[Game] Game 23: Houston Rockets @ Sacramento Kings, 12/11/14. 7:30 PST, 10:30 EST

[ShastaKingsFan]

Just like the Lakers game, the primary factors leading to the loss were turnovers and missed FT's.

Beyond that, the coaches insistence on handing Sessions and Stauskas pivotal minutes in the 4th quarter while nursing a slim lead is beyond puzzling. So is his decision to continually play isolation ball when the team has a final shot. I guess the Spurs hold he patent on being able to actually draw up a play involving multiple players and multiple options dependent upon how the defense reacts. Good to know.

My real problem with iso ball, if your hellbent on playing it, is handing the ball to a guy that has proven he can't make a shot that particular night. Is there something wrong with putting the ball in the hands of a player that has proven to be somewhat adept at scoring in the game?

They want to confirm their investments, by making sure that the highest paid players get the last shots. Regardless of whether it's the highest percentage play or not. It's one of the drawbacks of today's pro game. Many times efficient high IQ basketball plays, completely shut down towards the end of games.

I find the Spurs extremely entertaining, because they refuse to play like this. So refreshing to see a throwback team like them. It all starts with Greg Popavich. Appreciate it, because with how things are, we might not see a team like them for who knows how long

 

[206Fan]

We're not bad enough to keep the pick. It's only Top 10 protected at this point, and there aren't five teams better than us that won't make the playoffs. The pick is gone; the only chance we keep it is if we go Full Admiral, and shut Cousins down for the year.

We're in a stucky situation. I'd rather the team win around 45W this year even if it means losing the pick. I'm at the point where I feel like it's a L-L situation for us if there's more setbacks on our team.

A)Win 30 games, miss out on playoffs, and retain 1st round pick
B) Win 45 games, miss out on playoffs, make massive strides, and lose 1st round pick
C)Win 55 games, get into the playoffs, and lose 1st round pick
D)Win it all

I'd rather us do B than A. However, if we have more major setbacks this season like we've had so far, I wouldn't mind if we go Full Admiral. I wouldn't want us to play without a fully healthy roster for 50% of our games and end up with 40Ws. That seems like a wasted season for me. In that scenario, I'd rather we just go for the pick.

We've started to see this team change a lot. Progress is in progress, but setbacks are hurting us.

I'm still really optimistic for the playoffs once we get a fully healthy roster back.

 

[KingMilz]

A)Win 30 games, miss out on playoffs, and retain 1st round pick
B) Win 45 games, miss out on playoffs, make massive strides, and lose 1st round pick
C)Win 55 games, get into the playoffs, and lose 1st round pick
D)Win it all

.

Option C would be like us winning the championship tbh, to me the only two options are A or C

 

[KingsFanSince85]

I thought we went out and signed a veteran PG for situations just like tonight. Instead of putting the ball in the hands of the player that is supposed to be the most skilled ball handler and decision maker on the team, our coach continually entrusts players that aren't particularly skilled in either area.

The ball should be in Collison's hands at the end of games. Period, end of story.

 

[randymoss1881]

Its hard to be clutch when all Malone does is to draw up a play that gives you the ball 35 feet away from basket and tell you to work something out.

If malone draws that up and you have Tariq black guarding you how is that not a win. Oh yea you shoot a ****ing 3

 

[PBNJ85]

Utter garbage. Gay aint Jordan or Kobe. How bout a screen? Some ball movement? Hero ball V2.0

 

[lawlman91]

Either we played solid defense tonight or Houston passed poorly today. If it's the latter, the Kings at least defended well enough to get the amount of steals acquired tonight.

I still think the Kings' offense needs to emphasize perimeter threats more often than it does right now; the Kings have the ability to have an outside threat through Collison, McLemore, Stauskas, Gay, and Williams. Some might say that some of them aren't outside shooting specialists; however, they can shoot respectably enough for the close out (I have faith in Williams, but its understandable if some still question his 3pt shooting ability). Even if they miss, the team needs to attempt more 3pt shots.

 

[hrdboild]

We're not bad enough to keep the pick. It's only Top 10 protected at this point, and there aren't five teams better than us that won't make the playoffs. The pick is gone; the only chance we keep it is if we go Full Admiral, and shut Cousins down for the year.

