[Grades] Grades v. Bucks 2/11/2015

There are 30 games remaining for George Karl. Predict his/our record the rest of the way:


  • Total voters
    66
  • Poll closed .

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
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People will point to the third quarter again, but it wasn't the third quarter. it was one bullcrap whistle. With 4 minutes to go in the third we were WINNING the quarter (by 1 pt), then a ref decided that it would be a good idea to call a double foul on Cousins and Pachulia to calm down the post battle. Except of course that the double foul was Cousins' 4th, only Pachulia's 2nd, and Cousins is a franchise player while Zaza is a scrub. Over the final 4 minutes of the quarter an 8pt Bucks lead became 18pts, and the game was over going into the 4th. Cousins comes back, no more double fouls, he plays the 4th, and wow, magically we chip away and even have it down to 6 at one point in the final minute.

The third didn't kill us. That whistle did. A double foul by a wussy ref.

Well, so much for the Corbin era. We'll see him again when they hoist his suit in the rafters. Until then. bring on King George.


Boxscore

Stats: 38min 17pts (7-12, 1-4, 2-3) 8reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 4TO
Gay ( B- ) -- was interesting watching the battle between Rudy and the Greek Freak in this one, not least because while you can't tell it from the boxacore, it was a real battle much of the time, with physicality, chippiness, and the rest. Early in this game with Boogie again struggling wiht his shot, Rudy was there to pick up slack. He had a great back to back move. He added a falling down flip that went in, a nice pass to Ben on the break, and when he hit a three against the shotclock in the mid 3rd he was up to 14pts. As the battle got chippier though, his scoring dried up. You had to appreciate the energy in the battle, but Rudy got inefficient, and it was Boogie taking over in a big way late as Rudy disappeared. Still, watching this one was a reminder that while Antewhatever is the bigger athletic freak, Rudy is very long and athletic himself and it was a good battle. Unfortunately it didn;t go clearly enough Rudy's way to give Cuz the major second weapon he needed as yet another opponent broke the 100pt barrier against us. --Brick

Stats: 15min 6pts (3-8, 0-1, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Casspi ( C ) -- for his final trick, Corbin tried to get clever starting Omri rather than DWill, and while it wasn't disastrous, the strategy didn't exactly turn things our way either. In fact Omri fell asleep defensively on the very first possession not rotating as Henson rolled down the lane. he got a layup from Cuz on the scramble play but was not nearly effective enough to get more than spot start minutes. Was getting a few little off the ball hoops around the rim in the early third, but again that disappeared, and so did Omri as he notched only 15 minutes in the spot start. --Brick

Stats: 37min 28pts (9-20, 0-0, 10-12) 19reb 5ast 0stl 4blk 6TO
Cousins ( ) -- --Brick

Stats: 30min 16pts (5-12, 4-8, 2-2) 2reb 0ast 3stl 0blk 0TO
McLemore ( C+ ) -- started the game off hot, hitting back to back threes in the early going, one in the corner with his feet set -- an important shot because its one George Karl is going to expect him to hit -- and one as well from Cuz, which is again important because Ben's main function is to try to shoot some of the pressure off Cuz inside. Was being aggressive on deense as well, but that landed him in early foul trouble, and after he went to the bench he wouldn't recover until very late int he game when it almost didn't matter. When he returned, was missing all his shots, and the foul trouble got worse by the mid 3rd. About the best thing he was doing was catching some tough passes that could easily have been turnovers. There wasn't another sign of life until the mid 4th when he scored on a breakout to cut the lead to 14. Unfortunately next time down the floor he fouled Mayo on a 3pt shot to just that quickly have us down 17. Finally hit another feet set 3 with 2 min to go,to get the lead to 9, and bounced in a three with 15 seconds to go to make it 6 as we refused to let it end. Those were either capping threes to a late charge, or pretty much just stat padding. Overall though, this wasn't a 16pt game in ways that mattered. It was 2 early threes doing exactly what we needed, and then a long long struggle until desperation time. And it would be really nice if he quit putting up Nick Young rebound/assist lines. If you can't score, do something else. --Brick

