By modern day standards, we were absolutely smashmouth.
-- our two primary scorers both work the post heavily, our best bench scorer works the post heavily, might have led the league in post ups
-- led the league in FTs because we led the league in postups
-- led the league in rebounding, with scrappers like Omri and Reggie Evans helping the big frontline starters.
-- good defensive team, especially considering that the front office hadn't provided a lot of proven high level stoppers
Smashmouth like Riley's Knicks were smashmouth? No. Smashmouth by modern standards? Yes, especially for a young team still forming up. Post play, rebounding, defense = smashmouth. You're winning by being more physical than your opponent. Embodied by Cousins? Yep, absolutely. But he had help and even the guys not built for it were buying in and trying.
-- our two primary scorers both work the post heavily, our best bench scorer works the post heavily, might have led the league in post ups
-- led the league in FTs because we led the league in postups
-- led the league in rebounding, with scrappers like Omri and Reggie Evans helping the big frontline starters.
-- good defensive team, especially considering that the front office hadn't provided a lot of proven high level stoppers
Smashmouth like Riley's Knicks were smashmouth? No. Smashmouth by modern standards? Yes, especially for a young team still forming up. Post play, rebounding, defense = smashmouth. You're winning by being more physical than your opponent. Embodied by Cousins? Yep, absolutely. But he had help and even the guys not built for it were buying in and trying.
When you have to quantify smash-mouth by saying "modern day standards" first then is it really the same term? Especially considering that most would probably consider Memphis a true smash-mouth team. Memphis has 3 or 4 starters that are smash-mouth players. The Kings have 1 maybe 1.5 on a good day. Rudy couldn't guard his shadow nor would even try to guard his shadow, that's not smash-mouth.
If the Kings were a modern-day smashmouth team then people can't keep calling the Warriors a run-and-gun team considering what they do in the framework of modern day basketball.