Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Good lord -- neither team wanted the game. We just gave it away last.
Artest ( D ) -- time to start up that trade Artest thread. A week or so ago I was publicly wondering what a bad game for Ron would look like for us. Well, here it was. Got off to a good defensive start, and even the offense was ok. Nothing special, but ok. But began to fade even as the half wore on, And in the second half, gave us next to nothing. Whether he wants to admit it or not I have to believe he was tired after the big effort in the OT the night before. Could not finish anything inside and was blocked repeatedly. And settled for EIGHT three pointers, and hit all of zero of them. Even his defense lacked sparkle. Avoids the F because of the defense and because he created some easy looks for other guys at times (KT is really prospering in particular). But here was the bad game from Ron. And unfortunately other than Cisco not a single other King stood tall to take up the slack.
Thomas ( B ) -- Another game as the garbageman, and whether his ego knows it or not, it looks like the role he was born for. Had a quiet first half, but began to come on in the third with that garbage type game again -- roughly defined as never having a play called for you and scoring on putbacks and on cuts where the passer creates your offense for you. On defense was totally overmatched against Gasol inside all night long, but got on those boards again. Was having another pretty strong game, but then made the play that will have everybody buzzing. With 30 seconds to go and both teams trading inept possessions back and forth and treating the win like a hot potato that nobody wanted, we got yet another chance to tie it up. There was a scramble play and Kenny found himself wide open staring at the hoop from 12 feet with no Grizzly remotely close to him. And in a true primetime clutch moment, Kenny takes that golden opportunity...and dribbles th ball off his foot for the turnover. Game over man. Now given the ineptness shown by Artest, Martin, Bibby and generally everybody else on the floor in the preceding possessions, Kenny didn't lose it for us. But after such a terrible struggle, his was the play that finally made me just laugh at its awfulness.
Miller ( C- ) -- very slow start, and despite warming up abit after halftime, never did get anything going for nay real stretches. Looked fatigued. And that's not good. Envision Brad Miller's "athleticism". Now give him tired legs. Not a pretty picture. Had one hilariously bad sequence at the end of the first half when he got his shot blocked 3 times in the space of 5 seconds, and I think by three different Grizzlies. The Grizzlies cheerleaders were chimping at the bit to get int here and swat him. Did come back with a breakaway stela and layuo (what, you thought I was going to say dunk?
) a few seconds later to try to redeem himself. Ended up doing fewer things notably bad than our other struggling starters, but that's mainly because he just did fewer things period.
Martin ( B- ) -- a tweener game. At least it was the road and he wasn't struggling. But on the other hand, neither was he really thriving. Was scoring on some nice moves, but joined the rest of the team in being unable to get anything to fall from downtown. And wasn't his best rounded game either, although he did have spurts of good energy, in particular when Cisco was in there for inspiration. Had an on and off battle with foul trouble. Amazingly on two plays within a minute of each other in crunch time Kevin went flying down court on the break for surefire layups/dunks...I mean, this is Kevin Martin right? And both times ended up getting blocked up high CLEANLY. In fact in the space of about 3 minutes there, Kevin got packed twice, Bibby once, Artest once, and Reef a few minutes before. More than a little embarrassing actually. In any case, Kevin ended up with the ok game. 14pts on 50% shooting, but not much else, and the two blocked attempts down the stretch.
Bibby ( D- ) -- and our other hero from last night was nearly as cold as Ron. Hit a shot here and there, but really did not have it all night long and may again have been tired. Most of the shots he did hit were of the relatively easy variety. Missed everything from downtown, and a question of whether the legs were there. Showed some good effort at times on defense early, but that too started fading and Atkins started lighting him up in the third. In the last minute stupidly tried to draw a foul and got his shot blocked as a result. And obviously neither he nor any other King was able to pull us out of another death spiral late game collapse. We failed to score a single point for the last five minutes of this one. In any case, bad effort from Mike But as we've all seen in his wildly up and down season, not his worst. Hence not an F.
Garcia ( A ) -- truly excellent energy effort off the bench. Energy is a funny thing in the way it comes and goes, and tonight it looked liek Cisco had eaten an entire box of Twinkies right before the game and was going to bounce right off the floor. Extremely actiuve and was just everwhere. Aside from Pau's big classic post game, Cisco was the best player on the floor tonight. And it really was just all about the energy. Got his scrawny butt ont he boards, raced up and down the court creating opportunities for others, and in general gave us a classic 6th man energy burst type of effort. Easily our bright point of the night. Alas, lost his "+" really through no fault of his own, as we lost the game in ugly fahsion and an A+ felt out of place. In fact might have even been able to prevent that outcome. Maybe. Rick had a tough call at about the 4 minute mark of the 4th whetehr to bring back Mike or stick with Cisco (or he could also have pulled Ron (not happening) or Martin). Rick reinserted Mike, and obviously we did not win. But who knows whether Cisco's wild style would have helped or made it worse. In any case, excellent game.
Skinner ( B- ) -- good first half bench stint. Did not score, but was doing the job on the glass and proving too mobile for flat footed giant Jake Tsakalidis. Unfortunately when Gasol returned, he breifly looked as overmatched as everyone else, and did not return. Not really sure why the seocnd half minutes weren't there for him this time out.
Reef ( B ) -- strong work off the bench, in particular in the first half. Rebounding has been very encouraging, and maybe he heard the whispers. Make that shouts. Often got ot work against Hakim Warrick, and took the rook to school (and exposed something that was very obvious as the twol matched uo -- Reef is smallish for a PF, but Warrick is just flat out small. Like a 6'8" SF. Unfortunately the rook got the last laugh, as in the 4th he came flying out of nowhere to stuff Reef on what looked like a surefire easy open dunk. Was kind of the beginning of the incredible blockfest the Grizz put on us down the stretch.
Adelman ( C+ ) -- we just could not find a goto guy tonight, and the two heroes of the night before were showing their fatigue. And then of course down the stretch...just awful. Embarrassing. And the joke was the Grizzlies were matching us choke for choke in a massive chokathon. Nobody wanted to win this one. Nobody stepped up. We just kind of stepped further down than they did. Lot of oaching stuff to talk about here, mostly to do wiht the rotations. In the first half, Rick only used three benchers -- his dependable Garcia/Reef/Skinner trio once again despite our fatigue from the OT game the night before. But he used all three guys for long minutes, and they responded. Garcia in particular. And one night after the bench stunk the place up again in Chicago, they were outplaying the formerly deep Memphis team this time out. And good thing too as Mike, Artest and Brad were all struggling. In the second half Cisco got the early return with Kevin in foul trouble, and Reef made it back too, but Skinner was a forgotten man and the end result was that we basically played 7 guys for the second night in a row and piled a LOT of minutes on their legs. And maybe it showed. Down the stretch rick had a tough call to make -- Cisco, Martin and Artest were on the floor and it got down under 5 minutes to go. do you bring back Mike or stick with the out of position rookie having the great game? Or do you shift that rookie over to OG and take out kevin (who was merely ok)? Or have him shift over to Artet's spot (who was struggling)? Well, Rick brought Mike back. And its one of those no win situations as a coach. If you bring him back and we lose (like we did), then you're an idiot for bringing him back. If you don't bring him back and we lose, then you're an idiot for not bringing back our great clutch PG in favor of an unproven rookie. In any case, he brought him back, and we never scored again. Bigger concern for me tonight was the short rotation. Now that's Rick trying his damndest to win it -- throwing his best guys out there and saying do it. But they didn't. And so it makes you wonder about the minutes and fatigue. But live by the sword, die by the sword. And on this mini-trip we did both. You can look at the trip one of two ways -- either we damn near won them both...or we damn near lost them both. Both are true. Both are irrelevant. 1-1. What we needed to do to stay alive. But not what we needed to do to make a move. Just more water treading heading into the break. And with the trade deadline coming up immediately afterward...well, there's absolutely no way to tell what's going to happen from here on out.
