Ok, well....a depressing exhibition as we were falling apart right before your eyes turned into a big defensively keyed 4th quarter rush. There are still red flags all over this one, but hey, at least we played it right for a quarter.
Now as for the rest -- Cousins got swarmed, and oh yes, smacked right in the jewels, and did not respond well at all, with a near flashback to all the Bad Boogie of the last few years. just barely held it together. Note: if you're triple teamed, somebody is open big guy. Note 2: with these dips for teammates even if you're not you may not get the ball. At the same time his idiot teammates would be wearing dunce caps in a flock of sheep, did absolutely nothing to help him at all, but oh yes, found ways to help themselves. I am starting to have grave concerns about Grevis, and his defense in particular. Is that even tolerable? He just can't guard. PPat would get lit up by Mikki Moore. But our two best guys came off the bench for us, and one of them was our touted rookie, so it ain't all bad. There were spots of grit scattered, we were dead in the water and fought back. But we look out of sorts so quickly again. Just no excuse for that 1 week into the season.
Boxscore
Stats: 34min 13pts (5-11, 1-4, 2-2) 4reb 5ast 0stl 2blk 3TO
Salmons ( B- ) -- tricky grade, because realistically this was not only easily the best game Salmons has had thus far, its up near the top of what you can expect from him at any point this far into his career. And yet the game annoyed me, because in order for John to have his best game here it was basically back to the Keith Smart paradigm of let's get John Salmons going...at the expense of the 4 better players on the floor with him. But of course the question becomes how much do you grade John himself down for not only finally hitting some shots, but for at times functioning as a better PG than Grevis or IT, making multiple nice drive and dishes in the early going, and taking advantage of all the attention being paid to Cuz to get tot he hoop. In the early going there was nobody to defend as it was DeMarre Carrol he of the career 4.2ppg average. But later in the game John would have an impact hounding Korver and keeping him from ever settling into an easy shooting groove the way the Lakers let him the other night. Lost a bunch of what could have been a good grade here with his 3rd quarter play, as he came right out of the lockerroom and turned over our first possession of the half, then spent much of his time going 1 on 1 as our mercurial center seethed at being frozen out so old scrubs could have their fun. Got some of the grade back when he was reinserted for the stretch run, hounded Korver, hit a little jumper to get us under 10, and generally contributed to the backcourt's little show. --Brick
Stats: 31min 7pts (3-6, 1-3, 0-0) 9reb 1ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Patterson ( C- ) -- A typical offensive game, floated around the perimeter and took the few open shots that came his was and thankfully hit a few more then in recent games. Fun "stretch four" fact, our starting power forward has zero free throw attempts on the season. On defense Patterson is looking more like a player without a position then a stretch four. Can't defend the post and his issue go well beyond size and strength. Millsap isn't a physically dominate big but he took it to Patterson with little resistances. His perimeter defense which look decent to close out last season hasn't be good either. He did do a nice job on the boards tonight, especially in the early going. Despite the rebounding effort this was a soft performance. Thought about going lower with this grade but he did some good things and with little support from his fellow bigs I figured he deserved to stay in C territory. --Henkel
Stats: 29min 12pts (5-12, 0-1, 1-2) 6reb 2ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Cousins ( C ) -- The night started out promising for Cousins who had 6 points in the first and avoided getting into early foul trouble. He was fighting for rebounds on the defensive end, and fighting for position on the offensive side. But after the first quarter things quickly went downhill. Constant double and triple teams were frustrating him. His teammates were unable to get him the ball. He even took a knee to the head that had him laying on the ground for a couple minutes. Everything seemed to be working against him. After only taking one shot in the second and being beat on defense a handful of times you could feel the frustration taking over his emotions. During the second half we tried to get Cousins the ball some more but he was still fighting against the double and triple teams constantly, with little luck. After hanging his head and not getting back on defense which ended in a wide open Horford layup he was pulled until the fourth. Unfortunately the fourth wasn’t any easier on him. During a 1-minute sequence that ended with 3 Cousins fouls, one that was called a flagrant-1 before being downgraded to a normal foul, the night was pretty much over for him. Malone kept him in long enough to score on a take to the hoop and then had him on the bench for the rest of the night. If you could cut out Cousins poor body language and emotions tonight his play wasn’t all that bad. Much of his struggles were simple due to a lack of skill from his teammates. This lead to the Hawks focusing all of their attention on him. We can only hope he takes himself out of games less and less because of his emotions. It’s a long season Big Cuz, and your teammates are what they are. --Spud
Stats: 25min 15pts (5-10, 3-7, 2-2) 0reb 1aast 3stl 0blk 1TO
Thornton ( C+ ) -- Step forward, ladies and gentlemen, and take a look at the famous Marcus de Milo - he stands still as carven marble on offense and he may as well not have any arms (at least on defense). It's a good thing that he was generally assigned to the worst offensive player on the Hawks and that Atlanta was so focused on burning our frontcourt, or he might have been booed out of the building. For the first three quarters Marcus played a bored and disinterested game. He only scored seven points and made a grand total of two baseline cuts, one of which was barely above walking speed so I'm not sure it even counts. He was well on his way to a dismal grade, and then he entered in the fourth quarter. For some inexplicable reason he suddenly had perhaps the best two-minute stretch in his life between about the 4:45 and 2:45 marks. We came into the stretch down 12, but a Marcus three followed within about fifteen seconds by a fast break layup brought us within 7. A help steal to get us to a 3-point deficit and then a touch assist off a Patterson steal to a streaking IT brought the game within one. Unfortunately, that was as close as it got, and Thornton was up-and-down in the remainder of the game (a missed corner three, a great steal on the break followed by missing a layup and committing a loose ball foul for free throws, another great steal on the break followed by a three). So basically, we're looking at three quarters of D- followed by two minutes of A+++ and then another three minutes of A- at worst. I guess that averages out to a C+, but seriously, if MT23 plays with half the intensity he had during the final 5 minutes for his other 20 minutes, the Kings win this game. --Capt.
Stats: 20min 9pts (2-5, 1-4, 4-4) 3reb 4ast 0stl 0blk 4TO
Vasquez ( D- ) -- Not sure how much longer we can write off the Major's performance as lasting effects from his injury. If that is a big contributing factor, I think it would be helpful for Coach to state it. Because at this point, we're getting net negatives from the Tyreke Evans consolation prize. On defense, I'm not sure there is a position, I'd be comfortable having him guard. You could stick him on the 3 point specialists out there but our other perimeter defenders can't stick with PG's. He is flat footed, slow and rarely uses his height to disrupt shooters. I will say it looks like he is trying and he appears to fight through screens but he's over-matched and combined with the team's other defensive woes, it's killing us right now. He wasn't brought in for his D but rather to utilize his godlike traditional pg skills to create easy scoring opportunities for others. There are glimpses in that when he pushes the ball in transition and the few times he finds interior players with good angles. But mostly, he seems to pass the ball along to our other "starters" and then stand around. Aside from a nice floater each game, the rest of his shots feel forced. Not sure where this is heading as IT seems much better suited for a super 6th man role, but Vasquez needs to start adding something rather than simply taking away. --sdballer
Last edited:
