Giles Will Start Soon.

But without Grant's over reactions, how would we ever remember that point?
"Just remember, if we lose this game by one point, you can come back to that technical as the differtence between winning and losing."
I should put this in ALL CAPS since that's the way he says it.
(This is not an actual quote - for the anal ones amongst us.)
 
I'm not concerned about Giles' technicals. He's getting over-matched physically and is doing his best to compensate. He's not a head case; just a young competitor trying to navigate in the waters of what is acceptable and what is not in the NBA, and also trying to protect his turf.

The main question I have with him going forward is who does he get matched up with on the defensive side of the ball? If you have him guarding guys that outweigh him by 50 pounds or more, it's going to be a problem. He's playing out of his weight class. It may work on the offensive end, but he's just going to get beat up on the defensive end, especially if his minutes go up a lot next year, which hopefully they will. I really want to see him matched up against 4s, and even some 3s going forward so he's not getting physically pounded on by opposing physical centers. Kayte H. has speculated that Giles isn't getting the minutes because of his propensity for fouling. That is possible, especially because we know Joerger likes to "prevent" guys from being fouled out as much as possible (a pet peeve of mine). It's also possible that Joerger, management and the medical staff don't think it's a good idea for a guy with Harry's injury history to be pounded on for 30+ minutes a game by guys much bigger than him. I sure hope next year this will change.
He's had plenty of games where he's played well without fouling but still hasn't played 30 minutes. I think it's a mixture of things. Bringing his knees along slowly, bringing his game along slowly and the fact that he backs up WCS so he can't just come in with 6 minutes left in the 3rd quarter and then play all the way through the end of the game at the pace the Kings play at. Also WCS deserves his minutes as well so Joerger has to do what's best to win games this year. Sure there have been plenty of games where he's picked up a bunch of fouls in a short amount of time but that doesn't account for him not getting as many minutes as say Bagley has had on good nights.
 
He's had plenty of games where he's played well without fouling but still hasn't played 30 minutes. I think it's a mixture of things. Bringing his knees along slowly, bringing his game along slowly and the fact that he backs up WCS so he can't just come in with 6 minutes left in the 3rd quarter and then play all the way through the end of the game at the pace the Kings play at. Also WCS deserves his minutes as well so Joerger has to do what's best to win games this year. Sure there have been plenty of games where he's picked up a bunch of fouls in a short amount of time but that doesn't account for him not getting as many minutes as say Bagley has had on good nights.
I think its a designated pitch count to keep him in the 18-22 minute range. Which is completely fine by me. I think it'll do wonders for him to get a full season under his belt injury-free so he can get that monkey off his back and really focus on playing ball without that nagging "Will I get hurt again?" in the back of his head.
 
I'm more than ok with Harry's technicals. Don't let Grant's over reactions fool you into thinking that technical fouls are the worst thing in the world. Yes they cost you a point but how many games have the Kings lost due to technicals this year? None that I can remember.
I didn't remember either, but this question intrigued me, so I did some data mining.

Here is the list of games I came up with where we lost that were within two possessions, where a Kings player committed a technical foul.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201903190SAC.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201901030SAC.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201810170SAC.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201902130DEN.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201903140BOS.html

My count was 24 games with a technical foul by a Kings player, but I'm less certain of that number.
 
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