Artest ( D ) -- time to start up that trade Artest thread. A week or so ago I was publicly wondering what a bad game for Ron would look like for us. Well, here it was. Got off to a good defensive start, and even the offense was ok. Nothing special, but ok. But began to fade even as the half wore on, And in the second half, gave us next to nothing. Whether he wants to admit it or not I have to believe he was tired after the big effort in the OT the night before. Could not finish anything inside and was blocked repeatedly. And settled for EIGHT three pointers, and hit all of zero of them. Even his defense lacked sparkle. Avoids the F because of the defense and because he created some easy looks for other guys at times (KT is really prospering in particular). But here was the bad game from Ron. And unfortunately other than Cisco not a single other King stood tall to take up the slack.
Thomas ( B ) -- Another game as the garbageman, and whether his ego knows it or not, it looks like the role he was born for. Had a quiet first half, but began to come on in the third with that garbage type game again -- roughly defined as never having a play called for you and scoring on putbacks and on cuts where the passer creates your offense for you. On defense was totally overmatched against Gasol inside all night long, but got on those boards again. Was having another pretty strong game, but then made the play that will have everybody buzzing. With 30 seconds to go and both teams trading inept possessions back and forth and treating the win like a hot potato that nobody wanted, we got yet another chance to tie it up. There was a scramble play and Kenny found himself wide open staring at the hoop from 12 feet with no Grizzly remotely close to him. And in a true primetime clutch moment, Kenny takes that golden opportunity...and dribbles th ball off his foot for the turnover. Game over man. Now given the ineptness shown by Artest, Martin, Bibby and generally everybody else on the floor in the preceding possessions, Kenny didn't lose it for us. But after such a terrible struggle, his was the play that finally made me just laugh at its awfulness.
Miller ( C- ) -- very slow start, and despite warming up abit after halftime, never did get anything going for nay real stretches. Looked fatigued. And that's not good. Envision Brad Miller's "athleticism". Now give him tired legs. Not a pretty picture. Had one hilariously bad sequence at the end of the first half when he got his shot blocked 3 times in the space of 5 seconds, and I think by three different Grizzlies. The Grizzlies cheerleaders were chimping at the bit to get int here and swat him. Did come back with a breakaway stela and layuo (what, you thought I was going to say dunk?
) a few seconds later to try to redeem himself. Ended up doing fewer things notably bad than our other struggling starters, but that's mainly because he just did fewer things period.Martin ( B- ) -- a tweener game. At least it was the road and he wasn't struggling. But on the other hand, neither was he really thriving. Was scoring on some nice moves, but joined the rest of the team in being unable to get anything to fall from downtown. And wasn't his best rounded game either, although he did have spurts of good energy, in particular when Cisco was in there for inspiration. Had an on and off battle with foul trouble. Amazingly on two plays within a minute of each other in crunch time Kevin went flying down court on the break for surefire layups/dunks...I mean, this is Kevin Martin right? And both times ended up getting blocked up high CLEANLY. In fact in the space of about 3 minutes there, Kevin got packed twice, Bibby once, Artest once, and Reef a few minutes before. More than a little embarrassing actually. In any case, Kevin ended up with the ok game. 14pts on 50% shooting, but not much else, and the two blocked attempts down the stretch.
Bibby ( D- ) -- and our other hero from last night was nearly as cold as Ron. Hit a shot here and there, but really did not have it all night long and may again have been tired. Most of the shots he did hit were of the relatively easy variety. Missed everything from downtown, and a question of whether the legs were there. Showed some good effort at times on defense early, but that too started fading and Atkins started lighting him up in the third. In the last minute stupidly tried to draw a foul and got his shot blocked as a result. And obviously neither he nor any other King was able to pull us out of another death spiral late game collapse. We failed to score a single point for the last five minutes of this one.
