Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Trying to find a good format here to finish out the season's grades in more timely fashion. Bear with me.
Ron Artest ( C+ ) : 47min 20pts (8-22 FG, 1-2 3pt, 3-4 FT) 9rebs 4ast 4stl 2blk 2TO
For the first half of this one it looked like Ron Artest was going to celebrate the discovery he had less trade value than Linas Kleiza by coming out and laying a big ole stinky turd. And in fact if it had not been for one fortuitous (bad word choice given the circumstances) Miki Moore elbow, I am not entirely concvinced might not have just laid a turd the entire game. You see, Gerald Wallace was kicking his ***. No other way to put it. And Ron was off, way off. He was 1-8 or 1-9 by the half. 1-11 by the time that Wallace was knocked from the game in the early third, and it was fugly. Once the Wallace impediment was removed however, Ron's game picked up tremendously against the Derek Andersons and Jared Dudleys that had to try to fill that void. And because the injury created such mismatches, the Cats were forced into numerous doubles on Ron that left shooters open all aroudn the perimeter (well...some of that is just that the Cats suck eggs and need to fire their coach -- you don't see the San Antonio's of the league leaving 3pt shooters open play after play no matter how much they have to double inside). You figure 1-11 for Ron to start, but 8-22 by the end, so that was 7-11 from that point out, and back to the familiar bully ball inside. On defense Ron started out harassing Richardson, but JRich was still scoring with ease in the early going. Got beat several times by Felton's quickness in the second half (obviously not a good matchup for Ron), including critically on the drive that tied the game at the end of regulation. But came up big to finally put away the team that should never have been there in overtime, stopping Jrich on one side, and then coming down to hit the game winner on the other on a short jumper. Grade is tough -- hard to give Ron too much credit here for winning this one late, first because the game he eventually had may have been largely due to us injuring the opposing team's best player who was causing him problems (a unique approach to getting your teammate freed up I must admit), and then because if Ron and Kevin hadn't been so terrible for so long there would never have been a need for the heroics in the first place. Nonetheless win it he did in the end, so there has to be some recognition of that gradewise. Note however Ron played a lot of mintes to get those numbers.
Mikki Moore ( B ) -- 18min 5pts (2-5 FG, 0-0 3pt, 1-1 FT) 9rebs 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
A largely forgettable game "highlighted" by one huge perhaps game determining play that nonetheless has nothing to do with talent. In the early going used his size advanatage over the smallballing Cats on a few plays, but got into foul trouble as always. Think he should have gotten more minutes as our size was causing more problems for the Cats than trying to match them smallball for smallball. But was still out there long enough to make the (scary) play of the game for us in the 3rd quarter, KOing Gerald Wallace, who was just kicking our butt in the hustle/athleticism areas, with an elbow, and topping it off by getting GERALD called for the foul on it in true Kobe-style (against Bibby circa 2002). The Cats are a bad team already missing several rotation players to season ending injuries. Once Gerald, who may be their bets overall player, was gone...well you would have thought it would be automatic. Since I can't actually bring myself to award bonus points for sending somebody to the hospital...(well...maybe if it was somebody I really didn't like and it was done intentionally), this grade is based just on Mikki's limited minutes out there. And really he was not bad at all. As mentioned, taking him off the floor to leave the woeful Kevin and John and whoever else running aorund out there in smallball didn't make sense to me.
Brad Miller ( B+ ) -- 40min 22pts (7-17 FG, 0-1 3pt, 8-10 FT) 14reb 6ast 1stl 3blk 6TO
Had a big ole statistical game, and on paper you would think it was something spectacular. But it really wasn't. He was again just too big for the Cats inside and just kind of waddled on in there and thrashed around for boards (this is one of the teams he dropped 20/20 on last month) and putbacks before beginning to get some of his regular game going. But he was struggling with his jumper and for every nice pass he made he threw a terrible one that had no chance. Also missed 1 of 2 at the line in the final seconds of regulation to set the Cats up for the tie and OT. Nonetheless, this was still 22pts 14rebs banging around and generally beating an undersized frontline. Okafor may be overrated at this point, and my lord did Nazr Mohammed look pathetically slow to react to the ball out there. And let's not even talk about Othella Harrington's Sean May imitation...gutwise that is.
