Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Good loss!
Entrenched and continuing problems include: terrible vets wasting our money and minutes, a SF hole, and our offense improving much more than our defense. And basically with the exception of IT, everything we did this summer looks cruddy/like it made us weaker.
However:
Cousins 28pts 17reb 2ast 3stl 2blk
Reke 27pts 8reb 8ast at least 2 uncredited steals 1blk
Thronton 23pts 2reb 2ast
and solid roleplayer work from JT, IT and Donte. Worth noting BTW that 5 of those 6 guys have never played for anybody but the Kings.
There was hope and a lot to like. Defense let us down. Empty minutes guys let us down. Now if we could just get our main guys some support.
In honor of all of our summer acquisitions putting up the suckiest seasons of their careers, and looking like pale imitations of themselves: Theme = Bad Cover Songs
Boxscore
P.S. Despite what you may have heard from certain national media sources, apparently a big step was also taken tonight toward keeping the Kings in Sacramento with a unanimous Sac city council vote.
Salmons ( F ) -- New evidence has arrived that the sheep in John's blackmail pictures of Smart were wearing bondage gear. This situation is just ridiulous. Terrible again, pinned and posted by Deng to star things off. Looked like he felt left out early and so abruptly forced a bad 1 on 1 jumper after we had been getting all good shots. Was just the beggining of the offensive woes as he missed pullup after pullup, some of them closer to being part of the offense than others. Was at least not completely lit up by "All Star" Luol Deng, but on the other hand Deng was playing point forward and finished with a nice 23pts 11ast (to John's 3pts 2ast on 1-8 shooting). But Coach just wouldn't take him out no matter how badly he was scuttling us. This with Donte having played a very strong first half. Not sure exactly what Donte has to do to get the coach's attention in that position, but its clearly not a position that's being decided on merit. When your stars come up with 28pts 17reb and 27pts 8reb 8ast all you need is just a little help, just a little, to win the game. John couldn't provide it.
Freddie who?
Thompson ( B ) -- game us a nice roleplaying game next to Cousins that was marred by his compelte inability to stop Carlos Boozer. Was active on the glass, and on the offensive boards in particular saved our bacon on numerous possessins with putbacks and snatching long rebounds and clearing them to give us extra chances. But even when he played sound technical defense, was in his stance, did not get beat to the hoop, challenged the shot...well Boozer is overpaid and erratic, but he's quite good and JT never even slowed him.
Oh look, its a Disney bred wannabe version of punk rock. This would have been Avril's version, except there she just didn't have the voice for it. This, however....
Cousins ( A ) -- after getting it stolen on his first offensive move, let the Bulls know what kind of night it was going to be with a brilliant sequence moving his feet and blocking a shot along the baseline, grabbing the resulting board, and then firing a fullcourt outlet pass to Thronton for the layup. Was attacking Noah from all angles with drives, jumpers, post moves. Not everything was going and there was some slop, but he was very aggressive and putting up big numbers. Another amazing sequence late in the half throwing up a brick, chasing it down with the great hands, then spinning along the baseline for a reverse layup avoiding Noah's block attempt. Finally got slowed by his old pal foul trouble in the second half, but it only shaved a few minutes (he still played 37) rather than throwing him off his game. Even added a three at the 33 second mark as we staged our furioyus comeback -- a shot he should have taken, and that we needed. Followed that by playing good defense on Lucas at the three point line forcing the miss on the other end. And so here we are again. Too many turnovers, some wild shots. Noah got his points, albeit not by beating DeMarcus one on one, but rather by the Bulls offensive scheme repeatedly beating our defnsive scheme and leaving Noah open under the hoop when DeMarcus has to step out on somebody. Adn yet anybody focusing on those things is completely missing the forest for the trees. DeMarcus showing now why you always bank on talent, and always bank on size, no matter how big a pain in the *** it can be. At this rate may have better numbers than any center in the All Star game besides Dwight by the time the game actually rolls around. 7gms in February so far: 20.0pts 13.0reb 0.9ast 1.1stl 1.1blk 2.7TO.
Somebody alert PETA -- I would like to report somebody strangling a cat onstage. This is the endstage of all those interesting/sexy raspy voiced singers out there.
Thornton ( B- ) -- quiet first half, but at least did not force enough to become disruptive. Came out for the third looking to score and gave us a quick boost to start the quarter. His game tonight had an odd ebb and flow to it though, and he was soon back to ebb and making some disturbingly selfish decisions again. Forcing, but giving us points we needed in the late 3rd and just kept on having little surges through the 4th. In particular got better at just taking passes and shooting rather than catching them and pointlessly trying to do something off the dribble rather than taking the assist. And next thing you know the guy who had 4pts at half has become our 3rd 20pt scorer of the game, and he came up with a huge contended three at the 15 second mark to make the lead 2 and give us a real chance. Erratic effectiveness may have been because he was more clearly a third option tonight, depsite his attempts to force up occasional shots. And unlike Reke and Cousins who can sustain high levels of play with their all around games even when not scoring, Marcus has if anything grown more one dimensional this season, and if he hasn't shot it for a few minutes he gets noticeably twitchy .
