Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Artest ( B ) -- through the third, was having a strong if fairly one dimesional (well two dimensionsal because the defense is a constant) game. Was bringing some tremendous defense, as always. Taking Mike Miller entirely out of the game on both ends, poking his hands in, excelling on switches, blocking shots down low -- the whole package. And was being effective if never really dominant offensively mostly with his power drives in the post. Just attacking and overpowering the Grizzlies SFs (even Battier, who is an excellent defender). But loses some sparkle tonight because of his inability to get anything going late. The Grizzlies really began to focus in on him of course, and he wasn't able to answer effectively and contributed only a few tough forces and shots that got blocked in the final quarter. His game is attacking and forcing the action, and so there are always going to be missed shots and turnovers, but it was really nothing but in crunch time of this one. The outstanding defense keeps this grade solid all by itself, as I suspect it will do for much of his tenure here. But overall, not a tremendous night.
Thomas ( B ) -- was making hustle plays as well as dumb plays. His athleticism and quickness matched well with our scrambling intensity early, but some of his turnovers were really just dumb, and helped the Grizz hang with us. Racked up a suprising 43 minutes as Rick just went with the starters almost the whole way. Grabbed some good athletic rebounds, but not able to consistently keep the taller/longer Grizz of the offensive glass. Pau failed to score over him as much as you would have thought, but actually had clean looks right over Kenny's head but just failed to connect. Pretty good overall game for KT, but I think gets a little extra boost for the synergy with the rest of the team. We needed an energy guy at the PF tonight, and Kenny was that if nothing else.
Miller ( A ) -- came back with the injured thumb and got off to a dynamic start...defensively! In fact was even a point there in the second quarter when we brought Brad back for defense.
Quieted down thereafter and midway through the 4th was really just having himself a B or B- type game (I was thinking B because of the rare defense). But then the play of the game happened, and afterwards it turned into the Brad Miller show as is grade rocketed up. The play of the game? Courtesy of none other than Violet I-should-be-reffing-at-the-YMCA Palmer. And neither a play at all, nor at the time was it obvious in its significance. But with about 3-4minutes to go Brad Miller fouled out of this one. Well. Briefly. He fouled out until Violet Palmer of all people came running to the rescue for the overrule. And Brad, who picked up a technical arguing the overruled 6th foul (which was odd -- you get a technical for arguing a foul the refs eventually decided was not a foul after all? A T for being right?) -- in any case, Brad actually responded positively to the mess. And we all know that is exraordinarily rare -- normally bitter beer face Brad is just about the end of any positive contributions from him as he just mentally checks out. But this time, it went the other way, and it was Brad who won it down the stretch. Scored our last 12? after the big overrule and put an exclamation point on it by hitting back to back threes to ice the game down the stretch. Now you are not normally going to see me jumping up and down over a 7-footer standing out at the three point line of a tight game and taking 25 footers. But they went in, and they won the game for us. So the grade that was a B now becomes an A, and welcome back Brad.
Martin ( A- ) -- got off to another one of those ridiculously hot Arco starts, and this time never cooled off. Rather he just kind of...faded away. Some of that is no doubt due to the obvious increased defensive attention he was drawing in the second half. Some perhaps due to fatigue as Rick played him almost the whole 48 (a great sign for Kevin actually -- 2 months ago the coaches had lost all confidence in him as he played himself to the end of the bench, now here we are with Rick clearly playing him like a trusted vet). In any case, stopped shooting and while he made few mistakes (other than a couple of really poor inbounds passes), and a nice play here and there (once getting up high to block dunk contest participant Hakim Warrick from behind) he had no real impact ont he game down the stretch. Another extraordinarily efficent game, and it just has to be an A of some sort I think. In fact early it was an A+. But sometimes you can be too efficient, and it would have been nice to see our leading scorer for the game step up and at least try to be aggressive as the Grizz made their late charge and threatened to pull it out.
Bibby ( C+ ) -- could get nothing much going offensively all night long. Stats will say he boarded, got some assists. And he did. But again you can feel how much less effective 14pts 7rebs 10ast is for Mike than a big scoring night. He contributed in a variety of ways, and offensively did hit a big clutch shot to break the Grizzlies' momentum in the 4th when they were threatening to overwhelm us in another of our 4th quarter collapses. But the PG matchup belonged to Mike's former backup down the stretch as Bobby really took it to him, and us, late in the game. Nonetheless, this is what you ask for when a scorer is having an off night -- that they make some sort of other contribution. And tonight Mike may never have looked comfortable, but he did do the other things.
Garcia ( A- ) -- quite effective tonight when he was on the floor, and effective in a way that normally he is not -- offensively. Was hitting his outside shots and playing with energy. really deserved more minutes than he got, but you can the minutes crunch reflected already with Ron instantly a vital 40min a game cog, and tonight Kevin getting to run almost the whole way at OG. Cisco actually picked up most of his minuted this time out as the backup PG again.
