Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Whew!
If the fanbase seems a little diminished tonight, I think we may just have found out how many of us had heart conditions.
Official Boxscore
Casspi ( A- ) -- the sort of breakout performance that somebody needed to have at SF for us. Started slow, and had no stats at all in the early going -- as in 0pts 0rebs 0ast 0 everything in the latter half of the first quarter, and missed his only shot on another kickout for a corner three. But he was hustling from the beginning, and he did get a scramble play block. Finally hit his first three on a scramble play when Reke grabbed his own miss and kicked it out, and added another triple to help stem the bleeding late in the first half. But after half is when things got fun. Started raining three after three on those kickout passes, came up with a pair of huge steals up top, one of which led to a full court race and power dunk, and was back scrapping on the glass, and the floor for that matter. Made a great one handed save of a wild Head pass that eventually turned into another three point spalsh by Head himself, and made a great defensive play with 4 minutes to go stopping a 3 on 1fastbreak by deflecting the pass out of bounds. Was just causing absolute havoc with his hustle in the 4th. We end up with a minus here via the "warts on an A" theory, rather than the blownup B+ theory. The first half was not great, and of course the big thing was with the game on the line, with us clinging to a 3 pt lead with 7 seconds to go Omri was intentionally fouled, stepped to the line, and choked both FTs to leave the door open for the Cavs. So not perfect, with a large wart that could have cost us the game. Mostly a 2-dimensional three point bombing/hustling effort. But isn't that exactly the job descripyion Westphal has laid out? Knock down your open jumpers/threes, hustle and defend? Well Omri did all three tonight at a very high level. Now the question just becomes can he sustain?
Landry ( B ) -- now Carl is really testing my grading abilities here. 14pts 3rebs followed by 17pts 3rebs? First principle: a PF who does not rebound is a completely worthless pile of dung. Rebounding is their single biggest job description. Second principle: a PF who carries an offense for stretchs and rarely misses is rather more valuable than dung. What to do when these two principles collide? Carl knocked down two jumpers to start, but from the beginning was not doing much else and was being matched by Hickson, who was beating him with quickness. Got off to the good aggressive start to the third, finally attacking inside, and also smoothly knocked down a j off the Reke drive and kick. Helped steady us in the early 4th while Reke rested -- was basically functioning as our goto guy again, albeit in this case still mostly a goto jumpshooter, and just kept on hitting 18 footer after 18 footer. Only grabbed 3 rebs on the night, but picked a good time to come up with the third, grabbing a good strong board along the baseline at the 2:15 mark with us up 6 and trying to hold on. So what to do with the grade? By definition Carl was a completely worthless pile of dung, he stayed outside, shot jumpers, and got little doen inside on either end fo the court. And yet that completely worthless pile of dung played an important role steadily peppering away from midrange, and in the end outperformed his younger more athletic opponent. So...I'm going B here. Can't go any higher for someone who as outrebounded by Kevin Martin on the ngiht (Kevin had 4 tonight for the Rockets). But Carl still helped.
Cousins ( B ) -- the big guy keeps on looking a little more mature every game. Its not only talent, he's learning at an impressive game by game rate. Today's lesson: defense. Began the game with a nice power drive taking Varejao to the hoop, and then a careless foul of the type that Westphal hates, and that had been plaguing him. But just a few minutes later had a good defensive possession at the 8:30 mark, where he didn't accomplish anything, but twice on the possession threw his hands back to avoid picking up his 2nd foul. First real awareness he has shown of avoiding fouls, and I swear 2 games ago he would have hacked there. Strong after returning with a good defensive sequence repeatedly cutting off penetration, and then another nice drive. It still certainly wasn't a perfect half, and at the end of it he only had 6pts 2rebs, and began the third on the bench because we needed Dalembert to key our defense and rebounding. But after Daly did just that, Cousins came back in and picked up some of the thread. The rebounding picked up, he came up with a big steal up top and went galloping down to take the hard foul from Varejao, and calmly knocked the FTs down. Got the better of Varejao when Varejao tried to return the favor and steal the ball from him up top, so he drove the ball right by him for another big galloping flush. And if he wasn't ice in the clutch, he made enough plays, including a big defensive rebound and splitting two sets of intentional foul FTs, to help us limp home. Still not a brilliant game, and still learning, but the sophistication is growing right before our eyes, and an experienced crafty vet like Varejao didn't rattle him at all.
Udrih ( B ) -- this was truly a giveth and taketh game for Beno. Strong offensive start getting around the Cavs PGs easily and other than getting trapped and stripped at halfcourt on one play was scoring or setting people up at will. That was all good, as he was probably our best offensive weapon in an offensive first half. However this game was memorable for the very evident struggle we are going through trying to become a defensive minded team. And Beno, not surprisingly, was a main player in that. He was burning the Cavs guards, but his defense on said guards back the other way left something to be desired. Which is a classy way of saying he was getting absolutely roasted by a couple of guys (Sessions + Gibson) who won't be showing up on any lists of 20pt scorers anytime soon. They were blowing by him at will and killing us in the paint. So we tried to hide him off on Candace Parker's much older brother, but then Beno started getting overpowered down in the post. He was not alone as we allowed 67 first half points, but the ease with whcih his men were getting to the rim I think partially inspired Westphal's decision to start the second half with Dalembert back there to swat away the flies. May even have lost some of his second half minutes to Head because of the defensive woes, although that's nothing more than speculation -- played 18min before half, 15 after. Never scored a point after the break, instead concentrating onsetting up teammates on his way to an 11 assist night. And one of the great things about this game was the infectuous manner in which defense spread through us once it had germinated with Daly and Casspi. By crunchtime even Beno had caught it and came up with a great hustle blocked shot to save a basket at the 1:45 mark. So like Landry and his rebounding, we have another warty game here. Offense was good, but the defense was not just the normal little issue t can be with Beno, it was a huge issue. I'm still going to call this a B, but were offense not overrepresented in these grades...
Evans ( B- ) -- started off this one on a triple double pace. Had a spectacular spinning layup to start, and was making plays both on the defensive glass and defense. The improved jumper was occasionally on display as he splashed in two threes and another long jumper, but it continues to be a development of occasionally dubious value, since now he's inspired to settle for more of them, and its still anything but wet. Very aggressive from the getgo, but the story of this one would eventually become his struggle to finish inside again. It should be said that he has come back form the summer wiht some NASTY stuff that he didn't even have last year. Scoops, flips, little running hook things, finger roll type stuff, up and unders and spin moves, there is the threat of major brilliance with the stuff he has been trying. But there is a fine line between nasty stuff and garbage, and it often rests on the simple question of whether you can make that shot or not. And in his first couple of games he has not. The aggression, and effectiveness, reached a crescendo in the third quarter with him attacking the hoop hard almost every play for a long stretch, hitting shots, finding three point shooters, or drawing the foul. But the finishing struggle was always there, and there were a few sloppy moments as well as he twice fumbled away the ball for TOs and once even got an 8 second violation when we just mosied the ball up the court after 3 second had run off the clock on an abortive inbounds. I went back and forth on the grade here, and finally came back to a B- not only for the overall productivity, but because of my sense that Reke's presence had something to do with the great shooting from the rest of our lineup. Except for the jumper settling, which I never like from any player, he was attacking inside hard, finishes or no, and putting tremendous pressure on the Cavs defense, with the end result that guys like Casspi and Landry were hardly challenged on their bombs from outside. I can't go any higher for a 6-20 night, but we shot 52% frm the field and scored 107pts, and my gut tells me that Reke's role in that was critical as "star who attacks and draws all the attention" even while his own efficiency left something to be desired.
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The only rebounding numbers that matter are end tally and they fell into our favor tonight by a fairly wide margin. Paul Westphal brought it up in an interview the other day. Even though Landry doesn't pile up on the statistical aspects of rebounding he is more often than not at least taking his man, or a man, from the other team off the boards by boxing out letting guys like Omri or Tyreke swoop in for the rebound. Sure, there are times where guys climb over him for the offensive board, but that happens to the best of rebounders.
