Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Congrats to everyone tonight. Congrats to the team. Congrats to the Arco crowd who were spectacular. Even congrats to the refs, who reffed this like a playoff game and really let 'em play.
We've kept the lights on around here for a long time now, waiting for the worm to turn, keeping the seat warm for the return of Kings passion. Who knows how this goes now, but if this is the last one of these I get to do, I'm glad this is the note we go out on. We'll know in a week. Best of luck to all of you.
Now onto the grades.
And oh, Boogie bashers beware. Here was the monster come to play.
Stats: 30min 2pts (1-4, 0-2, 0-0) 3reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 2TO
Salmons ( F ) -- I hate to give an F on the last game of the year but John was the invisible man tonight. In his 20 minutes of work in the first half he tallied 0 points (on 2 missed 3pt shots) 1 rebound, and 1 Turn Over. He got 10 more minutes in the 3rd quarter which he started off aggressively taking the ball on the first possession, dribbling around and missing the 18ft pull-up jumper at the top of the key. It took him 4 minutes to get another shot up which he knocked down for his only 2 points of the game. (And his last shot attempt). He notched that one field goal along with 1 assist, 3 rebounds and 1 turn-over in the 3rd. I want to talk about 2 of his 3 rebounds. The first came when two clippers (one was his man) and a king were fighting for it and it luckily popped right to him as he stood as the bystander of the fight. Another came on a long offensive rebound that came straight to him in the corner, and he took that into the lane and was stripped for his single turn-over of the night. So 2 of his 3 rebounds he wasn’t even trying for the ball, but it just bounced his way. With about 2 minutes left in the 3rd he was pulled from the game and never returned. This is one of those games where he has the highest +/- of anyone on the team but it was completely coincidental. When he came back in the 2nd quarter after the Kings had given up a lot of points, he came in along with DMC, and it was DMC that carried the team back to being competitive. John’s defense was adequate during the game. He hustled back for the most part and made some good defensive plays and close-outs, but he also got beat a few times and caught cheating on the weak-side while allowing his man to score on the rotated ball. All-in-all, just a bad game from him. Not because he played poorly, but rather he just didn’t play at all, or was as invisible as you could be while being on the floor for 30 full minutes. --Uncia
Stats: 26min 8pts (3-7, 0-0, 2-2) 6reb 0ast 2stl 0blk 0TO
Thompson ( C+ ) -- outscored and outrebounded Blake Griffin on the night. Hard to beat that. Well, maybe not the way Griffin was playing, but still. And I thought Jason was doing a real solid job on Griffin in the early going. Was overshadowed by Cousins' brilliance, but he was solid on the glass in support in the first half, while he missed a few little shots he should have made,it was the normal in control selection of them, and he was avoiding foul trouble on defense. All in all, I was pretty happy in a B-ish sort of way with his early production. Despite the solid work ended up sitting almost the entire 2nd quarter so Pat Pat could...well do virtually nothing actually. And when he came back out for the third was less effective. Had a couple of early boards again, but then largely disappeared, wasn't effective on help defense, and by the end of the quarter was starting to get into spasmodically rack up fouls mode. Led to his replacement for the 4th where Pat Pat came out...and again did virtually nothing, right up until it was time to do something. But that's a story for another grade. So new ownership or not, with a roughly equivalent player on the roster in Patterson you just don't know how its going to go for our longest tenured King this offseason. Never a great player, but a solid one, and a solid guy. We need a shotblocking defender in his spot, but if that means this is JT's last grade as a King I wish him nothing but the best. --Brick
Stats: 41min 36pts (14-24, 0-0, 8-11) 22reb 3ast 0stl 3blk 3TO
Cousins ( A+ ) -- Easiest grade I gave out all year. Cousins' best game as a Sacramento King - so far. 36 points, 22 rebounds, 3 blocks. Cousins was scoring from everywhere, hitting his jumper, unstoppable driving to the basket on single coverage, and had several dunks including a spectacular follow of his own missed jumper that was replayed on the TV about 71 times. Cousins was boxing out every opportunity he got, and also got rebounds from hustle including a crucial one in the fourth quarter where he tipped a ball away from the Clippers, chased it down, and tipped it to Patterson as he was flying out of bounds. He played good defense for the most part, picking up a timing block on Caron Butler in transition, a forearm-but-hey-they-didn't-call-it block on a Blake Griffin dunk attempt, and a monster swat on Matt Barnes during crunch time. Cuz played over 41 minutes in this game (including the entire second half), had a season-high in points, and a career-high in rebounds. And what season finale would be complete without Cousins getting a useless technical with 7.3 seconds left so that the SACRAMENTO KINGS will be without his services for the first game of next season? --Capt.