Reef ( C- ) -- very short first half stint, and not much energy. Played so little I have to wonder what it means? Looked like he had some sort of mouthpiece he was putting in and taking out? Are the wires already out? Or was that just a sheath to cover the braces? But if the latter, how did he breath? In any case its ironic that the jaw saga is finally coming to an end, and yet he played very few minutes and really was not effective. And to add insult to injury he took a shot to the head in the 4th and was in a lot of pain + walked partway down the exit tunnel. I was worried it was the jaw, but looked like maybe he just got poked in the eye instead.
Skinner ( INC ) -- shrot first half stint where he did not accomplish much, and Miller was actually the more effective interior defender. Did not return.
Adelman ( B ) -- Grading Rick is quite tough on this one. For the simple reason that he once again made the decision to just stick with the the starters and run them right into the ground...and we won! If he does that and we lose you can shake your head disapprovingly and wag your finger and say, oh, that was very very bad. If we win or lose with many substitutions you can say, well this worked, this did not. But tonight? We just took our best 5 and played them right to the bitter end, and walked away with it. You can criticize the huge minutes on principle, but they worked. And we need nearly every home game from here on out if there is to be any playoff push. Off the bench we got a good performance from Cisco, but it didn't result in many minutes, and there you can see the instant mega-confidence Rick has developed in Ron. Rick loves to have great players that he can just trust and throw out there and play and play and play, and that's already Ron. And then Kevin got off to such a terrific start once again, that Rick was I think afraid to take him out. And so end result = not huge minutes for Cisco. And up front, it was just a brief ineffective cameo for Skinner, and then a strange and perhaps noteworthy outing for Reef, who got very few minutes, did not do much in them, and may or may not have had his wires out? Not sure how to interpret that. Taking away most of Reef's minutes would fly very much in the face of Rick's normal confidence in his main guys motto. So maybe the wires were freshly out and Reef was still feeling sore (as I mentioned in another thread, its actually quite painful when they first come out). In any case, there was little if any bench, and so this one was really pretty much won or lost by the same 5 players, not the coach.
Violet Palmer ( A ) -- saved our bacon by overruling Brad's 6th foul (it was a close call either way) and leaving him on the court to eventually win this thing for us. The terrifying thing is that Violet has actually been given enough authority that she can overrule someone. In any case, I have been advised that I give away my lips too cheaply, so Violet, VF21 is going to give you the big wet smooch for this one.
Bobby Jackson (A?, F? ) -- what can you say about Bobby. After a terribly shaky first half, he comes in in the third quarter and its right back to the old stomping grounds with Bobby kicking our butt for the remainder of the game and nearly singlehandedly bringing Memphis back and putting them in position to pull it off.
Thomas ( B ) -- was making hustle plays as well as dumb plays. His athleticism and quickness matched well with our scrambling intensity early, but some of his turnovers were really just dumb, and helped the Grizz hang with us. Racked up a suprising 43 minutes as Rick just went with the starters almost the whole way. Grabbed some good athletic rebounds, but not able to consistently keep the taller/longer Grizz of the offensive glass. Pau failed to score over him as much as you would have thought, but actually had clean looks right over Kenny's head but just failed to connect. Pretty good overall game for KT, but I think gets a little extra boost for the synergy with the rest of the team. We needed an energy guy at the PF tonight, and Kenny was that if nothing else.
Miller ( A ) -- came back with the injured thumb and got off to a dynamic start...defensively! In fact was even a point there in the second quarter when we brought Brad back for defense.
Quieted down thereafter and midway through the 4th was really just having himself a B or B- type game (I was thinking B because of the rare defense). But then the play of the game happened, and afterwards it turned into the Brad Miller show as is grade rocketed up. The play of the game? Courtesy of none other than Violet I-should-be-reffing-at-the-YMCA Palmer. And neither a play at all, nor at the time was it obvious in its significance. But with about 3-4minutes to go Brad Miller fouled out of this one. Well. Briefly. He fouled out until Violet Palmer of all people came running to the rescue for the overrule. And Brad, who picked up a technical arguing the overruled 6th foul (which was odd -- you get a technical for arguing a foul the refs eventually decided was not a foul after all? A T for being right?) -- in any case, Brad actually responded positively to the mess. And we all know that is exraordinarily rare -- normally bitter beer face Brad is just about the end of any positive contributions from him as he just mentally checks out. But this time, it went the other way, and it was Brad who won it down the stretch. Scored our last 12? after the big overrule and put an exclamation point on it by hitting back to back threes to ice the game down the stretch. Now you are not normally going to see me jumping up and down over a 7-footer standing out at the three point line of a tight game and taking 25 footers. But they went in, and they won the game for us. So the grade that was a B now becomes an A, and welcome back Brad.Martin ( A- ) -- got off to another one of those ridiculously hot Arco starts, and this time never cooled off. Rather he just kind of...faded away. Some of that is no doubt due to the obvious increased defensive attention he was drawing in the second half. Some perhaps due to fatigue as Rick played him almost the whole 48 (a great sign for Kevin actually -- 2 months ago the coaches had lost all confidence in him as he played himself to the end of the bench, now here we are with Rick clearly playing him like a trusted vet). In any case, stopped shooting and while he made few mistakes (other than a couple of really poor inbounds passes), and a nice play here and there (once getting up high to block dunk contest participant Hakim Warrick from behind) he had no real impact ont he game down the stretch. Another extraordinarily efficent game, and it just has to be an A of some sort I think. In fact early it was an A+. But sometimes you can be too efficient, and it would have been nice to see our leading scorer for the game step up and at least try to be aggressive as the Grizz made their late charge and threatened to pull it out.