Celine Dion. Doing AC/DC. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Too be fair whoever the other chick was took a slightly better shot at it. Very slightly.
Entrenched and continuing problems include: terrible vets wasting our money and minutes, a SF hole, and our offense improving much more than our defense. And basically with the exception of IT, everything we did this summer looks cruddy/like it made us weaker.
However:
Cousins 28pts 17reb 2ast 3stl 2blk
Reke 27pts 8reb 8ast at least 2 uncredited steals 1blk
Thronton 23pts 2reb 2ast
and solid roleplayer work from JT, IT and Donte. Worth noting BTW that 5 of those 6 guys have never played for anybody but the Kings.
There was hope and a lot to like. Defense let us down. Empty minutes guys let us down. Now if we could just get our main guys some support.
In honor of all of our summer acquisitions putting up the suckiest seasons of their careers, and looking like pale imitations of themselves: Theme = Bad Cover Songs
Boxscore
P.S. Despite what you may have heard from certain national media sources, apparently a big step was also taken tonight toward keeping the Kings in Sacramento with a unanimous Sac city council vote.
Salmons ( F ) -- New evidence has arrived that the sheep in John's blackmail pictures of Smart were wearing bondage gear. This situation is just ridiulous. Terrible again, pinned and posted by Deng to star things off. Looked like he felt left out early and so abruptly forced a bad 1 on 1 jumper after we had been getting all good shots. Was just the beggining of the offensive woes as he missed pullup after pullup, some of them closer to being part of the offense than others. Was at least not completely lit up by "All Star" Luol Deng, but on the other hand Deng was playing point forward and finished with a nice 23pts 11ast (to John's 3pts 2ast on 1-8 shooting). But Coach just wouldn't take him out no matter how badly he was scuttling us. This with Donte having played a very strong first half. Not sure exactly what Donte has to do to get the coach's attention in that position, but its clearly not a position that's being decided on merit. When your stars come up with 28pts 17reb and 27pts 8reb 8ast all you need is just a little help, just a little, to win the game. John couldn't provide it.
Thompson ( B ) -- game us a nice roleplaying game next to Cousins that was marred by his compelte inability to stop Carlos Boozer. Was active on the glass, and on the offensive boards in particular saved our bacon on numerous possessins with putbacks and snatching long rebounds and clearing them to give us extra chances. But even when he played sound technical defense, was in his stance, did not get beat to the hoop, challenged the shot...well Boozer is overpaid and erratic, but he's quite good and JT never even slowed him.
Cousins ( A ) -- after getting it stolen on his first offensive move, let the Bulls know what kind of night it was going to be with a brilliant sequence moving his feet and blocking a shot along the baseline, grabbing the resulting board, and then firing a fullcourt outlet pass to Thronton for the layup. Was attacking Noah from all angles with drives, jumpers, post moves. Not everything was going and there was some slop, but he was very aggressive and putting up big numbers. Another amazing sequence late in the half throwing up a brick, chasing it down with the great hands, then spinning along the baseline for a reverse layup avoiding Noah's block attempt. Finally got slowed by his old pal foul trouble in the second half, but it only shaved a few minutes (he still played 37) rather than throwing him off his game. Even added a three at the 33 second mark as we staged our furioyus comeback -- a shot he should have taken, and that we needed. Followed that by playing good defense on Lucas at the three point line forcing the miss on the other end. And so here we are again. Too many turnovers, some wild shots. Noah got his points, albeit not by beating DeMarcus one on one, but rather by the Bulls offensive scheme repeatedly beating our defnsive scheme and leaving Noah open under the hoop when DeMarcus has to step out on somebody. Adn yet anybody focusing on those things is completely missing the forest for the trees. DeMarcus showing now why you always bank on talent, and always bank on size, no matter how big a pain in the *** it can be. At this rate may have better numbers than any center in the All Star game besides Dwight by the time the game actually rolls around. 7gms in February so far: 20.0pts 13.0reb 0.9ast 1.1stl 1.1blk 2.7TO.
Thornton ( B- ) -- quiet first half, but at least did not force enough to become disruptive. Came out for the third looking to score and gave us a quick boost to start the quarter. His game tonight had an odd ebb and flow to it though, and he was soon back to ebb and making some disturbingly selfish decisions again. Forcing, but giving us points we needed in the late 3rd and just kept on having little surges through the 4th. In particular got better at just taking passes and shooting rather than catching them and pointlessly trying to do something off the dribble rather than taking the assist. And next thing you know the guy who had 4pts at half has become our 3rd 20pt scorer of the game, and he came up with a huge contended three at the 15 second mark to make the lead 2 and give us a real chance. Erratic effectiveness may have been because he was more clearly a third option tonight, depsite his attempts to force up occasional shots. And unlike Reke and Cousins who can sustain high levels of play with their all around games even when not scoring, Marcus has if anything grown more one dimensional this season, and if he hasn't shot it for a few minutes he gets noticeably twitchy .
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