21pts 16reb 5ast
+
21pts 8reb 8ast
=
Win.
'Course wasn't that simple. The game was choppy and fugly. Both guys made a ton of mistakes. There was more bad defense than you can shake a stick at. The coach changed his entire rotation philosophy on a dime, and went about 16 minutes with only a single substitution, and that because Cousins had 5 fouls. Other than that short 2min rest Cuz played the entire second half. Reke played the entire half. I think Salmons too. Most of the first half bench crew never saw the light after half. Jimmer came on and was our best defensive PG. Yes, you read that right. It was messy but interesting. Most of all it was a win, lucky or not, messy or not. And on the backs of the two guys we need to be stars.
Highlights:
The Grading Consortium
Bricklayer
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
Boxscore
Stats: 43min 21pts (9-15, 2-3, 1-1) 4reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Salmons ( B+ ) -- John had a nice bounce back game tonight after a couple of stinkers. He hit the first shot of the game, a three pointer. He followed that a few minutes later with a pull up at the left elbow. He then had a nice assist hitting Cuz who was cutting to the basket. He threw up a tough shot in a crowd and missed. He finished his work in the 1st quarter with a layup on a leak out and an nice outlet from Cuz. Got off to a bad start in the 2nd by stepping out of bounds with the ball under pressure. He came back in late in the second, and finished with a pull up in the key. He picked up in the second half where he left off in the 1st with a nice pull up at the top of the key. He later drove the left baseline and powered up a shot through Nene, and was fouled for a three point play. After a couple of misses, one a reverse layup, he scored on a dunk from a beautiful outlet from Hayes. He finished off his scoring for the night by hitting a three pointer to tie the game with 6:39 left in the game. All in all, a very nice game for Salmons. He did disappear from time to time, and in the first quarter he lost his man on defense several times, otherwise he might have gotten an A-. --Baja
Stats: 22min 6pts (3-8, 0-0, 0-0) 2reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thompson ( D+ ) -- and so the struggle goes on for JT. Over his last 5 games he is suddenly averaging 6.4pts 3.4rebs on .424 shooting. Tonight it was another 6pts 2rebs on .375 shooting. When I went back to rewatch that first quarter to check a few things, JTs struggles remained just as much of a mystery. Just an air of the old playing too fast/too out of control thing going on, supplemented I think this time by his career long strength issues (do not listen to Jerry, JT has never shown great strength despite his size). Here that resulted in many of his attempts being off balance while being pushed around down low, and our defensive scheme with the bigs showing up top on pick and rolls seemed to have him constantly out of positon on the recoveries and hence inviisble on the glass again. Did have one nice tip early in the game, but when foul tourble loomed in the third, for the second game in a row found himsel repalced for long stretches of the second half by a bench big. This time it was Chuck, who was frankly built better for the sort of beef on beef earthmover inside shoving match that an Okafor/Nene/Seraphiin frontline promises. Got a chance at redemption when he was inserted in place of Cousins midway through the 4th when Cuz picked up his 5th foul. Briefly worked as he got a little hook when Reke pased it to him late -- in fact was our only firled goal over a 4 minute span. But a few seconds later he picked up foul #5 and headed back the bench with another disappointing night. With Reke and Cuz now fully online, Jason needs to get it together for some solid support.--Brick
Stats: 43min 21pts (9-19, 0-0, 3-3) 16reb 5ast 3stl 0blk 6TO
Cousins ( B+ ) -- okay, and so AGAIN the huge statline that does not earn the A. I will make a point again that when a guy can put up a line that would be a career night for most guys, and you start nitpicking it, that's when you know you are talking about a star type guy. My initial notes here read literally "terible defense against Nene early, nor able to protect the rim". But when I went back to rewatch the first quarter to see what was really happening, it wasn't as bad as I thought for Cuz. Yes he was out of position multiple times, but often it seemed lie the scheme was broken, or the Wiz were breaking it. He was often stepping up to challenge screens, switching off to take cutters, picking up his own man on the break at the same time someone else picked him up, leaving somebody open. Was a mess, but effort looked decent, and I'm not sure where the blame lies. Anyway, the early defense composes part of this grade. On the other end was ragged, but slowly started to get going. Took a charge on Wall in the early 2nd and when he returend later in the half immediately got a long jumper on the Reke kick. Defense picked up as he began to get his hands on things, but offensively he began to settle for too many jumpers, and just rarely looked comfortable with them. Routinely catching the ball up around the three point stripe did not help matters. Tooka while for him to be effective inteh third as well, as he was having a hard time power posting Okafor, as predicted, and did not get a single FT until late int hat quarter despite all the banging inside. But he was beginning to spot in special plays, got a tough powr drive late in the third, added