My personal musings from the game. Aldrige is the cleverest dirty player that I've seen in a while. With Brockman guarding him and trying to deny him the ball, he cleverly slides his arm under Brockman's arm and then tries to turn to his right. Of course dragging Bockman with him and getting the foul called on Brockman. With Evans under the basket, and blocking out Aldridge, Evans tries to jump for the rebound, but Aldridge has a hold of his arm and almost pulls him down to the floor No foul called of course. I noted five different times where Aldridge held one of our players under the basket.
During the last five minutes of the game whenever Evans had the ball, why did everyone just stand there and watch. No one moved without the ball. The easiest player in the world to guard is one without the ball who just stands in one place. Out of our starting lineup, only two players had good games. Not perfect games but good games. Nocioni stunk. And has been stinking for some time now. Here's a question. Because I kept track. Of all the times in the game that Nocioni got the ball, how many times did he pass the ball? Here's another. In last nights game, whom did this tough defensive minded player sucessfully guard.
We went down quickly by nine points because both Nocioni and Greene had their heads up a dark cavity. Greene I'll excuse because of inexperience, but Mr. Nocioni who in the offseason expounded on how he likes a team to play unselfish basketball, forgot to include himself in the unselfish part. That brings me to our skilled giant, Spencer Hawes. He's skilled enough to play center. He's big enough to play center. Sometimes the thing that seperates a good skilled player from an average (being kind here) skilled player is a thin line. Its a line that goes from one ear straight across to the other ear. Hawes looks as though he's thinking about everything he's doing out there. And for a guy in his third year, thats not a good thing. He should be at a point where he just reacts on offense and anticipates on defense.
Despite having three of our starters play badly (I'm being kind again), we still almost won the game. In fact we should have won the game. I would suggest benching Nocioni and moving Green to the SF position. I would then start Beno at the SG position. I think we would be tougher to guard, and would have a little more fire power on the floor.
Final note: I think Westphal ourcoached himself a little bit. The unit on the floor at the end of the third quarter had just brought us back from the brink and had returned momentum to the Kings. I would have liked that unit to start the fourth quarter and extend that momentum for a while longer. Instead, Evans, Thompson, and Thomas went to the bench and in went Hawes and company. And our struggles began again. Hey! Westphal hasn't made too many bad decisions so I'll give him a pass on this one. But sometimes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it..
