Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
It does get tiresome after a while. Are you mice or men?
Boxscore
Stats: 34min 7pts (2-12, 0-1, 3-4) 14reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 2TO
Summary: absolutely did not come to play, and it was deadly in an important game. At least tried to fight on the boards to help.
Gay ( D- ) -- if he hadn't fought on the boards, this was a clear F. Not only worthless, but so aggressively bad that he basically lost a game for us. Many others contributed of course, but all we needed was for Rudy to even remotely bring it, to do nothing more than finish easy ones -- 13pts on 5-12 shooting would have done it. A crappy night, but just barely enough. Instead we played without a 2nd weapon all night, and when the Cuz well finally dried up there was nobody left to pick up the mantle. Since he had so few, I can enumerate exactly every good or productive play Rudy had in the game in about 2 sentences. He had one good pass on the break to Casspi in the first half of the type he normally does not see. In the mid-third he got tripped by Plumlee, which was called a flagrant and got him 2 of his points at the line,but it led nowhere. I guess you could also say on one play he drove and bricked the finish, but Plumlee foolishly bothered to come over to challenge, leaving Cuz open for the follow on the other side of the rim. See? Victory out of failure. But this was really just failure out of failure. Way to not be there at all Rudy! I call false hustle if he bounces back tonight with a 20+pt game in a game we probably can't win.
Stats:37min 14pts (5-8, 3-4, 1-2) 10reb 1ast 1stl 2blk 1TO
Summary: he hit his threes and for a while was Cousins' de facto wingman, but then he disappeared entirely
Casspi ( B ) -- on a night when other people were taking care of their own assignments, Omri's 14pts mostly just hitting threes, 10 reb support night would be all you would ask of him. He was one of a trio of Kings to actually show up for tipoff of this one (Rondo, Cousins, and then a little bench help from DC) hit an early three on the kick from Cousins, added a little flip, and made some good defensive challenges (side note, under many statistical measures Omri and WCS are our #2 and #3 defenders). He would continue to pepper in threes, but not much else came from it. And when the offense completely seized up in the 4th, he was of no help at all. He tried to give us a solid roleplayer game, but we needed a weapon. The defensive issues were largely not his fault however. He was recovering adequately, it was rarely his man on the threes, and McCollum killed our sad guards, not our bigs.
Stats: 37min 36pts (12-26, 2-7, 10-12) 6reb 2ast 1stl 2blk 5TO
Summary: a 36 point night, and yet somehow not quite satisfying. Was so easy before half, but we over relied on him for everything down the stretch.
Cousins ( B ) -- along with Omri, and after a little pause, Rajon, Cuz was a guy who really came out to play in this one and defied the malaise. And in what would have been an encouraging sign if we had just taken care of our damn business here, he actually was spending most of his time attacking inside and just pummeled the hapless Blazers frontline for 21pts on 7-10 shooting. His defense in the early going may have been more impressive as he disrupted everything inside, and it was only his boardwork that was disappointing. He was often pulled outside to guard the Blazers junkball shooters, but even when around the rim he judt didn't seem sharp on the glass. And by 3 minutes into the third he was up to 27 points and we were styling. But then things began to go wrong, his offense dried up, not least because the Blazers apparently bribed Rondo at halftime to switch sides, we were having a hard time feeding him, and when we did it wasn't efficient. He was still giving defensive effort, and amusingly in the early 4th became virtually the only King other than Seth Curry (!) to have a good defensive sequence on McCollum, forcing him into a tough shot from the corner. He added a great chasedown block down the stretch as he tried to hold us in it. But offensively it was gone. Not just Cuz, but the whole team just collectively McLemore'd at the same time. 9 minutes into the 4th quarter we had scored 7pts. And so in the final minutes it got kind of pathetic as with no teammates interested in competing at all, Boogie started just forcing and throwing up shots everytime down the floor while everybody else just ran off and hid hoping he wouldn't pass it to them. They needn't have worried. He did what scoring there was to do, gave us what desperate hope we were going to have at that point, but it wasn't much, it wasn't in rhythm, it was just desperation. What a sad way to end a game we should have come out looking to dominate and have our scrubs on the floor by the 4th.
Stats: 19min 5pts (1-1, 1-1, 1-2) 2reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Summary: *poof*
McLemore ( D ) -- just another one of those games for Ben where he gave us no help whatsoever and just looked content to run up and down the court looking mildly concerned. There was some defense on Crabbe, but Crabbe mostly missed on his own with little help from us. There was no offense at all in the first half besides turnovers and shaky near-turnovers. I think he had one notably good rebound in the first half, ad that may literally have been the extent of his contribution. Got to the line on an off balance shot in the early 3rd for his first points, and a few minutes later hit his first and only shot of the game on a straight on three off a kick from inside. And then that was it. Karl has a mindless substitution he does every single game at exactly the same point of the 3rd, halfway through Ben comes out, no matter how he has been playing. And so just when he finally did something, it was his time to go to the bench, and despite the offensive massacre that the 4th quarter became, Ben never returned.
Stats: 39min 9pts (3-6, 1-3, 1-2) 5reb 15ast 3stl 0blk 8TO
Summary: another brilliant first quarter/early 2nd run, and then from that point on switched jerseys, did not defend, passed it to more Blazers than Kings
Rondo ( D+ ) -- played maybe 1 good quarter out of 4, and it didn't even start from the beginning of the game, when he came out wild as part of our early turnover infested deficit. But he surged in a major way, and was maybe the primary force in roaring back to the lead with 8 first quarter assists, and some pesky ballhawking defense. He hit two threes as well, and there was a point there when this was a blowout the two team's rosters said it should have been. It even carried over for a few minutes into the 2nd quarter, ass he returned, made several more great passes for assists, and stabilized a terrible stint by the bench. But that was it, and it in a colossally bad fashion. Rajon not only disappeared, he actively hurt us, switching sides from the mid second onward and stalling out our offense just as he had previously greased it. He literally had more turnovers than assists from that point of the game, his decisionmaking sucked, and McCollum lit him up. And I just have no explanation for what happened or why. He at least gave us a good stretch, but with so many Kings not showing up and just looking for a rock to hide under, once rondo went south and quit forcing them to be competent everything just ground to a fugly disastrous halt.
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