FUGLY!
The refs did us no favors, but this particular wound was self inflicted. So much bad decisionmaking and wrongheadedness. And yet there we were at the end again. That's a good sign really. Just no fun to watch. Maybe all those 40+ minute nights for our main guys finally came home to roost, because they simply did not have anything tonight. The game was completely winnable. We just killed ourselves.
Theme = For the ladies. in celebration of the fugly. All the blowouts have subjected them to many a babe, so I figure the least I could do is show them why they shouldn't bother going gaga over a hot guy. So: Hot Guys, Before and After.
Boxscore
Salmons ( D ) -- has seemingly earned immunity from prosecution by agreeing not to suck for like 3 games ina row last week, but it shoukld be noted that this one looked an awful lot like the games that came before the competence streak. Got nothing out of our set offense at all. Got his only hit of the night on a long jumper on a called play out of the timeout, and then just kept on calling his own number it looked like, and missing everything 1 on 1. The enduring image of this one is of John dribbling, and dribbling, as the rest of the team fades out of his vision, there is the one soft little crossover between his legs that's more for timing than to shake anybody, then inevitably he's going to rock back...and brick it. Even bricked his only two FTs of the night. Played decent defense at times, but we wisely avoided the inevitable Beasley trouncing by subbing in Donte (finally!) instead.
Val Kilmer -- This is what happened to the Iceman when he melted and collected around his middle.
Thompson ( C- ) -- not sure what happened to our solid roleplayer, because for this little roadtrip Jason headed right back to Oz where IT lead the munchkins in a stirring rendition of "If I Only Had A Brain". Some dumb attempts at interior passes, was getting his shoit blocked, anf committing variosu turnovers as he has suddenly tuned back into a pumpkin. Was better to start the third, getting his hands on some balls, moving the ball around. But was still splitting his time between being pushed around by Pekovic, and losing the Wolves various soft little perimeter PFs around the edges. Eventually replaced by a more effective Hickson for the stretch run.
John Travolta -- its not funny John.
Cousins ( D+ ) -- you could see the problems immediately in this one as on the very first play Pekovic walked right through DeMarcus for great post position and Cousins picked up the foul 30 seconds into the game. Immediately exposed multiple problems in this one. First, DeMarcus is a big strong kid, by basketball standards, but Petrovic is something else. If you were going to design a pure power build, and were restricted to the relatviely skinny world of basketball, you might come up with Petrovic. Powerful barrel body, no neck to speak of, arms so stubby probably needs help unzipping himself in the bathroom. And he simply bullied DeMarcus for much of the night, which is an experience which Boogie did not appreciate. The second problem that was exposed on that first play is that the referees were going to ALLOW Petrovic to bully DeMarcus -- something I don't mind at all in theory, but which does not work if you are calling relativly ticky tack fouls on the other guy. So Petrovic ounced DeMarcus around, pushed him under the hoop for post postion, once just lowered hsi shoulder and sent him flying, and nothing. Then the other way DeMarcus got called for relatively minor little chucks. In fact there actually seemed like there might be a little animosity there wiht the refs for some reason. While I didn't mind them not going for the charge calls as there is an element of flop to that play as its executed in the modern NBA, there were a number of other plays where the call seemed fairly obviosu and the refs seemed to be staring right at DeMarcus and saying you deal with it yourself tough guy. Result was Demarcus getting off to a ragged, rushed start, being pinned ot the bench for much fo the first half, and eventually getting frustrated and forcing bad attempts just to get something up. Meanwhile Petrovic was walking right through our defense and scoring at will inside 2 feet. It wasn't until late int eh 4th when we finally saw anything real out of DeMarcus, finally finally getting to the line and hitting 3 of 4 in the last couple of minutes, before completely randomly committing a foul so stupid you jut had to go what?? trying to steal the ball in the open court near midcourt from Ricky Rubio with 35 seconds to go and us down 2? Fortunately Rubio only split the pair and we kept breathing, but...I'm just going to chalk that up to being a little sily from all the blows he had absorbed from Petrovic, but really now. On the final play of the game had a chacne to make up for a long evening full of frustration as he charged down the baseline for a wild spinning mess of a desperate attempt to tie in a 2 point game, decided at the last second to dump it to Hickson who was there in position for the offensive board, saw the ball bounce off Hickson's hands, dquirt out to Donte in the corner for the three to win it...well anyway.
Marlon Brando -- A Streetblimp Named Desire.
Thornton ( B ) -- first King to get going offensively, and really the only Kings starter to have any sort of game, and it was still shaky in spots. We turned the table on Ridnour in the early going (Ridnour lit Marcus up for 25 points last time) posting up Marcus and using his power advantage. Did not stop Ridnour from scoring 8 points of his own in that first quarter again, but it helped get Marcus off to a good start, and Ridnour eventually remembered he was Luke Ridnour this time out and disappeared. For the first three quarters of this one basically the only guy who could score for us, and yet never truly seemed to catch fire. Selfish take on the 3 on 2 break in the final minute of the half turned into a +1 to make it 10. After finally returning after watching the Thomas/Jimmer duo get us back close enough to hope for the final minutes, made a mistake and got called for the foul on Rubio at the 1:30 mark to let the Wolves push it back to 3. Drew the foul taking it to the rim at the 29 second mark and us down 4, but only split the fts so we went into the final 30 seconds still down 3.
Vince Vaughn -- by request. And does not even have age to use as an excuse.
