Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
This team has been playing better and better, getting closer and closer, and only its magical ability to shoot itself in the foot late in games has kept it from being entirely respectable in the last month or so. Well, tonight we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot. In fact we barely flinched. And we went into the house of a team on a 5 game winning streak and jsut flat beat them.
Official Boxscore
Casspi ( C ) -- was not hitting his shots in the early going of this one, and kept on getting scraped off on screens on defense, leading to an early benching in favor of Donte. But got hot in the third, and over a 5 miinute stretch did almost all of his offensive damage on the night. Finally got off the schneid with the slashing dunk down the lane from Cousins. Good spin move in the paint as well, and then was set up for back to back threes by Reke. Notice how the creative abilities of our two young stars opened the game right up for Omri? That's the future. Was still getting burned on the other end though. After the run, which carried us through one of our traditional dry patches, play fell back off and there were more bad moments than good. Got blcoked on a dunk attempt, got it back, missed the follow. Made a dumb play that fortunately did not hurt us at the 8:00 mark when on an important momentum possession he slapped the rebound out toward halfcourt rather than grab it himself when he was all alone for the board. Luckily Landry corraled it, but Westphal had a word or two for him on that one. Missed several bad shots in the late 4th and briefly went to the bench for Donte as he was maybe the one King out there at that time that still looked shaky in the clutch tonight. After returning came up with a great tiop at the 1:36 mark that made the lead 11 and pretty much sealed it. Kind of had that one run in this one, surrounded by a lot of empty minutes.
Thompson ( C- ) -- just one of those games for Jason that makes you shake your head -- he COULD be a solid roleplaying starter or backup, but the incosistency is just the antithesis of solid. The good of it was he was again solid against Aldridge. Not special like Dalembert has been in that matchup, but staying with him, denying him spots, chalenging. He was solid. The rest of his game was not so solid, as he was repeatedly stripped in the early going, and never did get on the glass. Looked better during a short stint at center int he second quarter, but never did sustain anything, and after he again was not producing in the 3rd, a much more energetic Landry just took over for the rest of the night. Not dropping the grade any further because of the decent containment of Aldrdige, and because Jason was more just invisible than really hurting us.
Cousins ( B ) -- heh -- now this one is a challenge to grade. DeMarcus was quite good in his minutes tonight...unfortunately his minutes tonight consisted of a grand total of 14min 51sec due to a return of massive foul trouble. Too bad too, because DeMarcus crammed his season averages in pts and rebounds into that shrt span and could have been on his way to a monster game. Learned from his frustrations against these Blazers and Pryzbilla from the last matchup -- and there again is that incredible learning curve he has. Was frustrated by Pryz's size/strength last time out, so here he is, an NBA rookie seeing a guy for just the second time, and he changes his whole strategy against the guy and made use of hsi advantages in skill and quickness. Started the game drawing one of those NBA only fouls on Pryzbilla on the first play of the game, jumping up through his arms as he was cruelly "fouled" byt the meanie defender. Then when Pryz backed off to avoid being victized by that sort of call again, DeMarcus smoothly splashed in a long jumper. Completed the package by waiting for Pryz, now wanting to come back out and challenge him to stop the jumper, to get too far out of the paint, and took him off the dribble. Just smart basketball by a player wuth the skills to do it and neutralized Pryz's great size/strength inside. Smart as that may have been however, his night was defined and limited by the lack of smarts on the other end fo the floor, where he picked up a dumb foul for his second and had to leave the game just as he was starting to dominate action. In the second quarter had a great persistent sequence on the offenive boards, getting clocked, getting the bal back, banging around, knocking Pryz out of the way, and finishing with a dunk. Also led a slow break as none of the Bklazers picked him up, and dropped a nice pass on the move to Landry for the power finsih. Kept on using the jumper against Pryzbilla whenever needed. Was strong on the defenisve glass in the third, and made several more nice passes, starting breask and finding a slahing Casspi after he foudn himself trapped on the baseline. Just making good basketball plays. But started to get slioppy with turnovers and then an offensive foul for his 4th that again chased him from the game. Worse yet he limped off with what was reported as a hip pointer -- yikes. But was back to start the 4th, and immediately went back to work, drawing a foul and splitting the FTs (grer), and hitting another facing jumper. Also immediately went back to fouling, picking up his 5th and taking himself right back out of things. With Dalembert having such an impact defensively on Aldridge was never needed again.
Udrih ( C+ ) -- played an absoute ton of minutes in this one mostly for a scary reason -- not because he was playing particularly well, but simply because we lack adequate backups at the guard positons and as our two main guards have started to routinely put forth good efforts, the gap between them and the rest of the bodies back there is tangible. Beno started this one off fast too -- after a couple of early forces he came up with two open court steals, and was knocking down those short jumpers. But of course that only meant that the remainder of his 41+ minutes on the night was that much quieter. Quiet isn't always bad though when it means that you are stepping back and playing a role, and for the most part in the first half Beno stayed out of the way, spotted up, moved the ball, and ran the break. Even gave a decent effort chasing his man on defense. The second half was not as good. There was no productivity in the third, and with Portland making a push in the early 4th he got shaky, attempting his patented spin move for a turnover, and didn't shoot when he needed to on the next posession resulting in a 24 second violation. Made some dubious decisions in the 4th, on defense in particular. Finally got a little toilet bowl finish o nthe drive as the game was iced in the final minutes.