Stats: 30min 2pts (0-6, 0-1, 2-2) 2reb 6ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Sessions ( D+ ) -- well, after his first two starts in place of Collison were actually respectable, these last two...we're just too talent shy to survive having any of our Big Three guys out. Struggled to stay in front of his man on defense, never did hit a shot the whole game and was bothered by the Bucks length as he was repeatedly blocked or altered inside. There were a few stretches of good passing which salvages this grade a bit, but then he went out and struggled against somebody named Jorge Guittierez, averaging 2.4pts a game, and had Brandon Knight race aroudn scoring 10pts down the stretch....and no, this was not a good game. --Brick

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Bench

Stats: 9min 2pts (0-1, 0-1, 2-2) 0reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Stauskas ( ) -- --Brick

Stats: 31min 11pts (3-7, 1-4, 4-6) 4reb 3ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Williams ( ) -- --Brick

Stats: 17min 7pts (3-4, 0-0, 1-3) 7reb 2ast 1stl 1blk 3TO
Thompson ( ) -- --Brick

Stats: 21min 10pts (4-8, 2-3, 0-0) 1reb 4ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
McCallum ( ) -- --Brick

Stats: 13min 4pts (2-6, 0-0, 0-0) 2reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Landry ( ) -- --Brick

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phase 1 has been completed....hiring an experienced coach. phase 2 hopefully is Pete sitting on his hands for the trade deadline and keeping this roster intact because you don't want to do anything where you start winning games and get yourself out of that top 10 pick....we need talent or a valuable trade asset in the worst way, so wait til the offseason to do your trades Pete, that is all.....
 
I don't really know what to expect at all. Sure, Karl could come in and somehow make the 9-5 team from yesteryear show up again... But then , The team has been so consistently awful the past 35 games that I don't really see a huge change this season. Improvement, yes. Winning close to .500? Eh.., might be a stretch. Coach Karl definitly has his work cut out for him.

12-18 to the 15-15 range...
 
Considering that we are playing like **** and hardly anyone on the roster cares, I will consider the rest of this godforsaken season to be a relative success if Karl can get the team to play together again, W-L record be damned.

Several things need to be established/re-established. Cousins needs to be put in better opportunities to score, but a lot of that would be solved if his teammates bothered to show up or were even remotely close to being considered talented. Rudy.... needs to be woken up from whatever drug induced stupor he is in. Perhaps this break will allow him to cool off/relax and come back playing to the Rudy level we were accustomed to early in the season. Trades.... this needs to happen. We need a 4 and we need a bench. That, and Cousin's continued brilliance should be enough for a fight for the 8th seed next season, along with coaching stability. If I have to nitpick, I would like to upgrade the PG spot, but as of right now, that is not a major concern, though I think having a dynamic PG will be the key to go from pretender/lower seeds to contender/higher seeds.
 
I think the remaining record could be very good. Remember, just as Boogie said this is the same team that looked playoff bound earlier in the season. If the players buy in to Karl we could finish on a strong note
 
12-18 (+1,-1) Seems like a fair assessment with the talent pool and recent history.

Reserve an out card if Pete makes a big move though Brick.
 
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People will point to the third quarter again, but it wasn't the third quarter. it was one bullpoopoo whistle. With 4 minutes to go in the third we were WINNING the quarter (by 1 pt), then a ref decided that it would be a good idea to call a double foul on Cousins and Pachulia to calm down the post battle. Except of course that the double foul was Cousins' 4th, only Pachulia's 2nd, and Cousins is a franchise player while Zaza is a scrub. Over the final 4 minutes of the quarter an 8pt Bucks lead became 18pts, and the game was over going into the 4th. Cousins comes back, no more double fouls, he plays the 4th, and wow, magically we chip away and even have it down to 6 at one point in the final minute.

The third didn't kill us. That whistle did. A double foul by a wussy ref.

Well, so much for the Corbin era. We'll see him again when they hoist his suit in the rafters. Until then. bring on King George.

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You are better than this.....
 
You are better than this.....

Hardly.

It was the absolute turning point when this went from a game to another rout. And its been that way all season long. We played them dead even in Cuz's minutes tonight. He was taken out on a random call -- and it was random as there was nothing going on there that hadn't been going on all night, and it didn't even assess blame -- and we were very quickly back in a blowout.

Put another way, we won this game by 2pts except for the final 4 minutes of the third after Cuz had to leave because of that call. It was by the most important call, or even play of any kind, in the game.
 