In any case, bad effort from Mike But as we've all seen in his wildly up and down season, not his worst. Hence not an F.Garcia ( A ) -- truly excellent energy effort off the bench. Energy is a funny thing in the way it comes and goes, and tonight it looked liek Cisco had eaten an entire box of Twinkies right before the game and was going to bounce right off the floor. Extremely actiuve and was just everwhere. Aside from Pau's big classic post game, Cisco was the best player on the floor tonight. And it really was just all about the energy. Got his scrawny butt ont he boards, raced up and down the court creating opportunities for others, and in general gave us a classic 6th man energy burst type of effort. Easily our bright point of the night. Alas, lost his "+" really through no fault of his own, as we lost the game in ugly fahsion and an A+ felt out of place. In fact might have even been able to prevent that outcome. Maybe. Rick had a tough call at about the 4 minute mark of the 4th whetehr to bring back Mike or stick with Cisco (or he could also have pulled Ron (not happening) or Martin). Rick reinserted Mike, and obviously we did not win. But who knows whether Cisco's wild style would have helped or made it worse. In any case, excellent game.
Skinner ( B- ) -- good first half bench stint. Did not score, but was doing the job on the glass and proving too mobile for flat footed giant Jake Tsakalidis. Unfortunately when Gasol returned, he breifly looked as overmatched as everyone else, and did not return. Not really sure why the seocnd half minutes weren't there for him this time out.
Reef ( B ) -- strong work off the bench, in particular in the first half. Rebounding has been very encouraging, and maybe he heard the whispers. Make that shouts. Often got ot work against Hakim Warrick, and took the rook to school (and exposed something that was very obvious as the twol matched uo -- Reef is smallish for a PF, but Warrick is just flat out small. Like a 6'8" SF. Unfortunately the rook got the last laugh, as in the 4th he came flying out of nowhere to stuff Reef on what looked like a surefire easy open dunk. Was kind of the beginning of the incredible blockfest the Grizz put on us down the stretch.
Adelman ( C+ ) -- we just could not find a goto guy tonight, and the two heroes of the night before were showing their fatigue. And then of course down the stretch...just awful. Embarrassing. And the joke was the Grizzlies were matching us choke for choke in a massive chokathon. Nobody wanted to win this one. Nobody stepped up. We just kind of stepped further down than they did. Lot of oaching stuff to talk about here, mostly to do wiht the rotations. In the first half, Rick only used three benchers -- his dependable Garcia/Reef/Skinner trio once again despite our fatigue from the OT game the night before. But he used all three guys for long minutes, and they responded. Garcia in particular. And one night after the bench stunk the place up again in Chicago, they were outplaying the formerly deep Memphis team this time out. And good thing too as Mike, Artest and Brad were all struggling. In the second half Cisco got the early return with Kevin in foul trouble, and Reef made it back too, but Skinner was a forgotten man and the end result was that we basically played 7 guys for the second night in a row and piled a LOT of minutes on their legs. And maybe it showed. Down the stretch rick had a tough call to make -- Cisco, Martin and Artest were on the floor and it got down under 5 minutes to go. do you bring back Mike or stick with the out of position rookie having the great game? Or do you shift that rookie over to OG and take out kevin (who was merely ok)? Or have him shift over to Artet's spot (who was struggling)? Well, Rick brought Mike back. And its one of those no win situations as a coach. If you bring him back and we lose (like we did), then you're an idiot for bringing him back. If you don't bring him back and we lose, then you're an idiot for not bringing back our great clutch PG in favor of an unproven rookie. In any case, he brought him back, and we never scored again. Bigger concern for me tonight was the short rotation. Now that's Rick trying his damndest to win it -- throwing his best guys out there and saying do it. But they didn't. And so it makes you wonder about the minutes and fatigue. But live by the sword, die by the sword. And on this mini-trip we did both. You can look at the trip one of two ways -- either we damn near won them both...or we damn near lost them both. Both are true. Both are irrelevant. 1-1. What we needed to do to stay alive. But not what we needed to do to make a move. Just more water treading heading into the break. And with the trade deadline coming up immediately afterward...well, there's absolutely no way to tell what's going to happen from here on out.
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