16 teams make the playoffs, so it would have to be 4 teams who miss the playoffs and still finish with a better record than us to keep our top 10 pick. But the point is still well taken. The East is so bad annually, you have to be bottom 3 in the West to get a top 10 pick. Minnesota, LA, and Utah are all sitting on sub .300 winning percentages right now. Good luck with that. Not gonna happen.

 

[KingsFanGER]

Don't care, that Harden scores 40+. Ben played outstanding D in the halfcourt. Love to see a guy, that really takes pride in stopping his man. Turnovers killed us once again. Everytime you have Harden running at you in the open floor it's over.
Stupid decision making at the end of the game by Gay to launch a three. The potential game winner was ok. Gay has hit this pull-up midrange jumpers time and time again this season.

 

[randymoss1881]

Don't care, that Harden scores 40+. Ben played outstanding D in the halfcourt. Love to see a guy, that really takes pride in stopping his man. Turnovers killed us once again. Everytime you have Harden running at you in the open floor it's over.
Stupid decision making at the end of the game by Gay to launch a three. The potential game winner was ok. Gay has hit this pull-up midrange jumpers time and time again this season.

I really want him to explain why he did this he got the big to switch and a 3rd string big at that. The only rim protecter they had was Dontas at that point drive the damn ball. He can even do his 2dribble pull up considering Black is 6'9. Baffling that he took a 3 just baffling.

 

[KingsFanGER]

After watching Houston vs GS last night and our game versus Houston this morning, i have to admit, that the difference in playstyle is really obvious. Houston versus GS was basically jumpshot after jumpshot and running up and down the court. Horrible to watch, but with GS having a 19-2 record you have to question, if this style of basketball leads to better results.
What sticks out is, that out of the 8 teams currently in a playoff spot in the west, 6 are currently in the Top 7 of the league in 3pointers attempted per game. Sacramento on the other hand is dead last in this category.
I understand, that we normally play off the best offensive center in the league and therefore shoot less 3 pointers, but if you watch some games around the league it comes to mind, that's not all about the general offensive gameplan, but that the Kings are unable to create open 3 point opportunities.
Casspi is down from 2.5 3PA/PG in Houston to 0.7 3PA/PG in SAC.
It just bothers me, if the lack of 3point shooting is really because of our players are unable to hit shots, or it is because we don't run the floor hard for corner 3's early in the shotclock like Houston or GS and basically don't screen for our shooters.

 

[Swaze]

After watching Houston vs GS last night and our game versus Houston this morning, i have to admit, that the difference in playstyle is really obvious. Houston versus GS was basically jumpshot after jumpshot and running up and down the court. Horrible to watch,

How exactly is watching teams run the fast break, move the ball, find the open man, and make open shots.....horrible to watch?

That's not horrible to watch, that is what basketball is supposed to be and what it was designed to be. Somewhere along the line through a combination of legendary big men and rules that allowed defenders to mug the swing players in the 90's.....basketball became a slow grind it out isolation type game. In part organically (because teams are finding success) and in part at the direction of the NBA, the game is going back to a more uptempo style where the best teams move the ball and make a lot of outside shots. The Spurs are no longer a grind it out team that scores 85 PPG in their wins. You won't see the current version of the Spurs running 1-4 ISO's to end the game.

Basketball is supposed to be about passing the ball and making open shots. I'm tired of hearing Kings fans here and on the radio trash the Warriors style of play (as if making outside shots is a bad thing) when deep down inside all of you would love to be watching their product every night. In terms of entertainment value and wins/losses it sure as hell beats watching Malone constantly draw up 1-4 Isolation Plays to end games. That's not fun to watch and it almost always ends in failure.

Of course if you have a great big man like Cousins that should be your primary offensive focus, but history has shown team's with great big men thrive by using that big man to facilitate the offense and create open outside shots for others when he is doubled. The real key with DeMarcus Cousins isn't just what he can score for himself but the fact that you can build an entire offense around him that leads to open shots for the other players. They have to make those open shots though.

As we have seen many times this year and mostly since Cousins went out, Rudy Gay as the primary offensive option in an isolation scoring role doesn't work. He's not good enough to make it work and perhaps more importantly nobody in the league is making it work anymore. Not working for Kobe or Carmelo.