Stats: 37min 21pts (8-20, 5-12, 0-0) 2reb 3ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Thornton ( B- ) -- tough grade to close things. Got off to a terrible start, grabbed a tough rebound but then started forcing, and I do mean forcing even for him, some godawful shots that had no prayer. Actually airballed his first jumper, as maybe the crowd made Cousins better, and made MT dumber. But he was seemingly trying hard, was attentive if not terribly effective on defense against Billups. But the only offense he was providing came from called clearouts. Even missed several tough challenged shots at the rim and even on a night when we were very shorthanded in the backcourt, his minutes ended up limited. Then came out in the 2nd half and poured in 19 points, draining a number of big threes down the stretch. Thing is, it still didn't feel comfortable. It was more fits and spurts, like a boxer delivering a sharp combination, then backpedaling and getting into a wrestling match the rest of the round. Got a steal and breakaway up top in the 3rd, looked like it was going to get him going s he followed with a three point bomb...and then he got stopped on the break, threw up a terrible 1 on 4 three with nobody underneath to rebound...and hit it. Kept on leaving shooters open on the perimeter on defense as the threes rained the other way and got into a losing duel with Jamal Crawford who did his just insane thing again. But in the second half MT never went away. Could never fully take control of the game, but when Cousins made an amazing sideline save, it was MT who drained the three on the resulting break to cut the lead to 6. After missing Outlaw on an alley oop in the early 4th that would have been huge, kept on playing and came up with another burst in the mid 4th with a tough finish inside and then two more threes on the break. Missed several more as Cousins, along with everything else, kept on looking for the hot shooter down the stretch. But the hot shooter was erratic. This grade could have been several things. In the end you get a bunch of big shots as the main guy to team with cousins after half...and a bunch of shots given up tot he opponent and sloppy plays. It was efforting, but never full ignition, so I'm going B- here. --Brick
Stats: 43min 15pts (5-17, 3-7, 2-2) 4reb 10ast 0stl 2blk 3TO
Thomas ( B- ) -- First, I'm ticked that I had to grade Cuz on monday, and not this game. Oh well! Anyway, A good game by IT except for trying to shoot us out of the game all by himself. Other than the fact that he, nor Thornton or Jimmer could stay in front of Chris Paul, he had a good, but not a great game. He seemed determined to drive and score against one of the games best shotblockers. Getting rejected didn't seem to deter him. The irony of the situation was, that he was shooting the ball from the outside pretty well, going 3 for 7 from beyond the stripe. On this particular night, the little train going up the hill, saying "I think I can, I think I can", Didn't! As a great warrior once said, " Sometimes its best to run away, and live to fight another day". Ok, its from the movie "The Great Race", but you get my point. But the little train did record 10 assists, something a PG is susposed to do, so kudo's for doing his main job. I won't give you a play by play. Enough to say that 9 of his 15 pts came from three pt attempts, and most of his misses were at the basket. Probably the most important 3, was the one he missed with 3:29 left in the game that would have given us the lead. But he made up for it a bit later by hitting a cutting Cousins with a little drop off pass. I like Thomas, but I still don't think of him as a starting PG. Maybe he'll prove me wrong. To do that, he has to figure out excatly what his role is on the team, and maybe a good head coach can accomplish that. Anyway, not a bad way to end the season, and hopefully I, and the rest of us, will be here next year repeating this process, and with more favorable results. --baja
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