The refs did us no favors, but this particular wound was self inflicted. So much bad decisionmaking and wrongheadedness. And yet there we were at the end again. That's a good sign really. Just no fun to watch. Maybe all those 40+ minute nights for our main guys finally came home to roost, because they simply did not have anything tonight. The game was completely winnable. We just killed ourselves.
Theme = For the ladies. in celebration of the fugly. All the blowouts have subjected them to many a babe, so I figure the least I could do is show them why they shouldn't bother going gaga over a hot guy. So: Hot Guys, Before and After.
Boxscore
Salmons ( D ) -- has seemingly earned immunity from prosecution by agreeing not to suck for like 3 games ina row last week, but it shoukld be noted that this one looked an awful lot like the games that came before the competence streak. Got nothing out of our set offense at all. Got his only hit of the night on a long jumper on a called play out of the timeout, and then just kept on calling his own number it looked like, and missing everything 1 on 1. The enduring image of this one is of John dribbling, and dribbling, as the rest of the team fades out of his vision, there is the one soft little crossover between his legs that's more for timing than to shake anybody, then inevitably he's going to rock back...and brick it. Even bricked his only two FTs of the night. Played decent defense at times, but we wisely avoided the inevitable Beasley trouncing by subbing in Donte (finally!) instead.
Val Kilmer -- This is what happened to the Iceman when he melted and collected around his middle.
Thompson ( C- ) -- not sure what happened to our solid roleplayer, because for this little roadtrip Jason headed right back to Oz where IT lead the munchkins in a stirring rendition of "If I Only Had A Brain". Some dumb attempts at interior passes, was getting his shoit blocked, anf committing variosu turnovers as he has suddenly tuned back into a pumpkin. Was better to start the third, getting his hands on some balls, moving the ball around. But was still splitting his time between being pushed around by Pekovic, and losing the Wolves various soft little perimeter PFs around the edges. Eventually replaced by a more effective Hickson for the stretch run.
John Travolta -- its not funny John.
Cousins ( D+ ) -- you could see the problems immediately in this one as on the very first play Pekovic walked right through DeMarcus for great post position and Cousins picked up the foul 30 seconds into the game. Immediately exposed multiple problems in this one. First, DeMarcus is a big strong kid, by basketball standards, but Petrovic is something else. If you were going to design a pure power build, and were restricted to the relatviely skinny world of basketball, you might come up with Petrovic. Powerful barrel body, no neck to speak of, arms so stubby probably needs help unzipping himself in the bathroom. And he simply bullied DeMarcus for much of the night, which is an experience which Boogie did not appreciate. The second problem that was exposed on that first play is that the referees were going to ALLOW Petrovic to bully DeMarcus -- something I don't mind at all in theory, but which does not work if you are calling relativly ticky tack fouls on the other guy. So Petrovic ounced DeMarcus around, pushed him under the hoop for post postion, once just lowered hsi shoulder and sent him flying, and nothing. Then the other way DeMarcus got called for relatively minor little chucks. In fact there actually seemed like there might be a little animosity there wiht the refs for some reason. While I didn't mind them not going for the charge calls as there is an element of flop to that play as its executed in the modern NBA, there were a number of other plays where the call seemed fairly obviosu and the refs seemed to be staring right at DeMarcus and saying you deal with it yourself tough guy. Result was Demarcus getting off to a ragged, rushed start, being pinned ot the bench for much fo the first half, and eventually getting frustrated and forcing bad attempts just to get something up. Meanwhile Petrovic was walking right through our defense and scoring at will inside 2 feet. It wasn't until late int eh 4th when we finally saw anything real out of DeMarcus, finally finally getting to the line and hitting 3 of 4 in the last couple of minutes, before completely randomly committing a foul so stupid you jut had to go what?? trying to steal the ball in the open court near midcourt from Ricky Rubio with 35 seconds to go and us down 2? Fortunately Rubio only split the pair and we kept breathing, but...I'm just going to chalk that up to being a little sily from all the blows he had absorbed from Petrovic, but really now. On the final play of the game had a chacne to make up for a long evening full of frustration as he charged down the baseline for a wild spinning mess of a desperate attempt to tie in a 2 point game, decided at the last second to dump it to Hickson who was there in position for the offensive board, saw the ball bounce off Hickson's hands, dquirt out to Donte in the corner for the three to win it...well anyway.
Marlon Brando -- A Streetblimp Named Desire.
Thornton ( B ) -- first King to get going offensively, and really the only Kings starter to have any sort of game, and it was still shaky in spots. We turned the table on Ridnour in the early going (Ridnour lit Marcus up for 25 points last time) posting up Marcus and using his power advantage. Did not stop Ridnour from scoring 8 points of his own in that first quarter again, but it helped get Marcus off to a good start, and Ridnour eventually remembered he was Luke Ridnour this time out and disappeared. For the first three quarters of this one basically the only guy who could score for us, and yet never truly seemed to catch fire. Selfish take on the 3 on 2 break in the final minute of the half turned into a +1 to make it 10. After finally returning after watching the Thomas/Jimmer duo get us back close enough to hope for the final minutes, made a mistake and got called for the foul on Rubio at the 1:30 mark to let the Wolves push it back to 3. Drew the foul taking it to the rim at the 29 second mark and us down 4, but only split the fts so we went into the final 30 seconds still down 3.
Vince Vaughn -- by request. And does not even have age to use as an excuse.
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