One of the interesting things about these games lately (with Cousins out) is that the Kings use ball movement and a fun exciting style of play with Collison, McLemore, Williams, and Gay to get a lead and score well throughout the game. Once they get the lead and get to the 4th quarter, Malone then changes the plan to all Rudy Gay isolation plays all the time. They then lose the lead and struggle to score in the closing minutes of the game. Why Malone doesn't just stick with what got him the lead like good teams do is mind boggling. He's not stupid obviously so my guess is that he just doesn't have the confidence in guys like Collison and McLemore do make shots down the stretch. The thing is though after continually ignoring those guys late in the game and doing it "his way" with isolation plays and lack of creativity on offense.......it keeps leading to losses. Perhaps it's time to at least give it a try the other way?

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

16 teams make the playoffs, so it would have to be 4 teams who miss the playoffs and still finish with a better record than us to keep our top 10 pick.

I understand what it would take, which is why I said it can't happen, unless we go Full Admiral. As competitive as the west is, we're basically three games away from being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, which means that if Cousins doesn't come back until January, we're going to be just good enough to lose our pick.

 

[hrdboild]

After watching Houston vs GS last night and our game versus Houston this morning, i have to admit, that the difference in playstyle is really obvious. Houston versus GS was basically jumpshot after jumpshot and running up and down the court. Horrible to watch, but with GS having a 19-2 record you have to question, if this style of basketball leads to better results.
What sticks out is, that out of the 8 teams currently in a playoff spot in the west, 6 are currently in the Top 7 of the league in 3pointers attempted per game. Sacramento on the other hand is dead last in this category.
I understand, that we normally play off the best offensive center in the league and therefore shoot less 3 pointers, but if you watch some games around the league it comes to mind, that's not all about the general offensive gameplan, but that the Kings are unable to create open 3 point opportunities.
Casspi is down from 2.5 3PA/PG in Houston to 0.7 3PA/PG in SAC.
It just bothers me, if the lack of 3point shooting is really because of our players are unable to hit shots, or it is because we don't run the floor hard for corner 3's early in the shotclock like Houston or GS and basically don't screen for our shooters.

I think jump shooting can be an effective strategy if you have four 3pt threats in your starting lineup like GS does. That's an unusual team in that they're built from the outside-in with their two key players in the backcourt and a center who barely touches the ball. It would not be a viable strategy for us. We're built around a dominant post scorer. Of course we're going to struggle a bit when Cousins is injured, by design he's the focal point of the team. Rudy is right around his career mark of 34% this season which is better than Kobe Bryant's career percentage and the same as Lebron James. He's not Kevin Durant of course, but he's respectable from range for a scoring wing...

And there are signs that we're getting better in that area. Collison is 39% from deep in his last 5 games. His career mark is 36% so he was due for an upswing. Ben is now converting at an excellent rate. If he can add an extra attempt per game and stay above 40% that would help as well. Williams is an opportunistic shooter -- he's never going to be a high volume guy -- but he's shooting 40% on the season right now in his limited attempts. Casspi's 3pt shot vanishing over the off-season is a bit puzzling, but it's too early to say why. And he has been finding ways to be effective so far without it. It's actually kindof clever the way he reacts to defenders over-playing the jumper by putting it on the floor and creating good looks. It may just be a case of "taking what the defense will give you" with him, and 54% from the field is outstanding so I'm not at all worried about his game right now.

Anyway my point is, we haven't been a good 3pt shooting team so far but with Collison's expected improvement, our starting lineup actually has plenty of 3pt threat. I continue to believe the lack of 3pt shooting is overblown by the fans. We should be middle of the pack, and that's okay. With Cousins and Gay both near the top of the league in FTA per game, our bread and butter is taking the ball inside and drawing fouls. It's generally a safer strategy to build an offense that way anyway. You're less susceptible to shooting streaks. And it should be painfully obvious to anyone watching our games that the big problem is the lack of anything substantive on offense or defense from our bench. None of Sessions, Stauskas, or McCallum have found their range yet. Sessions has never been a good 3 point shooter so that's expected. Stauskas was supposed to give us a lift in that area but he's a rookie. He will come around in time, he's too good of a shooter not to, though it's anyone's guess how long that will take. McCallum just hasn't had a lot of opportunities. He's better than he's shown so far this year. If even one of them can play 15-20 minutes of effective basketball every game we're in much better shape.