Bibby ( C+ ) -- could get nothing much going offensively all night long. Stats will say he boarded, got some assists. And he did. But again you can feel how much less effective 14pts 7rebs 10ast is for Mike than a big scoring night. He contributed in a variety of ways, and offensively did hit a big clutch shot to break the Grizzlies' momentum in the 4th when they were threatening to overwhelm us in another of our 4th quarter collapses. But the PG matchup belonged to Mike's former backup down the stretch as Bobby really took it to him, and us, late in the game. Nonetheless, this is what you ask for when a scorer is having an off night -- that they make some sort of other contribution. And tonight Mike may never have looked comfortable, but he did do the other things.
Garcia ( A- ) -- quite effective tonight when he was on the floor, and effective in a way that normally he is not -- offensively. Was hitting his outside shots and playing with energy. really deserved more minutes than he got, but you can the minutes crunch reflected already with Ron instantly a vital 40min a game cog, and tonight Kevin getting to run almost the whole way at OG. Cisco actually picked up most of his minuted this time out as the backup PG again.
Reef ( C- ) -- very short first half stint, and not much energy. Played so little I have to wonder what it means? Looked like he had some sort of mouthpiece he was putting in and taking out? Are the wires already out? Or was that just a sheath to cover the braces? But if the latter, how did he breath? In any case its ironic that the jaw saga is finally coming to an end, and yet he played very few minutes and really was not effective. And to add insult to injury he took a shot to the head in the 4th and was in a lot of pain + walked partway down the exit tunnel. I was worried it was the jaw, but looked like maybe he just got poked in the eye instead.
Skinner ( INC ) -- shrot first half stint where he did not accomplish much, and Miller was actually the more effective interior defender. Did not return.
Adelman ( B ) -- Grading Rick is quite tough on this one. For the simple reason that he once again made the decision to just stick with the the starters and run them right into the ground...and we won! If he does that and we lose you can shake your head disapprovingly and wag your finger and say, oh, that was very very bad. If we win or lose with many substitutions you can say, well this worked, this did not. But tonight? We just took our best 5 and played them right to the bitter end, and walked away with it. You can criticize the huge minutes on principle, but they worked. And we need nearly every home game from here on out if there is to be any playoff push. Off the bench we got a good performance from Cisco, but it didn't result in many minutes, and there you can see the instant mega-confidence Rick has developed in Ron. Rick loves to have great players that he can just trust and throw out there and play and play and play, and that's already Ron. And then Kevin got off to such a terrific start once again, that Rick was I think afraid to take him out. And so end result = not huge minutes for Cisco. And up front, it was just a brief ineffective cameo for Skinner, and then a strange and perhaps noteworthy outing for Reef, who got very few minutes, did not do much in them, and may or may not have had his wires out? Not sure how to interpret that. Taking away most of Reef's minutes would fly very much in the face of Rick's normal confidence in his main guys motto. So maybe the wires were freshly out and Reef was still feeling sore (as I mentioned in another thread, its actually quite painful when they first come out). In any case, there was little if any bench, and so this one was really pretty much won or lost by the same 5 players, not the coach.
Violet Palmer ( A ) -- saved our bacon by overruling Brad's 6th foul (it was a close call either way) and leaving him on the court to eventually win this thing for us. The terrifying thing is that Violet has actually been given enough authority that she can overrule someone. In any case, I have been advised that I give away my lips too cheaply, so Violet, VF21 is going to give you the big wet smooch for this one.
Bobby Jackson (A?, F? ) -- what can you say about Bobby. After a terribly shaky first half, he comes in in the third quarter and its right back to the old stomping grounds with Bobby kicking our butt for the remainder of the game and nearly singlehandedly bringing Memphis back and putting them in position to pull it off.
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