Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Ok, Detroit owns the tiebreaker with us, so this loss probably locks us into our old traditional #7 seed (one of the great annual mistakes by the Kings franchise is how often we have managed to finish right about here, largely out of the running for elite players, but nowhere near the playoffs). So that frees us up to sweep the last two games and win 29. Maybe IT will mount a miraculous recovery.
Maybe the story of the game might have been Gentle Ben getting his first career ejection on two weakish technical fouls. Actually the whole game was notable for Ben, who was so invisible we might as well have had Sign Lady out on the court in the first half, then came on to score 14 3rd quarter points, then ended up getting tossed on an offensive foul against JJ Reddick.
Our two main guys struggled with efficiency on the night against the stacked defense. Rudy looked just bad. But Big Cuz eventually muscled his way into a hohum 32pt 12reb game which actually isn't going to earn him an A. Which tells you something about both the game and the magnitude of the player. The real problem was on the other side of the court where the Clippers bombed us out of the late game with a barrage of threes.
Theme= Time to Look At Those Potential Draft Picks
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
MassacheusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 34min 17pts (6-18, 1-2, 2-4) 6reb 2ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Gay ( D ) -- this was a poor game for Rudy. Poorer I think than the numbers even show. At no point was he able to establish any rhythm, and at times he looked like he was physically hampered. Just wasn't moving well. And while his particular brand of tunnel vision can produce spectacular results when he's on his game due to the sheer talent, when he's off, as tonight, it was fugly. The ball stopped, and it was just a struggle. Like Cousins it wasn't just misses, but constant raggedness, getting stripped, losing control, getting of balance and just throwing something at the rim. Rudy was a net negative pretty much the whole night. While both he and Cousins were struggling were barely clinging on trying to avoid the blowout. When Cuz began to click into some semblance of gear though, the best Rudy could do was mount a tepid little 4pt scoring run, then go back to his struggle. Just a bad night, and anight when he may not have been physically right. Like a marathoner stumbling forward to that finish line ready to collapse afterwards. --Brick
Stats: 34min 14pts (4-6, 0-0, 6-8) 14reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Evans ( B- ) -- All things considered, Reggie had a pretty good night tonight. He was vacuuming up the boards with a game-high 14 (compare to Blake Griffin's lowly 4) and he was offensively effective in every way he could possibly be - 4-6 from the floor (all deep in the paint as the should be) and shockingly 6-8 from the free throw line (which ties his career-high FT% when taking at least 8 attempts). The problem, of course, is that he was asked to guard Blake Griffin, and that's a tough charge. He actually did a pretty good job in the first half, limiting Blake to only 7 points on 6 shots (there were a few Griffin possessions that Reggie was not responsible for) and basically making Blake a third option in the offense. Blake came out with a mission in the third quarter and turned it around, dropping another 11 points on 7 shots before going to the bench. While Evans generally did well guarding Blake in the post, where he struggled was when Blake was on the move with a live dribble, either in the face-up game or in transition. Griffin racked up nine assists tonight, and I wouldn't be surprised if every single one of them was on a drop-off as he was driving to the hoop - that was a bread-and-butter play for the Clippers tonight and Evans had no answer for it. So it's kind of a funny game where Evans gets major cred for his offensive game but was unable to solve the defensive side of the equation. --Capt.
Stats: 43min 32pts (12-27, 0-0, 8-9) 12reb 5ast 2stl 2blk 6TO
Cousins ( B- ) -- going against his favorite frontline, and of course faced with a major challenge in DeAndre Jordan, Boogie very determinedly stalked his way out another monster statline, but one that was very obviously a struggle to achieve. Simply put, he wasn't on, he was going against an elite frontline, his main wingman was even further off, and he needed to keep on firing and finding ways, and he eventually did. Jumper was flat off from the start of the game, but I thought at least a contributing factor was where he was taking it from, as Jordan's presence was pushing him far out on the wings, and if you've ever seen a Boogie shotchart, or just watched him for any length of time, you will know that his jumper sweetspot is from up top around the circle. Wasn't being passive though, muscled in impressively a number of times, and was playing aggressively on defense, trying to take charges and swiping at balls. But defense would be a major issue for us as Paul and Griffin repeatedly found their way into the paint and Boogie or JT when he was in there were faced with the "Clipper decision" -- do you step up to challenge and have them throw the lob over your head for a Jordan dunk? Or do you hang back and keep contact with Jordan, and let the driver walk to the rim. There was a lot of both decisions made today, and no matter which one it was it didn't work out for us. Even with the efficiency struggles though, was piling up nice plays, as he will. Nice pass to a cutting Ray for an assist, powered into Jordan, hit several tough post moves from mid distance. but for every oen strong hit there were two frustrating misses, and even around the hoop his touch was not there tiongith as he missed multiple little finishes that he hits anymore. through the first half at least, it was actually Reggie Evans, operating in the shadow of the attention that Boogie draws, who was the more efficient post scorer for us. as Jordan kept him