 

[hrdboild]

I understand what it would take, which is why I said it can't happen, unless we go Full Admiral. As competitive as the west is, we're basically three games away from being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, which means that if Cousins doesn't come back until January, we're going to be just good enough to lose our pick.

I probably phrased it poorly, but those last two asides were meant to be in agreement with you, not directed at you.

 

[KingsFanGER]

How exactly is watching teams run the fast break, move the ball, find the open man, and make open shots.....horrible to watch?

Oh wow! It wasn't meant as a general criticism or trashing of the GS playstyle. It was horrible to watch, cause it was really sloppy for the most part in this particular game with rushed shots, rushed passes and plenty of turnovers and forced shots. Actually i love the more teamoriented approach with a lot of ball movement and screens. Spurs basketball is pretty much poetry in motion. And like I said - this up tempo and 3point oriented playstyle seems to work.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Basketball is supposed to be about passing the ball and making open shots. I'm tired of hearing Kings fans here and on the radio trash the Warriors style of play (as if making outside shots is a bad thing) when deep down inside all of you would love to be watching their product every night.

Now that, sir or madam, is a damnable lie! It's libel, and I won't stand for it. I'm not going to speak for anyone but me, but I absolutely find that style of play 'horrible to watch'. I hate jump shooting, I've always hated jump shooting, for as long as I've been aware of the existence of basketball, I've hated jump shooting. I've said repeatedly on this message board that I think the three point shot is the bane of the sport, so I take great offense to the implication that I secretly want to watch it.

 

[SacKings384]

I would sacrifice small baby goats to see the Kings have half the ball movement the Warriors do.

 

[KingsFanGER]

I think jump shooting can be an effective strategy if you have four 3pt threats in your starting lineup like GS does. That's an unusual team in that they're built from the outside-in with their two key players in the backcourt and a center who barely touches the ball. It would not be a viable strategy for us. We're built around a dominant post scorer. Of course we're going to struggle a bit when Cousins is injured, by design he's the focal point of the team. Rudy is right around his career mark of 34% this season which is better than Kobe Bryant's career percentage and the same as Lebron James. He's not Kevin Durant of course, but he's respectable from range for a scoring wing...

And there are signs that we're getting better in that area. Collison is 39% from deep in his last 5 games. His career mark is 36% so he was due for an upswing. Ben is now converting at an excellent rate. If he can add an extra attempt per game and stay above 40% that would help as well. Williams is an opportunistic shooter -- he's never going to be a high volume guy -- but he's shooting 40% on the season right now in his limited attempts. Casspi's 3pt shot vanishing over the off-season is a bit puzzling, but it's too early to say why. And he has been finding ways to be effective so far without it. It's actually kindof clever the way he reacts to defenders over-playing the jumper by putting it on the floor and creating good looks. It may just be a case of "taking what the defense will give you" with him, and 54% from the field is outstanding so I'm not at all worried about his game right now.

Anyway my point is, we haven't been a good 3pt shooting team so far but with Collison's expected improvement, our starting lineup actually has plenty of 3pt threat. I continue to believe the lack of 3pt shooting is overblown by the fans. We should be middle of the pack, and that's okay. With Cousins and Gay both near the top of the league in FTA per game, our bread and butter is taking the ball inside and drawing fouls. It's generally a safer strategy to build an offense that way anyway. You're less susceptible to shooting streaks. And it should be painfully obvious to anyone watching our games that the big problem is the lack of anything substantive on offense or defense from our bench. None of Sessions, Stauskas, or McCallum have found their range yet. Sessions has never been a good 3 point shooter so that's expected. Stauskas was supposed to give us a lift in that area but he's a rookie. He will come around in time, he's too good of a shooter not to, though it's anyone's guess how long that will take. McCallum just hasn't had a lot of opportunities. He's better than he's shown so far this year. If even one of them can play 15-20 minutes of effective basketball every game we're in much better shape.

I agree with you there, but I wonder why other teams create so many open looks especially from the corner, while the Kings struggle to get open and therefore shoot a lot less 3 pointers even when DMC is out of the lineup. Maybe it is because our playstyle is a lot slower paced and we don't use Ben properly, who is arguably one of the quickest guards in the league.