a nice steal and fullcourt pass to a streaking Reke (one of several fullcourt passes ahead to trigger our break -- was something I saw from him as far back as his first Summer League, and thought he could be an elite break triggerman). should be ntoed here that he got 6 TOs, but I think literlaly half of those were on offensive foul calls. He was not atrociously sloppy otherwise, and some of the calls were dicey. Got more settled and solid in big man ways the later in the game it got, and began to just thud the Wiz inside in the 4th, dominating the dfensive class, banging inside on offense. We briefly lost him when he picked up his 5th foul on another offensive foul call with 6 min to go, but within 2 minutes he was back for the stretch, and his big plays were critical to the victory. Went back to back with a quick power move with 2 min to to cut the Wiz margin to 3, and then scored the +1 off a high pick and rol with Jimmer to tie the game up. After the Wiz hit a three, it was Cuz who came up with the dribble and kick to Salmons to retie it too. Hedid fail at the 40 secodn mark when we tried to psot him and he just flat lost control of hsi dribble and turned it over, but fortunately we pulled it out so there wouldn't be any goat horns and resumed calls to trade him. --Brick
Stats: 41min 21pts (8-15, 1-1, 4-7) 8reb 8ast 3stl 0blk 2TO
Evans ( B+ ) -- got off to a very strong start to this one.. Sure enough Beal could not guard him (many more of Reke's points came against Beal than Beal points came against Reke), but Beal was a tough cover the other way and once just flat beat him with a quick baseline move. Reke was doing his damage in a variety of ways as we saw a bit of just about everything from him. He had a strong power move in the post around a SF (later in the game we would get a 24sec violation when we determinedly tried to get that again). He drained another three (bringing his season 3pt% to .353, which is better than either IT or MT actually). And he torched the Wiz for 13 first quarter points on 5-6 shooting. When he returned in the mid 2nd he immediately hit Cuz for a long jumper as the assists started piling up, but he was not involved with his own scoring until a big swooping drive down the right baseline in the final minute. Despite the big game, the third is when I thought this one really began to get interesting for Reke. And its as much for its imperfections as anything else. After half Reke played, and was treated by his coach, like a star. Not a guy who was just hot -- in fact he was not. But a star in that he was involved in everything. He was doing bits of everything, was always there and battling. There were numerous mistakes, he actually missed his first three attempts of the quarter (the third was blocked), he got torched once on a Wall crossover, turned it over once along the sideline when he got surprised by an aggressive double, ran the most selfish break I have seen from him in a while when he may have let his personal duel with Wall override his team sense and he ignored a wide open Jimmer on his elbow to force the attempt himself (actually I thought Jimmer might get it blocked so maybe that was Reke's thought too, but it still looked bad). So with all those numerous mistakes how could it be a star half? Well, like I say, because of all the things he did do. Because it was relentless. He started really wading in on the defensive glass to help us close possessions, was picking up assists in a variety of ways, everything from drive and kicks to swings around the perimeter, to on the final play of the third driving and dishing it to Hayes for his only bucket of the game to cut the lead to 6. He began aggressively releasing on the break, having battles with Wall trying to finsih it. It wasn't an effiicient half per se, but both Reke and Cuz went almost the whole way and just pounded and pounded away in steady relentless fashion, and once we found the right guys to surround them with we began to chip and chip away at the lead. Thought Reke's legs looked like they might be going late, but he made a quick move to get the game winning FT when the Wizards screwed up and decided to try to guard him with Webster on our final possession of the game. He blew by him, crossed Nene, and when Nene tripped him went to the line and split the pair. Luckily it was enough. You can hardly have an epic victory over the Wizards, but when your two young stars combine for 42pts 24rebs 13 ast and make most of the plays down the stretch to win it for you, its starting to look a lot like Christmas. --Brick
Stats: 20min 2pts (1-4, 0-2, 0-2) 0reb 4ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Thomas ( C- ) -- IT was not hitting his shots tonight, but he ran the offense reasonably well in the first half (though one of his four assists was extremely generous). His defense was quite questionable, getting burned by A.J. Price multiple times, including once on an inbounds play. At least twice he left his man allowing a quick pass and open jumper, resulting in 7 points on 3-6 shooting against him. In contrast to Price, he gave Wall a ton of space, which resulted in Wall passing at will. He did put the brakes on Beal on a fast break push, though, and also inexplicably managed to draw an offensive foul when switched off onto the posting Trevor Ariza. Tyreke was dominating the ball in the early going in the second half, and the uninvolved Thomas was benched for Jimmer, only seeing token time in the last minute during a strange Thomas/Hayes Offense/Defense switch. --Capt.
