Not amused.
Not amused with Tyson Chandler.
Not amused by floppers. If we're not going to play Reggie as a basketball player than at the very least we should start inserting him to start delivering a little justice. Kidneys and groins make good targets.
Not amused with Lauren Holtcamp.
Not amused with that ****er Mark Cuban, who you may remember tried to help steal our team.
Not terribly amused with Darren Collison, who sucked seriously hard down the stretch and into OT once we lost our superstar to a flop.
Not amused by our idiot of a coach, who apparently decided to own the inexplicably stupid clock decision at the end of the overtime that really slammed the door on eve a miracle.
Am at least impressed with national audiences who immediately cried foul on the flop.
Am impressed by Arco fans chanting MVP for Cuz. Somebody there deserves some cred.
Am concerned we are paying for all the bad karma we piled up chortling when Vlade cheated back in the day. This one was ridiculous though. He'll get fined. Big whoop. It quite literally could have decided the game. Cuz had him. He was going to catch the ball, in the post, 8-10feet from the hoop. So Tyson Chandler cheated. And a rookie ref bought it. And here you thought it took years of NBA training for a ref to get incompetent. No, they intentionally recruit them that way.
Boxscore
Stats: 10min 3pts (1-1, 0-0, 2-2) 2reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Gay ( INC ) -- Some players might get an actual grade after 10 minutes of action, but Rudy gets the incomplete. His first ten minutes he looked content to mostly move the ball and get other guys involved. He made a couple of bad passes that could have resulted in turn-overs but was fortunate that the remained Kings possessions, but he also recorded two assists, and had a couple of passes that could have resulted in assists. He only took one shot, an iso face-up jumper, which he made about mid-way through the quarter. At the 1:45 mark he came out of the game due to a knee injury. He’s day to day, and hopefully he’ll be able to get back on the court soon. It wasn’t a great performance out there today, especially since he continued to rotate into the paint to guard Maverick rollers which led to multiple scoring opportunities to Parsons in the corner, but usually he has a lot more time to work his game, and this one got cut far too short. --Uncia
Stats: 20min 6pts (2-3, 0-0, 2-4) 7reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Thompson ( C+ ) -- JT only scored 6 points on 2 of 3 shooting from the floor, and he went 2 for 4 from the free throw line. He only played 20 minutes, but mostly because of foul trouble. He started off the game with a nice move to the basket on a pass from Cousins for a layup. However, following that play, he was slow getting back on transition, leaving Cuz one on one with Nowitzki who spun past Cuz for a layup. From that point on, until JT went to the bench at the 2:29 mark of the 1st quarter, he played good defense on Dirk. JT started the 2nd half on a bad note by throwing the ball away, and continued in that vein by cheating too far off of Nowitzki who promptly hit a three. JT did have a blocked shot on a nice sequence in a second chance possession by the Mav's. He also pulled down 7 boards. He got some extra minutes thanks to the overtime, and Cousins fouling out on a terrible call. However, JT wasn't giving us much of anything on the offensive side of the ball, and we could have used it with Cuz sitting on the bench. --Baja
Stats: 40min 32pts (11-21, 0-0, 10-10) 16reb 9ast 2stl 1blk 9TO
Cousins ( A ) -- you know one test of greatness might be when you score 14 first quarter points...and your designated grader doesn't even think you are playing that well. Didn't have huge energy, wasn't much on the glass or able to clog the rim, although he was at least conscientiously keeping Chandler from those open alley oops behind the play. And because his greatness has reached such a fever pitch that he's getting the all time great treatment now, with teams doubling him on the catch even out at the three point line just to make him give it up, he was being forced into long jumpers. Except, being great, he just started knocking them down and knocking them down. A larger issue, and then one holding back the "+" here is that those immediate doubles were resulting in turnovers. You can hardly call it an unforced turnover when you have Rajon Rondo running over to swarm you, but on the other hand he seemed to be just barely missing on some makeable escape passes. Another test of greatness might be when you come out and thrash around a former DPOY like a chewtoy, and that began in earnest in the second quarter as he got more and more physical, and began to bang Chandler back into the paint and score over and through him, and got more active blocking and challenging shots on the other end. By halftime he was sitting at 20pts 6reb, and I would have given him some sort of B.
