Boxscore
Stats: 43min 29pts (12-21, 2-7, 3-3) 2reb 3ast 2stl 2blk 4TO
Gay ( B+ ) -- and again, what an amazing difference it makes to have Cuz back in there ahead oh him...as well as to be played by the defense of the New York Knicks. Spent much of the night dueling with Melo, and I mean that literally. It was obvious they were taking it at each other tit for tat and that neither could stop the other. In the explosive first quarter, stepped up after Cuz left with fatigue, and poured it on to give two 15pt scorers in a single quarter. Hit a lot of tough tough shots over defenders, the ones that always made me shake my head at the peak of Rudy as anti-christ mania. Just a severely talented player. But of course along with the special hits were a number of flat bad shots and selfish takes that kind of come with that territory. Settled for a long three to start the third, and missed it, but would emerge to play a key role again after Cuz had to sit with his 4th foul. Melo by that time was playing a more complete game, but until Cousins' return and late emergence, Rudy continued to match him analytics hated midrange jumper by midrange jumper. Got completely smothered but hit one of those tough tough shots again to push the elad out to 12 with 9min to go. And yes, we managed to blow a 12pt lead with 9 to go to the Kincks. Made a great individual play getting a steal up above the circle and going the other way for a dunk. But as Cousins found a second wind and took over down the stretch, Rudy disappeared except to force up, or try to, the final shot of regulation. He got stripped going up and never even got it off. So what is a 29t on efficient shooting game without much rebounding or assistwork, while your opponent puts up 35-11-6? Well...we were mostly a three man gang tonight, with a little help from the kiddie bench guards, and we didn't win by complete accident, so... close enough to a Melo neutralizing performance to let our advantages elsewhere pull this out. --Brick
Stats: 17min 3pts (1-3, 0-0, 1-2) 4reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Thompson ( C- ) -- some good effort on the defensive glass early was about the best you could say for him. Who is he going to guard on the Knicks? And how often does he have an impact anymore if he doesn't have anybody to guard? He hit a long jumper late in the quarter for his only hoop on the night, and was just a body in the third as we needed his size with Cousins out in the 3rd. We went small late, and paid the price without that secondary boarder/rotater with size behind Cuz, but hey, we scored a lot which keeps the amateur fans happy, and JT never made an argument why it should have been him instead.--Brick
Cousins ( A- ) -- such a huge statline, and yet Cuz's grade was all over the place in this one. He just blew the place up in the first quarter storming out to 15 points in the first 7 minutes of play and scoring in every way, including even hitting his first three of the season. We were flying and so was he. But after all of the illnesses of the past month, I think the effort frankly exhausted him. And that exhaustion came to define much of Cuz's play for the next two quarters. Since Corbin took over there has been a bit of deterioration in discipline, and we saw some of that tonight as Cuz heat checked himself with a full length of the court drive that had no chance. He was briefly effective after returning in the 2nd quarter, carrying over his momentum as he shouldered Aldrich out of his way for a flip, took a charge, made a great crosscourt assist, snagged a tough board...just playing at a level that flat out justified the smattering of MVP chants you heard at Sleep Train. But he began to visibly tire, two ex-Kings who we could frankly still to this day use also posed surprisingly effective impediments to tired Cuz, as despite occasionally schooling them, Aldrich and Dalembert had the length to treetop him for boards and get in his way on defense, and they even were able to score over the top of him the way really tall guys sometimes can, with long hooks, alley oops behind Cuz as he challenged drivers, etc. Then he picked up his 2nd foul. Just a 2nd, but given our extreme reliance on him its something that you are hypersensitive to, and so was the coaching staff as they pulled him immediately. But the halftime didn't seem to do him much good. He came out, missed a shot, picked up his 3rd trying to chase it, and a minute later got a 4th (on a B.S. call) and was gone. When he returned to the game in the 4th if anything it looked like somehow he had gotten more tired over on the bench and he struggled mightily, got stripped, blocked, threw up junk over Dalembert. His shooting percentages