+
21pts 8reb 8ast
=
Win.
'Course wasn't that simple. The game was choppy and fugly. Both guys made a ton of mistakes. There was more bad defense than you can shake a stick at. The coach changed his entire rotation philosophy on a dime, and went about 16 minutes with only a single substitution, and that because Cousins had 5 fouls. Other than that short 2min rest Cuz played the entire second half. Reke played the entire half. I think Salmons too. Most of the first half bench crew never saw the light after half. Jimmer came on and was our best defensive PG. Yes, you read that right. It was messy but interesting. Most of all it was a win, lucky or not, messy or not. And on the backs of the two guys we need to be stars.
Highlights:
The Grading Consortium
Bricklayer
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
Boxscore
Stats: 43min 21pts (9-15, 2-3, 1-1) 4reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Salmons ( B+ ) -- John had a nice bounce back game tonight after a couple of stinkers. He hit the first shot of the game, a three pointer. He followed that a few minutes later with a pull up at the left elbow. He then had a nice assist hitting Cuz who was cutting to the basket. He threw up a tough shot in a crowd and missed. He finished his work in the 1st quarter with a layup on a leak out and an nice outlet from Cuz. Got off to a bad start in the 2nd by stepping out of bounds with the ball under pressure. He came back in late in the second, and finished with a pull up in the key. He picked up in the second half where he left off in the 1st with a nice pull up at the top of the key. He later drove the left baseline and powered up a shot through Nene, and was fouled for a three point play. After a couple of misses, one a reverse layup, he scored on a dunk from a beautiful outlet from Hayes. He finished off his scoring for the night by hitting a three pointer to tie the game with 6:39 left in the game. All in all, a very nice game for Salmons. He did disappear from time to time, and in the first quarter he lost his man on defense several times, otherwise he might have gotten an A-. --Baja
Stats: 22min 6pts (3-8, 0-0, 0-0) 2reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thompson ( D+ ) -- and so the struggle goes on for JT. Over his last 5 games he is suddenly averaging 6.4pts 3.4rebs on .424 shooting. Tonight it was another 6pts 2rebs on .375 shooting. When I went back to rewatch that first quarter to check a few things, JTs struggles remained just as much of a mystery. Just an air of the old playing too fast/too out of control thing going on, supplemented I think this time by his career long strength issues (do not listen to Jerry, JT has never shown great strength despite his size). Here that resulted in many of his attempts being off balance while being pushed around down low, and our defensive scheme with the bigs showing up top on pick and rolls seemed to have him constantly out of positon on the recoveries and hence inviisble on the glass again. Did have one nice tip early in the game, but when foul tourble loomed in the third, for the second game in a row found himsel repalced for long stretches of the second half by a bench big. This time it was Chuck, who was frankly built better for the sort of beef on beef earthmover inside shoving match that an Okafor/Nene/Seraphiin frontline promises. Got a chance at redemption when he was inserted in place of Cousins midway through the 4th when Cuz picked up his 5th foul. Briefly worked as he got a little hook when Reke pased it to him late -- in fact was our only firled goal over a 4 minute span. But a few seconds later he picked up foul #5 and headed back the bench with another disappointing night. With Reke and Cuz now fully online, Jason needs to get it together for some solid support.--Brick
Stats: 43min 21pts (9-19, 0-0, 3-3) 16reb 5ast 3stl 0blk 6TO
Cousins ( B+ ) -- okay, and so AGAIN the huge statline that does not earn the A. I will make a point again that when a guy can put up a line that would be a career night for most guys, and you start nitpicking it, that's when you know you are talking about a star type guy. My initial notes here read literally "terible defense against Nene early, nor able to protect the rim". But when I went back to rewatch the first quarter to see what was really happening, it wasn't as bad as I thought for Cuz. Yes he was out of position multiple times, but often it seemed lie the scheme was broken, or the Wiz were breaking it. He was often stepping up to challenge screens, switching off to take cutters, picking up his own man on the break at the same time someone else picked him up, leaving somebody open. Was a mess, but effort looked decent, and I'm not sure where the blame lies. Anyway, the early defense composes part of this grade. On the other end was ragged, but slowly started to get going. Took a charge on Wall in the early 2nd and when he returend later in the half immediately got a long jumper on the Reke kick. Defense picked up as he began to get his hands on things, but offensively he began to settle for too many jumpers, and just rarely looked comfortable with them. Routinely catching the ball up around the three point stripe did not help matters. Tooka while for him to be effective inteh third as well, as he was having a hard time power posting Okafor, as predicted, and did not get a single FT until late int hat quarter despite all the banging inside. But he was beginning to spot in special plays, got a tough powr drive late in the third, added a nice steal and fullcourt pass