away form the hoop but he scored anyway. Began to get the jumper going a little late in the half, but still was struggling with the physical banging (including from Big Baby who caused several turnovers just from sumo slamming Cuz hard enough the ball was jarred loose). part of the problem was you could see he knew the jumper wasn't falling, and so he began to get reluctant to shoot it, put the ball on the floor instead, headed into heavy traffic and lost it. When he finally got another shot to fall it was when Ray finally created one for him at the rim, and late in the third figured out the jumper problem, swinging over to the top of the key where he is much better, and began to drain them as we're accustomed to seeing from his preferred spots. Was playing big as we closed the lead all the way down to 2 points at one point. Just reached out and took the ball from Darren Collison to trigger our break, notched multiple assists, and muscled his way in for a 30+pt night. Got several dubious whistles called on him down the stretch that would eventually result in him fouling out with 16 seconds to go, but by that point he had long since taken a game that would have been a lost one when he was a rookie, and turned it into a big 32pt 12reb 5ast 2stl 2blk star-on-a-night-he's-struggling-with-his-shooting-effort. --Brick
Stats: 32min 14pts (3-7, 2-4, 6-6) 1reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
McLemore ( C- ) -- This was a tough one. At the end of the first half Ben was looking at an F, or at best a D-. He started the game by getting caught in a screen, and totally losing Reddick who nailed a three from the corner. After missing a wide open three from the elbow himself, he once again got caught in a screen and this time Reddick hit an 18 footer and was fouled. Back in friendly territory, he tried to post up Reddick only to have his shot blocked by Jordan. He ended his time in the 1st quarter by missing another wide open three. He was up off the bench and back to action at the 7:12 mark of the 2nd quarter, where he once again got caught in a screen, but recovered better this time and fortunately Reddick missed a three. He barely avoided disaster as he was bringing the ball up the court, seemingly oblivious to anyone behind him, when Paul almost stole the ball. Fortunately when Paul knocked the ball away, it went out of bounds. That's about it for the first half. No points, no rebounds that I remember, no assists, and poor defense. But it got better in the second half. He started the 3rd quarter by almost stealing the ball from Reddick. On his first offensive play he drove down the lane through traffic, avoided the outstretched hand of Griffin and flipped it in. He also started defending Reddick more aggressively. It wasn't perfect, but he was at least contesting shots and making Reddick work harder. Once again he drove the lane, and this time he was fouled. He made both freethrows. He followed that by stealing the ball, driving the length of the court and once again was fouled at the basket, and once again he made both freethrows. On his next offensive possession, he repeated the play again, getting fouled and making both. They say when a shooter is struggling, that getting to the line can get him going. Must have worked because he then hit a three from the right wing. He then closed out the 3rd by grabbing a board, and driving all the way to the three point line with a full head of steam and shooting just a half second before the 3rd ended and making a three. At this point things were looking positive for Ben entering the 4th. That positive turned negative very quickly. while moving without the ball he was being closely guarded by Reddick who was bumping and banging on McLemore. As he crossed through the lane, and as the whistle blew for a foul on Reddick, McLemore turned and shoved Reddick away with an open hand, that come close to Reddick's face. Crawford immediately ejected McLemore from the game. So we'll never know if he could have continued his comeback or not. Live and learn. And don't ever talk back to Crawford. --Baja
Stats: 40min 8pts (4-13, 0-1, 0-0) 0reb 8ast 0stl 2blk 2TO
McCallum ( C- ) -- Ray certainly had some good moments in this one, but there was just a little too much recklessness, and not enough production to call it a success. I thought his passing was good tonight, and while he didn’t necessarily make plays for his teammates, he got them the ball when they were open. He fed both Cousins and Evans early and often, and those guys were delivering. He got denied at the rim a lot. But that’s what Jordan is back there for. And his jumper wasn’t working, so … he just ran out of options. He only had four field goals, two of which came off of cuts to the basket. He was just never able to establish himself as an offensive threat. Despite Chris Paul’s impressive stat line, I thought McCallum’s defense was pretty good. He had a nice Lebron-esque chase down block on Collison, but his defense was solid throughout. Paul got him a few times of course, but he forced the ball out of his hands quite a bit, and did a good job cutting off multiple drive attempts. So, not great, not horrible, but considering the competition here I thought he competed hard and made some nice plays. We’ll call it a good learning experience and leave it at that. On this night, though, the Kings could have used more offense out of him.--Mass
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