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A common point of observation to be my basis of reference for what Koach Karl may be able to do is defense. This and the past handful of games one observation is that all the other teams, most above 500, play a tighter defense on the Kings on the perimeter than do the Kings. It creates more dribbling and more stoppage of ball movement. And the obsession of getting the ball into Cuz when other play options would be for open shots. Sure Cuz is the best player BUT.... every team knows that and defends accordingly, making it all the more tough for him and increasing TO's.

So under the new Koach, will look for improvement in those 2 areas: perimeter defense, and overall sharing and ball movement (like what the Hawks and Spurs are doing).
 
Hardly.

It was the absolute turning point when this went forma game to another rout. And its been that way all season long. We played them dead even in Cuz's minutes tonight. He was taken out on a random call -- and it was random as there was nothing going on there that hadn't been going on all night, and it didn't even assess blame -- and we were very quickly back in a blowout.

Put another way, we won this game by 2pts except for the final 4 minutes of the third after Cuz had to leave because of that call. It was by the most important call, or even play of any kind, in the game.

Why did he already have 3 fouls? Any of those his fault? Because those other fouls put him in that position every bit as much as that 4th foul.

You say it has been that way all season long and I believe you. I just don't think you are blaming the guilty party.

I can understand your frustration. You are a fan of the Kings and especially a fan of Cousins but it isn't the refs fault. It just isn't. Blaming the refs isn't the answer (unless you are playing the Lakers, or the Clippers) you wouldn't let me blame the refs for the Jazz losing tonight and I can't let you blame the refs for the Kings losing tonight.
 
Why did he already have 3 fouls? Any of those his fault? Because those other fouls put him in that position every bit as much as that 4th foul.

You say it has been that way all season long and I believe you. I just don't think you are blaming the guilty party.

I can understand your frustration. You are a fan of the Kings and especially a fan of Cousins but it isn't the refs fault. It just isn't. Blaming the refs isn't the answer (unless you are playing the Lakers, or the Clippers) you wouldn't let me blame the refs for the Jazz losing tonight and I can't let you blame the refs for the Kings losing tonight.

The fact he already had three fouls is immaterial. It's similar to what Tim Donaghy talked about in how the officials rigged the outcome of games. A 4th foul at that juncture was a turning point. Whether or not you let Bricklayer blame the refs doesn't change that fact.
 
Really? You're going to blame this on one call? Seems kind of amateurish to me. We are just bad. Let's hope Georgie can save us.
 
Really? You're going to blame this on one call? Seems kind of amateurish to me. We are just bad. Let's hope Georgie can save us.

Refs cost people games all the time, I don't know why people have a problem telling it like it is. Maybe you disagree on this particular game, but bs is bs. Sometimes it needs to be called out, sometimes it can kill you.
 
Really? You're going to blame this on one call? Seems kind of amateurish to me. We are just bad. Let's hope Georgie can save us.

I posted exactly the numbers. It is almost indisputable that that one call, a random call that may not be made once a game on anybody, changed the entire tone of the game. That doesn't mean we win the game if that call isn't made. It does mean that all evidence suggests its a tight game without that call.

If Cuz had legitimately hacked somebody across the arm it STILL would have been the play of the game, the moment that changed everything. And frankly anybody who doesn't understand that really hasn't been paying much attention to these Kings this year. You can say "oh it shouldn't be that way" or "oh, you don't deserve to win if you can't play without Cousins", you can say whatever you like about it. But that doesn't change the fact that indeed, the team has fallen apart without Cousins time and time again, and when he picks up a foul that sends him to the bench, its disastrous in the way that perhaps no single foul is disastrous to any other team in the league. So yes, you pick up a random one that is no more than a judgment call by a ref, a "let's control the game" decision that oh, btw, takes away the single player that makes it possible for the Kings to beat good teams, it is absolutely the thing you talk about.

I can take away one play, made by the refs even, and potentially change the entire tenor and even outcome of a game. I doubt you can do the same with whatever you would like to point at.
 
I'm expecting us to play hard under a real coach even if we don't make trades. I got us winning 13-16games and I got us going 7-3 in our last 10 games. We only play 14 games vs playoff teams
 
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