to a streaking Reke (one of several fullcourt passes ahead to trigger our break -- was something I saw from him as far back as his first Summer League, and thought he could be an elite break triggerman). should be ntoed here that he got 6 TOs, but I think literlaly half of those were on offensive foul calls. He was not atrociously sloppy otherwise, and some of the calls were dicey. Got more settled and solid in big man ways the later in the game it got, and began to just thud the Wiz inside in the 4th, dominating the dfensive class, banging inside on offense. We briefly lost him when he picked up his 5th foul on another offensive foul call with 6 min to go, but within 2 minutes he was back for the stretch, and his big plays were critical to the victory. Went back to back with a quick power move with 2 min to to cut the Wiz margin to 3, and then scored the +1 off a high pick and rol with Jimmer to tie the game up. After the Wiz hit a three, it was Cuz who came up with the dribble and kick to Salmons to retie it too. Hedid fail at the 40 secodn mark when we tried to psot him and he just flat lost control of hsi dribble and turned it over, but fortunately we pulled it out so there wouldn't be any goat horns and resumed calls to trade him. --Brick
Stats: 41min 21pts (8-15, 1-1, 4-7) 8reb 8ast 3stl 0blk 2TO
Evans ( B+ ) -- got off to a very strong start to this one.. Sure enough Beal could not guard him (many more of Reke's points came against Beal than Beal points came against Reke), but Beal was a tough cover the other way and once just flat beat him with a quick baseline move. Reke was doing his damage in a variety of ways as we saw a bit of just about everything from him. He had a strong power move in the post around a SF (later in the game we would get a 24sec violation when we determinedly tried to get that again). He drained another three (bringing his season 3pt% to .353, which is better than either IT or MT actually). And he torched the Wiz for 13 first quarter points on 5-6 shooting. When he returned in the mid 2nd he immediately hit Cuz for a long jumper as the assists started piling up, but he was not involved with his own scoring until a big swooping drive down the right baseline in the final minute. Despite the big game, the third is when I thought this one really began to get interesting for Reke. And its as much for its imperfections as anything else. After half Reke played, and was treated by his coach, like a star. Not a guy who was just hot -- in fact he was not. But a star in that he was involved in everything. He was doing bits of everything, was always there and battling. There were numerous mistakes, he actually missed his first three attempts of the quarter (the third was blocked), he got torched once on a Wall crossover, turned it over once along the sideline when he got surprised by an aggressive double, ran the most selfish break I have seen from him in a while when he may have let his personal duel with Wall override his team sense and he ignored a wide open Jimmer on his elbow to force the attempt himself (actually I thought Jimmer might get it blocked so maybe that was Reke's thought too, but it still looked bad). So with all those numerous mistakes how could it be a star half? Well, like I say, because of all the things he did do. Because it was relentless. He started really wading in on the defensive glass to help us close possessions, was picking up assists in a variety of ways, everything from drive and kicks to swings around the perimeter, to on the final play of the third driving and dishing it to Hayes for his only bucket of the game to cut the lead to 6. He began aggressively releasing on the break, having battles with Wall trying to finsih it. It wasn't an effiicient half per se, but both Reke and Cuz went almost the whole way and just pounded and pounded away in steady relentless fashion, and once we found the right guys to surround them with we began to chip and chip away at the lead. Thought Reke's legs looked like they might be going late, but he made a quick move to get the game winning FT when the Wizards screwed up and decided to try to guard him with Webster on our final possession of the game. He blew by him, crossed Nene, and when Nene tripped him went to the line and split the pair. Luckily it was enough. You can hardly have an epic victory over the Wizards, but when your two young stars combine for 42pts 24rebs 13 ast and make most of the plays down the stretch to win it for you, its starting to look a lot like Christmas. --Brick
Stats: 20min 2pts (1-4, 0-2, 0-2) 0reb 4ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Thomas ( C- ) -- IT was not hitting his shots tonight, but he ran the offense reasonably well in the first half (though one of his four assists was extremely generous). His defense was quite questionable, getting burned by A.J. Price multiple times, including once on an inbounds play. At least twice he left his man allowing a quick pass and open jumper, resulting in 7 points on 3-6 shooting against him. In contrast to Price, he gave Wall a ton of space, which resulted in Wall passing at will. He did put the brakes on Beal on a fast break push, though, and also inexplicably managed to draw an offensive foul when switched off onto the posting Trevor Ariza. Tyreke was dominating the ball in the early going in the second half, and the uninvolved Thomas was benched for Jimmer, only seeing token time in the last minute during a strange Thomas/Hayes Offense/Defense switch. --Capt.
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