Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Joy is me. I am joy.
Mason ( F ) -- its possible, not saying its sure thing, but its possible that right here we have the performance that costs Mason his starting job and opens the door for Casspi. Desmond was completely dominated by Gay in the early going of this one, gave us zeroes across the board as we got off to the awful start, watched Gay put up 8 and 4 in the first six minutes of the game, and then sat down never to return. Casspi played well, and got the second half start, and that was that. Be interesting to see what happens next game.
Thompson ( D ) -- well, we didn't win this one with our starting forwards. On the night, Zach Randolph hammered us to the tune of 30pts 16rebs, and JT responded back with...7pts 5rebs, and of course his normal foulout. Got into early foul trouble once again. And one of them was probably a borderline call. But I don't care. Guys all round the league suffer through borderline calls and still manage to play 30+ minutes a night wihtout fouling out. Not Jason. Its become a real plague on his career, and a defining characteristic. Be one thing if he were a thug and defensive stopper and was making them count. In any case much ineffective bouncing aorund and several missed chippees once again. Still in such a hurry to get everything done that he ends up getting nothing done. And against the defense of Randolph there is absolutely no need to rush. Just did not look in the same class with Zach, and was by far our weakest starter among the crew we got comfortable with down the stretch. Did come up with a nice follow at the 2:20 mark, but then quickly fouled out for the final 2 minutes or rgulation, and was not aroudn for the OT fun.
May ( D- ) -- Okay, make that we didn't win this one with our starting forwards OR our starting center (of course the trick is that 2 of those 3 are not as good as their backups). And its not impossible that this was also the night and the performance that lost May his starting gig too. Gasol was rebounding right over the top of him and he had very little response -- 1 nice pass, 1 jumper...pretty much it. Once Westphal discovered that Spoecner was going to come to play, May only got a handful of minutes in the second half on his way to a lovely 1-5FG 2pt 1reb 4PF in 9minutes outing.
Martin ( A ) -- thought of possibly just having a one line grade here: Kevin was hot, nobody bothered guarding him, Kevin scored 48. The end. Because that really does nicely summarize most of it, but I suppose I owe more than that. The only one of our starters to give us anything tonight in a tipsy topsy game which saw us almost entirely invert our lineups, and he went almost the entire game. Missed a grand total of 33 seconds from a 53 minute overtime game. This wasn't perfect -- in the first quarter alone he missed a flying dunk down the lane as the defense parted like the Red Sea, was not able to impede or direct Mayo outside to keep him from creating in the paint, and he cost us a three by flopping on a screen set against him, and not getting up in time to challenge the open man that resulted. But all that said, everything he shot was going in, and thx to O.J. Mayo he could shoot whenever he felt like it. Got the buzzer beating three to go at the end of the first quarter, coutesy of Beno. Combined with Hawes to lead us back from an early 14pt deficit. And poured it on down the stretch of the second quarter. Just at times left entirely unguarded by Mayo who...I have no idea what he was thinking. Kevin had time to sit over in the corners and tweet all his friends about how open he was before bothering to put it up. Just able to square up Mayo and shoot over him repeatedly down the stretch of the third (Mayo is undersized at the SG). Also able to pick off a number of lazy passes up top. Started fading a bit late, and for once the getting tired excuse would have been valid given his minutes. Gathered himself to hit a big three at the 3:00 mark. But missed back to back shots on one possession at the 2:20 mark before getting a couple of gift FTs form Mayo for a dumb off the ball foul at the 2:00 mark. Sitting on somethign like 40 points or so, threatened to annoint himself the goat aftr coming up wiht another shaky clutch play, this time airballing the shot at the 30 second mark. Bailed out and given a chance at redemption by the Hawes/Beno connection however, and playd a key role in OT hitting a three, and then critically drawing Randolph's 6th foul after he had torn us up to the tune of 30pts and 16rebs. Hit the icing three at the 1:45 mark and then got up to 48 on an intetional foul in the waning seconds. The A here was easy and obvious. The question was whether to "+" it. In the end I decided no -- there we enough miscues, missed FTs, spotty defense, the shaky clutch shot, and while he scored a ton of points, it took 52 minutes to get up there. But still good for my fantasy team (2 of them actually).
Evans ( D+ ) -- not able to be terribly effective for the third time in four games, but while I'm not 100% sure of this and there was no visible limping etc., maybe we can just chalk this performance up to the ankle and move on. Started slow but began finding people as the quarter wore on when his penetration was cut off. Seemed to work well with Casspi especially and found him repeatedly on kick outs. Continued to struggle to finish those layups, throwing up a couple of ugly, dare I say Bricklayeresque looking attempts. Unable to tell how much the ankle was bothering him on these but definitely did not look like he had any lift. I will say this: more of a presence than the numbers indicate. Noticed that in his first three games as well -- big numbers or small, opposing teams are extremely aware of him at all times and he bends defenses just by his presence. Of course if he doesn't beging putting up numbers, that will change eventually. Did not play 4th quarter onward with Beno playing the game of his life and presumably a desire not to overwork that ankle.
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Hawes ( A ) -- welcome back Spencer -- don't worry about your Little Mermaid backpack and Barbi doll collection you were working on this summer -- we'll put them away in storage for you. Deep hopefully never to be seen again storage. Started off with a nice post move -- yay! Of course it was only against the non-defense of Zach Randolph, so you weren't sure if it meant that much. In fact was back to shooting threes within a quarter. But used a show and go drive to get around Thabeet at the end of the quarter (and send him to the bench just that quick -- not sure what a 45 seconds hook is about unless their coach specifically told Thabeet not to fall for that very thing and he promptly went out and did so). Then went back in against Gasol and backed him down too -- largely negated him in fact after Gasol has been pummeling May. And by this point it was becoming clear that the strong finish to the Spurs game was carrying over and that this wasn't the same fluttering Spencer we have seen all throughout the pre/early season. In fact think I am now going to coin a new nickname -- Good Spencer, this Spencer, a guy who goes down in the post and competes = Spencer. Bad Specner, the flutterbug of a weenie flipping up fall aways and threes and squealing at the slightest bump = Flutter. Well, we saw little of Flutter tonight, and thankfully a lot of Spencer. In fact played well enough that he finally resumed his starting position coming out for the second half. Even delivered maybe his first career hard smush foul on Rudy Gay in the third. Laid him out. Of course just when you were thinking good riddance Flutter! he got us in trouble next time down the floor with anohter Flutter 3ptr...this one allowing the Grizzlies to break out the other way on the long rebound for the breakaway layup. Did not give in to his inner Flutter demons though and stayed strong in the 4th, working particularly well with Beno, who was having a breakout game himself. Saved us down the stretch in crunchtime, hitting a jumper to put us up by three with 45 seconds to go, and then making a great pass to Beno on the slash to tie the game with 1.5 seconds to go -- his 7th assist of the night. This was not perfect, and I will not admit it was so until I get accosted by a pack of sad Spencer fanboys for not gushing enough over their hero, at which point I will of course recant. While he was our only board warrior on a night when we got smashed in there, he still out outmuscled by the groundbound but beefy Memphis frontline. He still had a few Flutter moments, didn't draw enough fouls inside, still chucked up three 3ptrs, two of which were bad shots, and one of which appeared to be classic Flutter running away from the big bag man inside stuff. But the mix was much much better, and when he did go down inside, he went down inside with authority -- none of the wimpy flutterinig fallaway junk. He used his body, dipped his shoulder, looked solid in there. And he came through in the clutch. So a huge stepup from what we've been seeing, and for one night the potential was back on the horizon. Now if he can just bottle it...
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