Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
See the man above? He's a beautiful beautiful man when his rebounding dander is up, and he put on a ridiculous show that let's be clear here, was nearly 100% the reason we climbed back into this and made a game of it. Games without Cousins are barely any fun to watch anymore, given that you know the result going in -- we haven't won one in two years without the big guy. But watching Reggie come in and hustle and scrap and go nuts one more time (he's 34, there are only a certain number of these games left in those legs) was a hoot. And oh, having him give quotes like this afterward show why its useful to have old hardnosed vets populating your bench:
Hope Nik was listening.
Boxscore
Stats: 33min 20pts (7-14, 0-1, 6-7) 4reb 3ast 1stl 0blk 4TO
Gay ( C+ ) -- scored 20pts in this one on a night when we probably needed a little more. But even when he was flowing in the early game, they just never felt like they were terribly impactful points. And the Grizzlies were of course paying all sorts of attention to him, and so what little impact he was having disappeared into invisibility and inefficiency late. Had 8 points in the early going, and once Gasol was out of the game went right at Koufos. Added an assist to Ben after a nice sideline save by the kid and was generally our best guy through the first. Not really being featured when he came back in the 2nd, and sloppily dribbled it off his toes when he did get it. Did hit a real tough double teamed, fouled and falling down +1 at the free throw line with us down 21, and followed it with several other high degree of difficulty hits to help us at least wake up and whittle the lead just a bit. Had 15 points at half, but hounded by Tony Allen most of the time he was held to only 5 second half points, none of them important. Worse, when eh did show up, it was mostly to try to force action into heavy traffic. Late in the game he tried a drive and kick to Ben, and threw what would have been a great pass if Ben's hands grew out of his ankles instead of his wrists. Was important to keep things from being even worse in the first half, but after half had vey little to do with us making our run.--Brick
Stats: 20min 2pts (1-2, 0-0, 0-0) 2reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 2TO
Thompson ( B- ) -- Jason Thompson did not fill up the box score tonight. Let's just lay that out there at the very beginning. He only managed two points and two rebounds and he fouled out in 20 minutes. That's an F, right? Wrong. In the first half, JT was the only guy we had out there who could slow down Randolph. He consistently denied Randolph deep post position, and ZBo shot 2-5 against him, one of those hits - and to be fair one of those misses - coming on own rebounds that JT was unable to defend because Randolph's original move pushed him under the basket. There's not much to be done if the refs let you bang your defender practically out of bounds, but I don't see anybody defending it much better than JT. On top of denying ZBo domination, JT made no fewer than seven help defense rotations in his first 9 minute stretch. His positioning was impeccable, and although there were three makes on those helps (one following a block call trying to draw a charge on Randolph when they had switched Hollins over) there were also two difficult shots forced and missed and two pass-outs forced. Perhaps the best indication of how good JT's first half was is that we were down 2 when he went out, and we were down 16 (and had been as much as 21 down) when he finally came back in after inexplicably being benched for the entire second quarter with only two fouls. JT's first stint in the second half was no different - he started the half by setting a perfect down screen to get BenMac open in the lane for an easy jumper, later tapped out a rebound (not credited) to Ben to start a breakaway, made a great knifing pass into the lane to hit Reggie for an easy dunk, made three more help stops, and held Randolph to 0-2 before being touched up with two questionable fouls and sent back to the bench with the Kings +6 in his stint. Unfortunately, his play in the fourth quarter was not so stellar. Due to Hollins' ejection he was forced to cover Gasol, who went straight at him. Gasol started with a crazy hook in the lane, then one possession later hit a deep jumper that JT had to leave him for in order to cut off the baseline drive. Then two cheesy fouls in quick succession were called and JT was done. So yeah, it doesn't show up in the boxscore, but JT was one of our best players out there tonight, and was limited in his minutes purely by - to my eye - FOUR iffy fouls in the second half. --Capt.