 

[hrdboild]

How exactly is watching teams run the fast break, move the ball, find the open man, and make open shots.....horrible to watch?

That's not horrible to watch, that is what basketball is supposed to be and what it was designed to be. Somewhere along the line through a combination of legendary big men and rules that allowed defenders to mug the swing players in the 90's.....basketball became a slow grind it out isolation type game. In part organically (because teams are finding success) and in part at the direction of the NBA, the game is going back to a more uptempo style where the best teams move the ball and make a lot of outside shots. The Spurs are no longer a grind it out team that scores 85 PPG in their wins. You won't see the current version of the Spurs running 1-4 ISO's to end the game.

Basketball is supposed to be about passing the ball and making open shots. I'm tired of hearing Kings fans here and on the radio trash the Warriors style of play (as if making outside shots is a bad thing) when deep down inside all of you would love to be watching their product every night. In terms of entertainment value and wins/losses it sure as hell beats watching Malone constantly draw up 1-4 Isolation Plays to end games. That's not fun to watch and it almost always ends in failure.

Golden State is playing very well. They're the best team in the NBA so far and it's not even close. I'm not sure why anyone would trash their style of play when it's so obviously effective.; particularly Kings fans who hopefully haven't completely forgotten what it was like to watch the "greatest show on court" just over a decade ago. I'm with Slim though in resenting the implication that every basketball fan holds "high-powered offense" as the epitome of the sport. Golden State is succeeding this season because they've tweaked their offense to be even more perimeter oriented and they've done it while playing swarming team defense every night. I loved watching the Kings carve up other teams with precision passing and marksmanship in 2002, 2003 but I also loved watching Detroit scrap and grab their way to less than 70 points allowed in 5 straight games in the second half of 2004. Great execution on either end deserves to be celebrated.

 

[KingsFanGER]

Now that, sir or madam, is a damnable lie! It's libel, and I won't stand for it. I'm not going to speak for anyone but me, but I absolutely find that style of play 'horrible to watch'. I hate jump shooting, I've always hated jump shooting, for as long as I've been aware of the existence of basketball, I've hated jump shooting. I've said repeatedly on this message board that I think the three point shot is the bane of the sport, so I take great offense to the implication that I secretly want to watch it.

But you can't deny that every team currently in the playoff ranks in the west except the Grizzlies relies heavily on the jumpshot. So this playstyle seems to be pretty effective, cause at some point of the game the shots start falling and the 3 point line is hard to guard, when the ball is moving well.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

But you can't deny that every team currently in the playoff ranks in the west except the Grizzlies relies heavily on the jumpshot. So this playstyle seems to be pretty effective, cause at some point of the game the shots start falling and the 3 point line is hard to guard, when the ball is moving well.

Yes I can. I wouldn't say that San Antonio relies heavily on the jumpshot, I would say that they rely heavily on the pass. Their five or six best players still do most of their damage in the paint. In fact, I would take it a step further and say that San Antonio and Memphis are the only two teams with a real shot to come out of the west.

@hrdboild - I would not say that Golden State is the best team, I would say that they have the best record. When you're not the champs, and you play the champs and lose, I don't think you can say that you're better than they are.

 

[hrdboild]

I agree with you there, but I wonder why other teams create so many open looks especially from the corner, while the Kings struggle to get open and therefore shoot a lot less 3 pointers even when DMC is out of the lineup. Maybe it is because our playstyle is a lot slower paced and we don't use Ben properly, who is arguably one of the quickest guards in the league.

I've missed a good chunk of the games since DeMarcus got sick, so my impression may be off the mark -- and I know early in the season missed jumpers were a big problem, especially from Ben and Darren -- but the overall impression I've had this season is that guys are getting open looks from three, they're just passing a lot of them up for whatever reason and putting the ball on the floor instead. Call it lack of confidence or inexperience, but I think it's a correctable issue and it's not by offensive design. Again, to contrast with GS, both Curry and Thompson are three point specialists. They shoot often and shoot with confidence. They are option 1 and 2. Collison can make the three but he prefers to work more in the mid-range. Ben is shooting the same percentage from deep as Curry but he gets far less looks in our offense and he lacks the clout to call his own number with the frequency that Curry does. Until recently they were our 3rd and 4th options. It's just not a comparable situation.

It's fair to question though, with Cousins sidelined for the forseeable future, why we aren't adapting in the interim with a more perimeter-oriented game to compensate for our relative lack of interior scoring punch. But that goes back to the new offensive sets we heard about during the TNT broadcast. Maybe the team is adapting, but it's not an easy adjustment to make to suddenly switch gears mid-season into an entirely different kind of offensive philosophy. Remember Golden State took years to reach it's current level of precision. We've had just a couple of weeks now to adjust to life without DeMarcus, and it only became clear recently that this is going to be a longer haul than anticipated.

Yes I can. I wouldn't say that San Antonio relies heavily on the jumpshot, I would say that they rely heavily on the pass. Their five or six best players still do most of their damage in the paint. In fact, I would take it a step further and say that San Antonio and Memphis are the only two teams with a real shot to come out of the west.

@hrdboild - I would not say that Golden State is the best team, I would say that they have the best record. When you're not the champs, and you play the champs and lose, I don't think you can say that you're better than they are.

True I probably should have said "best regular-season team" so far because we all know San Antonio doesn't care one bit about their regular season record anymore. It's all just one long pre-season to them. And I completely agree that San Antonio and Memphis are still the two most likely teams to make it out of the West. I'd put the Clippers at #3 because they have a strong interior scoring threat and the Chris Paul "playoff explosion" factor working for them. Not quite sure where OKC fits yet, but they're somewhere in the top 4 by the end of the season.

 

[mdme]

Why weren't these sets installed in training camp? Did our head coach really think that installing your ENTIRE offense around one guy was going to work?

Bingo! That's the reason why whenever cuz sits, we suck.

 

[mdme]

Option C would be like us winning the championship tbh, to me the only two options are A or C

Not D?

 

[VF21]

Basketball is supposed to be about passing the ball and making open shots. I'm tired of hearing Kings fans here and on the radio trash the Warriors style of play (as if making outside shots is a bad thing) when deep down inside all of you would love to be watching their product every night. In terms of entertainment value and wins/losses it sure as hell beats watching Malone constantly draw up 1-4 Isolation Plays to end games. That's not fun to watch and it almost always ends in failure.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I could be watching the Warriors every time they play. I make a real and conscious decision not to.

 

[KingsFanGER]

Yes I can. I wouldn't say that San Antonio relies heavily on the jumpshot, I would say do they rely heavily on the pass. Their five or six best players still do most of their damage in the paint. In fact, I would take it a step further and say that San Antonio and Memphis are the only two teams with a real shot to come out of the west.

@hrdboild - I would not say that Golden State is the best team, I would say that they have the best record. When you're not the champs, and you play the champs and lose, I don't think you can say that you're better than they are.

While the Spurs dont attempt the same amount of 3's like GS their whole offense is build around spacing the
floor for Parker. Even Duncan shoots from mid range and they play lineups like Parker, Green, Leonard, Diaw and Duncan where basically 4 out oft 5 players need to be guarded out on the perimeter.
Outside of the Spurs and the Grizzlies every other Team in the top 8 shoots 3's at a high volume.
Weither this leads to success in the Playoffs remains to be seen, but this jumpshot heavy playstyle combined with high pace seems pretty valid to me.

 

[Glenn]

Bingo! That's the reason why whenever cuz sits, we suck.

So Malone's problem is that he doesn't have an offense set in case Cousins is out, Gay is out, or Collison out. He needs to have contingencies for all injuries. What a dummy. You would think he would be able to take a team that barely knows each other and develop a coherent offense .... ..... oh ..... and defense.

 

[Peter_Gibbons]

Even the TNT crew mentioned it, the Kings can't close out any games. That goes on coaching... same mistakes over and over again. It's getting tiresome. I hate Rudy Gay right now. That guy isn't clutch at all.

Oh boy, you don't know how many of these kobe has bricked in his career. Last time I checked, kobe's game winning shot percentage was 24% which is below league average. Yet he is considered as a big time clutch guy. Give Rudy a break.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

When I say that they don't rely on jump shots, I mean they can still beat you if you take the jump shot away. I don't think that applies to the Warriors.

@Glenn - Your tone is kind of facetious but, isn't that part of his job, too?