Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
2-10. I think 2-21 counting last year.
But while many threats were issued, I suspect that a fair number of fans just couldn't resist checking in, and if they did what they would have seen was a surpisingly good effort featuring Jason Thompson starring as DeMarcus Cousins, and putting up perhaps his career stat game, and Rudy Gay pulling the Willis Reed to unexpectedly play himself. End result was a tie game by halftime, marred mostly by the Pace vidiots and their complete lack of attention to defense. Cuz or no Cuz, SuperJason or no SuperJason, just another hohum let the other team score 117pts and lose outing. Shocker. At least Quincy Miller making his Kings debut after a stint with Reno had to feel right at home. BTW, Miller was drafted by PDA's old front office in Denver in case you missed it.
Boxscore
Stats: 28min 13pts (5-10, 0-3, 3-4) 5reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Williams ( C+ ) -- eh...meh. But meh > doh > ugh. The Kings are built for a cartoon. DWill got off to a quick and energetic start to this one as we came out surprisingly eager to compete...on one end. Had a backdoor cut for an early dunk from DC. Then a quick post on Chris Paiul. Active cutting and finishing, but quieted down, Rudy returned, and DWill got into quick foul trouble in the 2nd while playing his peculiar brand of non-contact "power" forward. The larger issue were in his minutes vs. Matt Barnes, who he and Rudy made look like Kevin Durant with some...well I was going to say shoddy, but shoddy indicates a sloppy effort, and here there was no effort at all to track him around the perimeter. Rudy took Derrick's spot to start the 3rd, further cutting down on his minutes. And when he returned at the 4min mark of the quarter he immediately did the DWill special with an out of control drive challenging Jordan and getting it swatted in his face. But he came up with a little burst hitting a jumper and getting a run out on the break to help stem the bleeding, and despite a lack of production from that point on, I think played straight through to the end, with many of those minutes coming at PF as we intentionally fouled those nasty centers out of the game so that we could go smallball and allow the Clips to dump 34 on us in the final quarter. --Brick
Stats: 36min 23pts (9-15, 0-0, 5-6) 22reb 2ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Thompson ( A ) -- scratching your head and trying to figure out how we hung in this one so long without Cuz a night after stinking it up against the Heat? Scratch no longer. We did have Cuz. Just kinda a gangly uncoordinated Cuz. Still, you would take 23pts 22rebs on +.500 shooting and only 1 turnover any day out of the big guy. The difference being that for him it would be a good game the likes of which you'd already seen a few times this season. For Jason? Statistically this might have been the most impressive game of his career. Impactwise? I'm not sure if that is true. But statistically this was his first career 20 rebound game, and hence obviously his first 20-20 game. And while his opening quarter was eye popping -- think he had 3 offensive rebounds on our first or second offensive possession, and ended up with 11pts 9rebs and tons of energy, knocking down jumpers, all of it -- he never really had a major lull or let up on the glass at least. Offensively he predictably went through a long dry spell in the 2nd and 3rd when he reverted to playing offense like Jason Thompson, missing jumpers, blowing a jam inside, fumbling passes -- and when he picked up his 4th foul late in the third he still only had 13pts...but they were paired with 18 big rebounds as he easily outrebounded Jordan/Griffin/Hawes/Davis all by himself. Now the downside and impact ? was that his defense on Griffin was on and off. He had some big stands against him, including one where he blocked hi and they had words late in the 3rd. But from the beginning he was also not infrequently letting Griffin get deep post position on his way to a 30pts on 11-16 shooting night. JT wasn't done though, and as we struggled to hang in it, and went small down the stretch, JT was in there not only on the glass, but with 10 more points with the game on the line. You didn't really feel that "oomph" when he was in there, but then again, when do you with JT? And he was certainly at the heart of the upset try here. he took care of all the dirty work inside so our runners and chuckers could try to outscore the Clips the other way. Have to winder if we'll ever see another game as good out of JT in a Kings uni. --Brick
Stats: 23min 2pts (1-5, 0-0, 0-2) 5reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Hollins ( C ) -- I don't even know how to do this with our pretend centers. Kings are down their best player (thanks Baja) who is replaced with an end of bench, towel waver tasked with keeping Deandre Jordan off the boards and protecting the rim a little bit. I'm halfway tempted to give him an A, what with the soft bigotry of low expectations and all, but the Kings lost and he didn't help them win. The good, Hollins was active inside, grabbing 5 rebounds in just 22 minutes of play. He and Jason Thompson really were controlling the glass for the most part out there. He was also renting space inside Deandre Jordan's head, really frustrating him with physical play inside. The bad, foul trouble and poor help defense limited his ability to stay on the court. He made his first shot of the night on a hook inside, and missed the last four, including a 22 foot jumper with 12 left on the shot clock. So, not bad for an end-of-bench guy thrust into the starting lineup by the cruel winds of fate, but he didn't earn any additional rotation minutes tonight. --Hadlowe
Stats: 33min 14pts (6-12, 0-4, 2-2) 1reb 2ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( B- ) -- somehow immediately lost Reddick on the corner for a three, and inexplicably it wasn't the only time we left JJ alone out there. But came back with a steal to start a break, had a nice striding drive along the right baseline, and after a careless turnover up top, hit an aggressive jumper without hesitation. The suspicion that the last half of the Miami game might have been important to break him out of his megaslump seemed to be proving true. He returned to the game in the 2nd and again looked confident. But somehow it just didn't fully ignite, and the single most important thing for a Boogie led team -- 3pt shooting, was missing again as he went 0-4 from beyond the arc. Got knocked down on a big Jordan screen in the early 3rd, and quick shot a three off his own dribble that wasn't close. Had a few more hits in the 3rd, but then disappeared almost completely. Never was much of a factor at anything but the scoring either, and while generally looking better than he has this month, he never hit a three, and he probably lost his matchup with Reddick. --Brick
Stats: 39min 17pts (7-15, 3-6, 0-0) 3reb 4ast 0stl 1blk 5TO
Collison ( B- ) -- it can be hard to give DC a letter grade anymore. He had scored 13 or more points in the last 15 games he's played, and only broken the 20 pt barrier 3 times. So every single grading night its going to be 13, 15, 17 points, and the distinguishing marks are going to be all about the subtleties. Tonight he was part of us getting off to such a surprising start as he was smoothly directing an early unexpectedly energetic offense, and added a three of his own from the right wing. But he began to get ragged by the late quarter, committed unneceesary turnovers including even a leap in the air before realizing he had no one to pass to error, got completely smothered into an airball against the shotclock late in the quarter, and it didn't get better until after half. He got a an early lucky play scooping up a loose ball and getting a running flip, added a little side jumper, but he simply wasn't making an impact, and by the end of the third we were solidly in the Cs, and that only because CP3 wasn't doing anything back the other way. I put it that way, because it was never clear DC was smothering his opponent, and yet CP3 never really tried to assert himself and ended up having a game well below his standards. Going in, having DC negate CP3 would have been all you could really have hoped for. Added a little sparkle to his grade with a few big plays in the 4th, including a three at the 8:30 mark to cut the lead back to a more manageable 9, and a fullcourt raceout and resounding two handed dunk to get the crowd into it at the 6 minute mark. There were moments, but I wasn't excited by this game. In particular I think its possible the Clips knew his game and kept him from those favorite elbow pullups. And yet, both statistically and in impact he held his own vs. CP3 -- more a race to mediocrity than a battle for the ages, but we didn't obviously lose the PG battle, and again, that's doing your job. --Brick
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