Kevin Martin ( D- ) -- 41min 15pts (1-8 FG, 0-2 3pt, 13-18 FT) 1reb 2ast 3stl 1blk 1TO
Hey, I've got a new entry in the Kevin nickname sweepstakes -- The Lightswitch. As in on, off, on, off. And man has it been ON, OFF, ON, OFF too these last few weeks. And this was an off as in OFFFFFFFFFF. So off in fact that you saw something going on out there that you don't often -- Reggie was visibly pissed at Kevin. Barking at him. Makng faces. Encouraging him. Shaking his head. Likely mirroring a lot of fans at home because Kevin...I don't know, how close is Charlotte to Western Carolina? Was he out partying? Because this was a strangely unfocused effort. Not just bad, but bizarrely so. Had I think 4 points at half, all on FTs (which he was missing along with everything else), and had hit no field goals. Which is of course easier to do when you barely take any. Of course you might say that this was one of those games where the opposing team starting quickness against him (the Cats start 2 PGs) made a difference -- quickness bothers Keivn much more than strength. But that explanation would ignore all of the slop to the rest of his game this time out. He fumbled balls repeatedly, didn't know the shot clock and turned it over with about 3 minutes to go. Missed 1 of 2 FTs to open the door for the Cats in the last 30 secoinds, and then amazingly got the call from Reggie to try to hit the game winning shot (got the distinct impression Reggie was intentionally trying to build up his confidence) -- mind you after not having hit a shot all night. He got double teamed, missed Ron popping open in the corner, and forced up a brick as we went to OT. He avoids the F for a couple of things. First, he "found a way to score" in the third quarter. But there was no honor in it. Basically he needed to score, so he ran around looking for people to bump into so he could get to the FT line. On a pickup court he would probably still have zero points. But be that as it may, he got points. Although such a display did really put to shame any of that silly "Kevin has xpts on xshots he's so efficient" stat -- tonight Kevin scored 15pts in only 8 shots! Amazing! Now he only shot 1-8, missed 5 FTs, and used closer to 20 possessions to get those 15 points, but hey. Second thing holding this above an F (other than his other recent Fs that show it can be even worse) was that he finally scored his only hoop of the game at a critical time late in OT. And so you think hey he hit a big shot when really needed right? No. He cherry picked. In OT. Yes it was that type of game for him. So Orlando is up next, and if the pattern holds, he'll score 25. We'll see.
Ron Artest ( C+ ) : 47min 20pts (8-22 FG, 1-2 3pt, 3-4 FT) 9rebs 4ast 4stl 2blk 2TO
For the first half of this one it looked like Ron Artest was going to celebrate the discovery he had less trade value than Linas Kleiza by coming out and laying a big ole stinky turd. And in fact if it had not been for one fortuitous (bad word choice given the circumstances) Miki Moore elbow, I am not entirely concvinced might not have just laid a turd the entire game. You see, Gerald Wallace was kicking his ***. No other way to put it. And Ron was off, way off. He was 1-8 or 1-9 by the half. 1-11 by the time that Wallace was knocked from the game in the early third, and it was fugly. Once the Wallace impediment was removed however, Ron's game picked up tremendously against the Derek Andersons and Jared Dudleys that had to try to fill that void. And because the injury created such mismatches, the Cats were forced into numerous doubles on Ron that left shooters open all aroudn the perimeter (well...some of that is just that the Cats suck eggs and need to fire their coach -- you don't see the San Antonio's of the league leaving 3pt shooters open play after play no matter how much they have to double inside). You figure 1-11 for Ron to start, but 8-22 by the end, so that was 7-11 from that point out, and back to the familiar bully ball inside. On defense Ron started out harassing Richardson, but JRich was still scoring with ease in the early going. Got beat several times by Felton's quickness in the second half (obviously not a good matchup for Ron), including critically on the drive that tied the game at the end of regulation. But came up big to finally put away the team that should never have been there in overtime, stopping Jrich on one side, and then coming down to hit the game winner on the other on a short jumper. Grade is tough -- hard to give Ron too much credit here for winning this one late, first because the game he eventually had may have been largely due to us injuring the opposing team's best player who was causing him problems (a unique approach to getting your teammate freed up I must admit), and then because if Ron and Kevin hadn't been so terrible for so long there would never have been a need for the heroics in the first place. Nonetheless win it he did in the end, so there has to be some recognition of that gradewise. Note however Ron played a lot of mintes to get those numbers.
