for about 15 seconds trying to get somebody to throw him the ball from the right side of the key all the way to the left, the entry pass was finally made and Cuz bulled his way to the hoop for the +1 that finally gave us our first lead since we'd been up 4-2 in the first couple of minutes. For the second night in a row, and this is not only aggravating but eyebrow raising, but for the second game in a row picked up his 6th foul on a bad call by the ref, getting called for an illegal screen on which he barely moved with 37 seconds to go. You don't make that call if you're a ref. You just don't in that situation unless its completely obvious. But anyway, Cuz did his part, again. he carried us back into this thing, put us in position to close it out, and after the game has even been earning some more of those reputation repairing points for grabbing Malone after he fouled out and keeping his coach from storming the court and picking up a technical that would have lost it for us. So great is Cuz rolling that I almost B+'d this. Then I caught myself and said what the heck is the matter with you:: you almost B+'s a guy who put a 25pt 18reb line in a win.
Stats: 29min 15pts (5-9, 1-4, 4-4) 3reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
McLemore ( B+ ) -- you know, if this game had ended in regulation this would have been another sigh game for Ben as he really hadn't carried over the momentum of the Denver game. Or maybe he'd carried too much of it and came out in this one, in both halves really, rather TOO aggressive and taking rather more of our shots than his talent dictates. Forced shots too. Drives into the teeth of the defense that were getting blocked, airballed a three. And like many of our guards was showing no ability to get the ball inside to Cuz in the face of the Suns' pressure. And for those who don't get league pass oh boy was he catching hell from the Suns typically homer announcers. You kept on hoping he'd do something to shut them up, but he was struggling badly enough that Nik ended up taking his 4th quarter minutes. But then Ben got lucky I think. First the window was opened for Ben as Nik was having a hell of a time staying in front of Bledsoe on pick and rolls and we were getting hurt repeatedly on that play. So we brought Ben back in for defensive purposes. And then opportunity knocked in the OT as it looked like we were going to do the "good enough' fade. Hey, we'd made it to OT on the road, put up a good fight. But you know we'd lost our superstar, our other star was sick and awful, and hey, no shame in losing a tight one to a good team and pushing them. So the Suns scored the first 7 of the OT and it looked like we were going gentle into that good night until DC stepped up and started pushing back. But DC wasn't going to be able to do it alone, Gay was apparently seeing stars, Landry all of a sudden looked like a very small target inside, Cuz was gone and JT was just filling space, and suddenly it was Ben McLemore who stepped up in the OTs to help us hang in there. He got active on the glass, added a couple of FTs in the first OT as we tied it back up, and then dropped 5 points in the second OT, including the critical 3ptr that cut the lead to 1 with 1:50 to go and brought us back from the brink again. Good thing too since Bledsoe had blown right by him the play before to put the Suns up 4 in the first place. But Ben got the last laugh. Its too bad its not in his personality to have gone over to the Suns announcers post game and say "how you like them apples?" Still not much of a regulation, and DC was the guy who led the OT fight. But Ben stepped up in a big way for him, and that's two games in a row that just have to be legitimate confidence builders.
Stats: 33min 16pts (6-13, 0-2, 4-6) 2reb 3ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Collison ( B ) -- we got bad news early in this one and you wondered if it might be fatal as DC quickly picked up two quick fouls trying to stop Bledsoe (once not even his man) and we lost the only guy who could match the Suns' backcourt quickness on defense. 2nd call was a weak one too as he was defending the break and tried to throw his hands back and get out of the way and they called it anyway. Really took him a while to fully engage, as the Suns backcourt was dominating that matchup as expected. Lax bad pass created a Bledsoe breakway dunk with 3:30 to go. Finally got his first hoop in the mid 3rd, and then went back to back. But still , it was a quiet regulation for him, and this grade would have been a meh at best for his work before the OTs. But in the OTs it was DC who stepped forward first to save us. He didn't dominate. But with Cuz gone, Gay dead, we fell done 7 in the OIT and looked to be on the way out before DC finally stepped forward to hit back to back hoops and draw us within 3. It was still an adventure though, as with 1:11 to go in the game, he stole the ball up, raced the other way to take the lead in a 1pt game...was being chased and somehow someway rushed the layup off the front of the rim. He would get us to a 2nd OT, but there too the way he did it was by drawing a foul, and then missing the first FT and tying with the 2nd. And in the final 15 seconds of the game he did it AGAIN. Splitting the pair, and leaving us up only 2 vs. a prolific 3pt shooting team. Grrd. Fortunately we won so that we can just focus on him stepping up when Cuzx (fouled out) and Gay (sick) were unable.
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