Stats: 17min 0pts (0-0, 0-0, 0-1) 1reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Hollins ( D ) -- So, yea. I don’t know who that guy in a Ryan Hollins jersey was in San Antonio, but this was a much more recognizable Ryan Hollins game. And you know what? This sort of performance in a limited bench role wouldn’t have been horrible, but as a starter on a team lacking interior size? Not ideal. Here’s some good. Hollins was actively challenging shots at the rim. His man-to-man defense was also OK. He played some very good defense on Zach Randolph for a stretch in the first half, but Randolph scored anyway. That’s just basketball, I can’t really fault his effort there. He did (sort of) spark two Kings mini-runs. The first after he made a terrible offensive play with a weak dribble handoff that was stolen, but hustled back for a chase down block. There was a noticeable energy boost after that, so good on you, Ryan. At one point he got tangled up with Vince Carter and the absurd double technical foul was called. It was just bad officiating. Then, at the beginning of the third quarter, Hollins fouled Gasol on a drive to the basket. Gasol played through the whistle to try and get the And1, Hollins played through the whistle to prevent the And1 (a VERY minor push in the back) and one of the officials not named Joey Crawford called Hollins for his second technical foul on that push. Two technical fouls, and Ryan Hollins’ night was over. And in a weird, twisted way, the Kings (mainly Reggie Evans) responded. The Kings outscored the Grizzlies in the second half, and maybe, just maybe we can give Hollins a little bit of credit for that? And even with that small hint of credit, I can’t give Hollins anything above a D for tonight. Good energy, good hustle, got screwed by the officiating more than once, but an absolutely empty stat line filling in for DeMarcus Cousins just isn’t going to cut it. Get well soon, Boogie.
--Mass
Stats: 41min 18pts (7-13, 1-3, 3-4) 2reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
McLemore ( A- ) -- Ben started the game with 3 misses. First a contested 3-pointer followed by an open midrange jumper and finally a difficult layup. Immediately thereafter McLemore fought to keep the ball from slipping out, passed it to Gay and got it back for an easy layup. Beautiful move! Not getting any touches in 4 min, which needs to change, McLemore flashed his amazing speed running the floor, finally getting the pass, and slammed the ball in. Beautiful. Following fast break, Ben brought the ball up and provided a perfect pass for Rudy Gay for layup. Going a bit unnoticed gives a bad pass to Landry creating a TO. McLemore tends to disappear for periods, but it is not so much because of him. It’s more like his teammates seem to forget him and his abilities. So many possessions go without him touching the ball. When he finally gets it, he has that fast silky release for 3 points. Third quarter went for Ben getting just few touches. A bit strange that Collison was forcing shots when Ben was open and shooting better than Collison. Yes, Ben turned the ball over, but still. In the 4th quarter Ben became more dominant. He is so fast on the fast breaks and finishes with authority. So, in summary, a good game for Ben. Good defense, good scoring from the field. Underutilized shooting potential, but still good stats line in scoring. Maybe should have reduced more for the TO’s, but I enjoyed his flashes too much.--Kingston
Stats: 38min 16pts (6-14, 0-3, 4-7) 7reb 7ast 4stl 1blk 5TO
Collison ( C+ ) -- Begins game guarding Mike Conley, gives up early 3 by not keeping on him. Conley’s defense not letting DC get where he wants on offense; DC fast break kick of speed to basket but pops out then missed both FT; Hollins rebounds and makes quick outlet to DC on break, splits defenders at key and in for layup; then in traffic goes down the key for entertaining half-hook layup for 2; not getting free of Conley at all as Griz def is really good. Plays entire 1st Q Kings down 20-28. Comes back in at 7:46 mark of 2nd after a disastrous stint by Sessions. Kings down 24-38, has good drive down middle for finger roll to make it 30-45, little runner at head of key for 2. Griz really get their hands on the ball defensively getting bunch of TO,s, Griz defense making Kings life very miserable as most of time they are getting shot off only in last 5-6 seconds of every possession. Down 42-58 at half. Kings with 11 TO’s (most being unforced) giving Griz 16 pts. DC starts 3rd quarter and runs set play assist to Ben stop & pop in key for quick 2. Ball moving better but Hollins gets 2nd tech foul and is gone early in 3rd. Another drive by DC straight thru Beno for foul and 2 FT, plays rest of 3rd DC starts 4th. Kings catch up and are down only 3 at 71-74 mostly due to Evans and the bigs. Collison has done better job guarding Conley holding him to only 7 pts so far and ball movement much better. Sessions comes in to give DC a breather but that doesn't work out too well and DC comes back in at next dead ball at 6:27 mark and Griz over foul limit. DC steps into pass lane for steal and feed to Ben for slam. But Kings can not get closer than 6-7 with poor shooting caused by better defense from the Griz. Grade lower due to Conley basically shutting him down in first half and his 5 TO’s but the + for holding Conley to only 10 pt and a good stat line of 16 pts, 7 reb, 7 ast and 4 stl. --Cruz
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