And he was again doing it without fouling, which became such a ridiculous story later. He overdribbled into an offensive foul in the final 30 seconds of the half, and it was his first of the game. It took only 24 minutes for the refs to foul him the rest of the way out after the half. A third indicator of greatness might come if you look around at the grades for the rest of the starters here, and realize that DeMarcus Cousins lost Rudy Gay by the end of the first quarter (knee strain) and had to carry his team almost singlehandedly with whatever support he got coming from the much maligned bencheteers. And yet against a now 27-12 Western power, he almost singlehandedly beat them anyway. Moreso, you have to look at the shooting of his starting backcourt, and realize that somehow he managed to force guys to hit enough shots that he had 9 assists. And he legitimately should have had the triple double if Darren Collison...well didn't suck so hard late in the game. Blatantly passing on one attempt form Cuz, missing another, and generally doing everything possible to simultaneously deny Cuz the triple and cost us the game. But anyway, since Ben had already missed half a dozen setups by that point, and Cuz was pretty much having to pass the ball right to the rim for alley oops to get anybody to hot shots, DC was just joining the party. In any case, this game was Cousins, Cousins and more Cousins. And by the end of the thing Cuz stood at the line to put us up 4 and Sleep Train fans were chanting MVP. At least some of them. More of you who go to those things should join in, because if you are still fighting the greatness here, you're just being dumb. This IS what an MVP caliber center looks and plays like and his numbers and impact are on par with any of the legends that have gone before him now. But he needs some ****ing help. Not least from the idiot refs. Which of course brings us to the ridiculous play of the game everybody is chattering about. 21 seconds to go, tie game, off the inbounds play Boogie comes across the lane, does a swim move, has Chandler pinned 8 feet from the hoop...its perfectly set up for him to catch, half hook, step through, whatever. Chandler is dead, and he knows it. And so he flops. Throws his head back, aiieeee!!!!...and the ref buys it and fouls out one of the league's superstars on a flop in a tie game with 20 seconds to go, and gives the ball to the other team. I mean...you take into account timing, situations, score...that's one of the single worst calls anywhere in the league all year long. Its the call you cannot and do not make. She made it. We lose. But we're still the team with the future, just so long as this man is here, so we'll catch up to you old farts next time and see what's what. --BrickStats: 39min 8pts (2-8, 0-5, 4-4) 1reb 4ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
McLemore ( D ) -- An odd game for Ben as he was not able to stay with Ellis most of the night who was getting shots from everywhere for most of the game. Provided a little defense on rotations but got lost quite a number of times. Got his little offense going for a moment but was always busy chasing and losing Monte Ellis who ended up with 28 points. Did move well without the ball but only had 8 shots the whole game in 39 min on the court. In 2nd quarter Ben and Nik were both in with DC for a 3-guard set. Seemed to work. Ben gets 3 assists all down low and Kings go up 8. Makes one jumper for 2 and that was about it. Ran around a lot but had no confidence in his jumper. Ben’s shot is still off first 5 min of 3rd and still having trouble staying with Ellis. Misses another side 3 but gets 2 FT. Then another side 3 is NG. Then Ben back in first couple minutes of 4th. Tries another 3 missing now 0/4 for3’s. Still having trouble keeping Ellis back even in overtime. Does steal a jump ball. But that is about it for Ben’s contribution for the night. Not a good outing for him made worse by fewer touches. --Cruz
Stats: 45min 18pts (6-20, 0-6, 6-8) 7reb 3ast 3stl 0blk 3TO
Collison ( D ) -- Outside of his seven rebounds, I'm not sure that there was a whole lot to like about Darren's game tonight. He actually did all right in the first half, going 4-8 from the floor and getting three assists (all in the first quarter), but after that things went downhill pretty severely, at least on the offensive end. He went 2-12 from the field and 0-5 from three, and while two of those shots were buzzer beater prayers one of those was because he didn't know the clock and had to hoist it, so it was pretty much his own fault. Early in the fourth quarter (meaning before Cousins was fouled out, of course) we had some pretty crucial possessions and Collison decided to go it on his own for two turns in a row, taking a bad jumper both times, and neither fell. Sure, his dunk when Boogie found him in the seam in transition was neat, but it was one of only two baskets for Darren after halftime. I'm a bit torn about what to think of the totality of Darren's floor leadership in the second half. He didn't rack up a single assist after the first quarter, but in that time I did count no less than nine open shots that he set up that DIDN'T get knocked down, so it's not like he was completely stagnant on the ball. In fact, stagnant is not really the word I would use for Darren's PGing in the fourth quarter and overtime - "out of control" seems to be a more apt description. It's like he was trying to play too fast, pressured a lot by the D from Rondo, who was in his face over and over. When was the last time you saw us pressure a PG to pick up his dribble in the corner 30 feet from the basket and then have to throw a panicked prayer to a teammate? I can't remember. But Rondo did that to Darren a couple of times tonight, and harassed him continually. Darren's sloppy play was evident even when Rondo wasn't in his face - after a brilliant defensive play to break up a 2-on-1 break in the third quarter with a steal, he came back down court and tried to force the issue with a pass that wasn't there, giving it right back to the Mavs for an easy bucket the other way. Outside of that transition play, I don't think that we can really say Darren had a lot of defensive highlights on the day. Rondo seemed to have no trouble going wherever he wanted, and even though Rajon started out a bit slow on the scoring department, Collison was responsible for at least 15 of his 21 points. A few breaks didn't go his way, but he missed too many opportunities and played a bit too loose tonight to impress me. --Capt.
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