Mikki Moore ( B ) -- 18min 5pts (2-5 FG, 0-0 3pt, 1-1 FT) 9rebs 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
A largely forgettable game "highlighted" by one huge perhaps game determining play that nonetheless has nothing to do with talent. In the early going used his size advanatage over the smallballing Cats on a few plays, but got into foul trouble as always. Think he should have gotten more minutes as our size was causing more problems for the Cats than trying to match them smallball for smallball. But was still out there long enough to make the (scary) play of the game for us in the 3rd quarter, KOing Gerald Wallace, who was just kicking our butt in the hustle/athleticism areas, with an elbow, and topping it off by getting GERALD called for the foul on it in true Kobe-style (against Bibby circa 2002). The Cats are a bad team already missing several rotation players to season ending injuries. Once Gerald, who may be their bets overall player, was gone...well you would have thought it would be automatic. Since I can't actually bring myself to award bonus points for sending somebody to the hospital...(well...maybe if it was somebody I really didn't like and it was done intentionally), this grade is based just on Mikki's limited minutes out there. And really he was not bad at all. As mentioned, taking him off the floor to leave the woeful Kevin and John and whoever else running aorund out there in smallball didn't make sense to me.
Brad Miller ( B+ ) -- 40min 22pts (7-17 FG, 0-1 3pt, 8-10 FT) 14reb 6ast 1stl 3blk 6TO
Had a big ole statistical game, and on paper you would think it was something spectacular. But it really wasn't. He was again just too big for the Cats inside and just kind of waddled on in there and thrashed around for boards (this is one of the teams he dropped 20/20 on last month) and putbacks before beginning to get some of his regular game going. But he was struggling with his jumper and for every nice pass he made he threw a terrible one that had no chance. Also missed 1 of 2 at the line in the final seconds of regulation to set the Cats up for the tie and OT. Nonetheless, this was still 22pts 14rebs banging around and generally beating an undersized frontline. Okafor may be overrated at this point, and my lord did Nazr Mohammed look pathetically slow to react to the ball out there. And let's not even talk about Othella Harrington's Sean May imitation...gutwise that is.
Kevin Martin ( D- ) -- 41min 15pts (1-8 FG, 0-2 3pt, 13-18 FT) 1reb 2ast 3stl 1blk 1TO
Hey, I've got a new entry in the Kevin nickname sweepstakes -- The Lightswitch. As in on, off, on, off. And man has it been ON, OFF, ON, OFF too these last few weeks. And this was an off as in OFFFFFFFFFF. So off in fact that you saw something going on out there that you don't often -- Reggie was visibly pissed at Kevin. Barking at him. Makng faces. Encouraging him. Shaking his head. Likely mirroring a lot of fans at home because Kevin...I don't know, how close is Charlotte to Western Carolina? Was he out partying? Because this was a strangely unfocused effort. Not just bad, but bizarrely so. Had I think 4 points at half, all on FTs (which he was missing along with everything else), and had hit no field goals. Which is of course easier to do when you barely take any. Of course you might say that this was one of those games where the opposing team starting quickness against him (the Cats start 2 PGs) made a difference -- quickness bothers Keivn much more than strength. But that explanation would ignore all of the slop to the rest of his game this time out. He fumbled balls repeatedly, didn't know the shot clock and turned it over with about 3 minutes to go. Missed 1 of 2 FTs to open the door for the Cats in the last 30 secoinds, and then amazingly got the call from Reggie to try to hit the game winning shot (got the distinct impression Reggie was intentionally trying to build up his confidence) -- mind you after not having hit a shot all night. He got double teamed, missed Ron popping open in the corner, and forced up a brick as we went to OT. He avoids the F for a couple of things. First, he "found a way to score" in the third quarter. But there was no honor in it. Basically he needed to score, so he ran around looking for people to bump into so he could get to the FT line. On a pickup court he would probably still have zero points. But be that as it may, he got points. Although such a display did really put to shame any of that silly "Kevin has xpts on xshots he's so efficient" stat -- tonight Kevin scored 15pts in only 8 shots! Amazing! Now he only shot 1-8, missed 5 FTs, and used closer to 20 possessions to get those 15 points, but hey. Second thing holding this above an F (other than his other recent Fs that show it can be even worse) was that he finally scored his only hoop of the game at a critical time late in OT. And so you think hey he hit a big shot when really needed right? No. He cherry picked. In OT. Yes it was that type of game for him. So Orlando is up next, and if the pattern holds, he'll score 25. We'll see.
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