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This team has been playing better and better, getting closer and closer, and only its magical ability to shoot itself in the foot late in games has kept it from being entirely respectable in the last month or so. Well, tonight we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot. In fact we barely flinched. And we went into the house of a team on a 5 game winning streak and jsut flat beat them.
Official Boxscore
Casspi ( C ) -- was not hitting his shots in the early going of this one, and kept on getting scraped off on screens on defense, leading to an early benching in favor of Donte. But got hot in the third, and over a 5 miinute stretch did almost all of his offensive damage on the night. Finally got off the schneid with the slashing dunk down the lane from Cousins. Good spin move in the paint as well, and then was set up for back to back threes by Reke. Notice how the creative abilities of our two young stars opened the game right up for Omri? That's the future. Was still getting burned on the other end though. After the run, which carried us through one of our traditional dry patches, play fell back off and there were more bad moments than good. Got blcoked on a dunk attempt, got it back, missed the follow. Made a dumb play that fortunately did not hurt us at the 8:00 mark when on an important momentum possession he slapped the rebound out toward halfcourt rather than grab it himself when he was all alone for the board. Luckily Landry corraled it, but Westphal had a word or two for him on that one. Missed several bad shots in the late 4th and briefly went to the bench for Donte as he was maybe the one King out there at that time that still looked shaky in the clutch tonight. After returning came up with a great tiop at the 1:36 mark that made the lead 11 and pretty much sealed it. Kind of had that one run in this one, surrounded by a lot of empty minutes.
Thompson ( C- ) -- just one of those games for Jason that makes you shake your head -- he COULD be a solid roleplaying starter or backup, but the incosistency is just the antithesis of solid. The good of it was he was again solid against Aldridge. Not special like Dalembert has been in that matchup, but staying with him, denying him spots, chalenging. He was solid. The rest of his game was not so solid, as he was repeatedly stripped in the early going, and never did get on the glass. Looked better during a short stint at center int he second quarter, but never did sustain anything, and after he again was not producing in the 3rd, a much more energetic Landry just took over for the rest of the night. Not dropping the grade any further because of the decent containment of Aldrdige, and because Jason was more just invisible than really hurting us.
Cousins ( B ) -- heh -- now this one is a challenge to grade. DeMarcus was quite good in his minutes tonight...unfortunately his minutes tonight consisted of a grand total of 14min 51sec due to a return of massive foul trouble. Too bad too, because DeMarcus crammed his season averages in pts and rebounds into that shrt span and could have been on his way to a monster game. Learned from his frustrations against these Blazers and Pryzbilla from the last matchup -- and there again is that incredible learning curve he has. Was frustrated by Pryz's size/strength last time out, so here he is, an NBA rookie seeing a guy for just the second time, and he changes his whole strategy against the guy and made use of hsi advantages in skill and quickness. Started the game drawing one of those NBA only fouls on Pryzbilla on the first play of the game, jumping up through his arms as he was cruelly "fouled" byt the meanie defender. Then when Pryz backed off to avoid being victized by that sort of call again, DeMarcus smoothly splashed in a long jumper. Completed the package by waiting for Pryz, now wanting to come back out and challenge him to stop the jumper, to get too far out of the paint, and took him off the dribble. Just smart basketball by a player wuth the skills to do it and neutralized Pryz's great size/strength inside. Smart as that may have been however, his night was defined and limited by the lack of smarts on the other end fo the floor, where he picked up a dumb foul for his second and had to leave the game just as he was starting to dominate action. In the second quarter had a great persistent sequence on the offenive boards, getting clocked, getting the bal back, banging around, knocking Pryz out of the way, and finishing with a dunk. Also led a slow break as none of the Bklazers picked him up, and dropped a nice pass on the move to Landry for the power finsih. Kept on using the jumper against Pryzbilla whenever needed. Was strong on the defenisve glass in the third, and made several more nice passes, starting breask and finding a slahing Casspi after he foudn himself trapped on the baseline. Just making good basketball plays. But started to get slioppy with turnovers and then an offensive foul for his 4th that again chased him from the game. Worse yet he limped off with what was reported as a hip pointer -- yikes. But was back to start the 4th, and immediately went back to work, drawing a foul and splitting the FTs (grer), and hitting another facing jumper. Also immediately went back to fouling, picking up his 5th and taking himself right back out of things. With Dalembert having such an impact defensively on Aldridge was never needed again.
Udrih ( C+ ) -- played an absoute ton of minutes in this one mostly for a scary reason -- not because he was playing particularly well, but simply because we lack adequate backups at the guard positons and as our two main guards have started to routinely put forth good efforts, the gap between them and the rest of the bodies back there is tangible. Beno started this one off fast too -- after a couple of early forces he came up with two open court steals, and was knocking down those short jumpers. But of course that only meant that the remainder of his 41+ minutes on the night was that much quieter. Quiet isn't always bad though when it means that you are stepping back and playing a role, and for the most part in the first half Beno stayed out of the way, spotted up, moved the ball, and ran the break. Even gave a decent effort chasing his man on defense. The second half was not as good. There was no productivity in the third, and with Portland making a push in the early 4th he got shaky, attempting his patented spin move for a turnover, and didn't shoot when he needed to on the next posession resulting in a 24 second violation. Made some dubious decisions in the 4th, on defense in particular. Finally got a little toilet bowl finish o nthe drive as the game was iced in the final minutes.
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