plummeted, and by that time so had his grade, likely down into the Cs after the A++ start. That was the nadir though. Cuz has desperately wanted these games since he came back, and he reached down in this one and found a second wind down the stretch, making a few great plays you thought might seal it, rifling a great pass to Collison in the corner for a three, then getting a great offensive board and fouled at the 3:40 mark. The grade went up. Then down the stretch he got sloppy, made two turnovers, committed a goaltend, and had a real part to play in the Knicks making it to OT. The grade flew down again. That appeared to only make him angry in the OT though, as he played angry and reckless, throwing himself into Dalembert to draw fouls, scoring 9 points in the quarter, setting up Collison with another rifled pass to the corner for the three that put us up 129-126, then maybe sealing the deal with 50 seconds to go on the play in the vid above. Grrr! And the grade went back up. So much work, effort, and numbers for a win over the lowly Knicks, at home. But we had the best guy on the court, and they only had a future HOFer. --Brick
Stats: 36min 5pts (2-4, 1-2, 0-0) 5reb 3ast 1stl 1blk 3TO
McLemore ( C- ) -- you know, one of the interesting things about this game was the degree to which it kinda resembled last year's Cuz/Gay/IT pattern of play. McLemore was not a self made man here, I specifically remember noting the game where we came out as a team after he got off to the terrible start to the season, and consciously set him up again and again to get him going. Well here...I think the best way to look at it is that it was so flippin easy for the main guys to score themselves that there wasn't much point in taking time to specifically look for Ben. That may be absolving Ben of too much responsibility for disappearing here, but he certainly never seemed involved offensively except as a kickout man if needed...and against the Knicks how often are you going to need that? The rest of his game though also left something to be desired, and that's on him. Early on he fell asleep against Calderon and got beat by him on a back cut which given his size and athleticism advantage should not happen. It goosed him a bit though, and the next shot Calderon took Ben got out on it for the block. He had several bad TOs of the fugly bad ballhandling variety, but did notch the assist several times on Stauskas's shots as he spent a lot of time at smallball SF. The best was a nice quick pass to Nik on the break for a dunk. Finally got his first shot to fall when he rolled in a three in the early 3rd, but it did not lead anywhere. Spent most of the stretch run at SF as we went two tiny guards, one Ben, one Rudy at "power forward" and Boogie. Truly the 3.0 nightmare come to life, although more understandable given New York's continued tendency to run Melo as a "PF" (that BTW is one of the major reasons the West kills the East -- out West you've got all the bigs, playing big). The smallballing hurt at times too, specifically as Ben was not effective either rotating behind Cuz when Cuz had to step out, or at checking the Knicks off of the glass. With rudy also not boarding, the big guy was out there alone and having his own problems against Dalembert/Aldrich. --Brick
Stats: 43min 27pts (9-10, 3-3, 6-6) 1reb 10ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Collison ( A ) -- Excellent game tonight by Collison. 27 points on 9 of 10 shooting, and 3 for 3 from beyond the arc. But he also had 10 assists and 2 steals. I might add, that he could have easily had 14 assists if some almost point blank shots hadn't been missed. Shane Larkin found out just how fast Collison is, when Darren blew by him spun to his left and laid it in. He probed the lane all night long, mostly looking to pass, but other times finding an opening, and just turning on the after burners. The Knicks had no answer for him. Defensively he did a decent job guarding the perimeter. He got caught up in screens a couple of times, and Larkin hit a couple of shots. Larkin also got a couple of breakaway's, but not at Collisons expense. They came when Darren had just driven to the Knicks basket and scored. Larkin, who had just gotten beat off the dribble, leaked out and no one picked him up. The Kings defense was extremely poor at times, and mostly around the basket. We held the Knicks to 30% shooting from the three, while they shot just a hair under 50% from inside the arc. So Collison did a good job defending the three. Most importantly, Darren made some shots when they were really needed including a three in overtime, and a 35 foot three to close the first half with the clock expiring. Very efficient game! --Baja
Last edited:
