[Grades] Grades v. Hawks 3/16/2015

[Bricklayer]

Pace ball's fun! Pace ball's cool!
We play pace ball for our fools!
With a knick knack paddywhack
Another loss at home!
Our pace ball came rolling home!

Hey, we kept this one close with Miller and JT being very effective (offensively) off the bench.

Cuz lost a monster game to his own head.

The Kingsfans All Stars would score 110 on Karl's Kings.

We're still here! Only 15 games left in perhaps the most annoying season in King history.



Boxscore

Stats: 36min 16pts (6-13, 2-5, 2-2) 5reb 1ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Casspi ( B- ) -- Casspi had a pretty good line tonight, but while he shot well overall from the field, his percentage belied his mistakes tonight. He started the game by missing a layup off of a lob on the very first Kings possession, and he missed not only two other cheapies under the basket but also a floater in the lane in the fourth that bricked in a way that even a third grader learning the shot would find hard to do. That said, he was running out on the break (where got four points), cutting hard to the basket (another four points) and shooting the threes not only with confidence but with an acceptable percentage (2-5). He was doing a particularly good job of moving the ball - he only recorded one assist but he set up at least five other shots that were either missed or where his man got fouled, and the ball was certainly not sticking on him. Defensively, Casspi was a mixed bag. He always seems to play this "electron defense" - you know he's going to be located somewhere in this oddly-shaped probability cloud around his man but exactly where he'll be is indeterminate until you actually check to find out. He made some mistakes - leaving his man for open threes several times (including twice in short succession in the fourth quarter resulting in six points from Carroll) and he committed the Cardinal sin of running away from the shooter to cover the pass giving Carroll another three in the first quarter. At the same time, he made some good reads on defense, on the most notable seemingly coming out of nowhere to commit a foul from behind on Antic preventing a layup. For as many mistakes and odd decisions that he made, the hustle was once again undeniable. --Capt.

Stats: 17min 4pts (1-3, 0-0, 2-2) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Landry ( D ) -- So the starting PF matchup went 19-10-4 to 4-3-0. Milsap was always better than Carl, but a few years ago it wouldn't have been THAT bad. after yet another empty display it just seems highly unlikely Carl Landry has a future with Karl. Probably doesn't help he's one of those nasty mud wrastlin' postup guys that old George is worried about catching cooties from, but if he was at least being a productive mud wrastlin' postup guy maybe that would carry some weight. Unfortunately our newbie front office and its 3rd coach this season are having to learn and relearn a lesson I could have told them years ago if they were willing to listen: Carl Landry isn't anything without the ball. And starting next to Cuz.... If I remember correctly the first Atlanta game was Carl's first start in this streak. At the time I thought it was to guard the similarly sized Milsap. Well, that first game everybody else was destroying us so bad the Hawks barely needed Milsap. This game we got to see more what that matchup looked like with Milsap playing a main role, and it wasn't pretty. Milsap scored inside and out at will in the early going, and I think Carl got completely blanked. No points, he won't rebound, it was a blowout. Finally did something with a finish +1 in the early 3rd off a scramble, but his +1 was negated by a Cuz lane violation. A few minutes later another invisible outing had ended, and its impossible not to conclude that if Carl Landry is still on the Kings roster to being next season it will purely be because we have destroyed any trade value he might have had. --Brick

Stats: 34min 20pts (7-19, 0-1, 6-8) 13reb 5ast 2stl 3blk 5TO
Cousins ( B- ) -- played a dominant first half that bordered on the out of control. Notched 14pts 9rebs 3 impressive blocks, including 2 stepping out and just smacking away guy's jumpers. He still missed several things he should have hit inside, and he was rumbling and flowing up and down court freely and borderline wildly. Kept pressing the issue with long drives and got into it a bit with Antic. Just didn't seem quite composed. A little hyper, but still beating the Hawks up inside. Unfortunately started the third unsettled with a missed shot and a couple of really bad ideas trying to force fullcourt passes on the break. Worse, started collecting various fouls and getting into it with the refs. I think he entered the 2nd half with ZERO fouls. By the end of the third quarter he had 4 and a technical. He still was making plays, made two electric hi-lo passes for assists, piled up boards and a great mobility dunk. But George Karl has got to learn his player, and learn some chemistry with him. You could see him losing his cool. he needed a little timeout over on the bench by the time of his 3rd foul. Certainly needed it after a technical. Never did come until Cuz had grown wild, disrupted the team, and gotten himself 4 fouls and forced Karl's hand. You might think Karl was using it as a teaching point of some sort, but the interaction he and Cuz were having wasn't exactly of that sort. In any case, so Cuz, who should have been able to go all the way in this one, found himself back in his normal referee penalty box again. He came back in in the 4th, busted in another nice pass, and then committed another dumb out of control foul swiping at Teague in the open court, and when Teague fell down, it was an automatic call for the refs. So back to the bench he went. He was back in to close up the final 4+ min of this thing, but aside from a pair of FTs wasn't a factor. He almost got got play hero when a desperation three we called for him rolled off with 13 seconds to go, but no. Everything here pointed to a huge game. He was dominating, the Hawks had no personnel to really stop it, he had no fouls...by all rights this should have been 25-15, maybe even 30-15. But this was one time where Cuz very clearly stopped himself, and his coach did nothing to break him out of the spiral. --Brick

Stats: 29min 11pts (5-11, 0-2, 1-2) 6reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( C- ) -- I don't pretend to know whatever goes on in Ben;s head, but whatever it is appears to be getting worse. He was actually benched TWICE in this game for basically coming out to start both halves completely unready to play. And it clearly appeared to be mental sloppiness too. He started the game fumbling balls, missing shots, and repeatedly losing his guy on defense. He started the second half doing more of the same. In both halves Karl showed a brand new shiny quickhook, took one look at the mess Ben was making of things, and quickly benched him in favor of Nik. And the bizarre thing was that in both halves once ben was reinserted he was...well, better. Not good. For some reason it appears that Shelvin Mack is now better than him as well, and Ben couldn't guard him. He missed several layups he should have hit. He missed his threes. Well ok, that's doesn't sound so hot, but he also got several hoops out on the break, added some rebounds (although he was beaten badly on a couple too) and had a strong stretch in the early 4th with a couple of good passes for assists, and a good stop and pop pullup in the mid 4th for his final points. Down the stretch not quick enough to stay in front of Teague, who Ben had to guard because Miller is REALLY not quick enough to stay in front of Teague, and on a key play got blown by by Teague at the 49 second mark to make it a 6pt Hawks lead, leading to McCallum's reinsertion. When your coach is beginning to snap bench you you have to step up before he loses confidence. Remaining 15 games are maybe as big for Ben as they are for Nik. --Brick

Stats: 22min 10pts (4-8, 2-4, 0-0) 5reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
McCallum ( B-) -- Ray lost minutes tonight more because Andrew was so good rather than because Ray was so bad. In the early going indeed he even outperformed Teague, with his most memorable moments of the night coming when he hit two early bailout threes as we came out competing. He would add a layup just before half, and both our starting guards provided a little help on the glass. On the other hand, in that second quarter Teague began to come to life, and Ray just didn't have much of anything to hold it off. His assists were few, and random, but at least he did not turn the ball over. After half there wasn't much, a single assists, a dunk in the mid 3rd courtesy of Cuz, and that was it aside from a couple of seconds of defensive substitution work late in the game on Teague. Ray wasn't bad, but aside form the two early threes, neither was he good. And he certainly didn't have the impact Miller did, and hence we player developed a 39yr old for the evening. --Brick

 

[Bricklayer]

Bench

Stats: 27min 7pts (2-8, 1-4, 2-3) 2reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Stauskas ( C- ) -- oh Nik Nik Nik Nik Nik. Tsk. Played a good floor game in the firs half but just did not hit his shots and kept on not hitting them after half. Still, with Ben's attention seeming to come and go, Nik was turned to repeatedly to pick up the slack, which he didn;t really do. Moment of the game though, and missed opportunity of the game came in the final seconds of the game. We were down 5 with 23 seconds to go and playing the foul game, and it worked! They missed a FT, then Nik drew a foul twisting at the 3pt line (in fact twisting so much he almost talked the refs out of giving him a shooting foul), and so we sent an 87% FT shooter to the line in the clutch to make it a 2pt game with 23 seconds to go. I.e. to have a chance. Nik hits, the first...and then he choked the 2nd. And so there we were, still down 3, when we fouled them again it became 5 again, and we missed our window. Or rather Nik did. A little thing like that could have done wonders to make him feel like he had some skin in the game. Instead, he has to continue being the kid searching for his game. --Brick

Stats: 15min 0pts (0-5 0-2, 0-0) 4reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Williams ( C- ) -- Good news for Derrick Williams detractors: D-Will played a grand total of 21 seconds in the second half before getting benched for the remainder of the game, apparently for taking an escape-dribble three that must not have fit within Karl's expectations for Derrick's one possession. Williams was shut out on an 0-5 night, and you could almost try to convince yourself that his shooting of late has been a mirage. Bad news for Derrick Williams detractors: He played really, really solid defense tonight in his limited minutes. We were playing a very heavy switching scheme and forcing Williams into difficult situations like "guarding Dennis Schroeder on the perimeter". To his credit, while Schroeder did get Williams to commit the foul on one drive for an and-1, Williams shut down another drive while switched off and shut him down not once but twice on a rotation into the paint. On top of that, he switched and locked down Shelvin Mack on another drive attempt. Positionally, he was basically ideal on D for all of his 15 minutes, and he grabbed a nice four rebounds. I haven't been focusing on his defense at all in the past months, really, but if he has been playing D like this, along with the offense of late - that would mean he is playing a lot better than anybody is giving him credit for. 0-5 is a problem, and he coughed up the ball once on a drive, but defensively he really salvaged himself. --Capt.

Stats: 28min 16pts (6-7, 2-2, 2-2) 2reb 7ast 1stl 0blk 5TO
Miller ( A- ) -- depending on which end of the floor you watched last night, Dre had himself a heck of a game. Actually really for a slow footed 39 year old guy? Dre had a heck of a game last night. All those shots that weren't falling, well, they fell. He hit his threes, his pullup set shots, his post moves, everything. He dished of course, although he did have too many TOs on a variety of going for too much passes and miscommunications. With 3min to go he hit a big shot to make it a 1pt game. Now, on the other end, he was not remotely quick enough to stay in front of Teague or Shroeder. no hope. I would have had more hope. Literally. And so he played off, saw them run by him etc. Late in the game we took to hiding him from Teague and putting Ben, who as I noted early in his career is not especially quick laterally -- his elite athletcism is vertical and straight ahead, not horizontal -- and we got burned by that at the 40 seconds mark when Teague blew by Ben for a critical flip to put Atlanta up 6 again. Almost nobodies fault, unless you want to blame Karl for not having Ray in there. Just a bad/impossible quickness matchup for the guards we had in the game. Thing is though, if I'm going to kill Dre's grade for hsi lack of old man quickness even on a night like tonight, then he really can't ever have an A type grade. And I think tonight, we got about as much out of a 39 year old backup PG as we could ever expect. he and JT came in and gave us a big boost. If Cuz had not been plagued (plagued himself?) with fouls of various kinds, the three of them may have ben enough to sneak out a win here. Not to be however. --Brick

Stats: 24min 18pts (7-7, 0-0, 4-4) 3reb 2ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Thompson ( A- ) -- first half in place of Cuz was just ok. But in the late third, first next to Cuz, and then staying in after he was out, I thought Jason might very well have been the player of the game. Best he's looked under Karl. Very active and aggressive scoring at the rim, added a long jumper, and played a key role keeping our momentum even without Cuz in the late game. Never did miss a shot, took several good passes right at the rim and finished them, notched a couple of assists, and really other than boardwork where extensive minutes next to Cuz and Reggie, and roaming around the perimeter chasing the Hawks "bigs" had some effect, this was an excellent game by JT. It was really he and Miller who rescued us and picked us back up once Cuz's assault slowed, and they got all the late minutes because of it. --Brick

Stats: 8min 1pts (0-0, 0-0, 1-2) 2reb 0ast 2stl 0blk 0TO
Evans ( INC ) -- just a couple of stints of minutes in the late 3rd/early 4th after Cuz's fouls started taking him out of the game. Got his hands on several balls for steals, and saved a near Miller turnover along the baseline. But was not particularly his normal boarding fool self, and had little individual impact. --Brick

 

[Iced Espresso]

Just watched the DVR.

Overall pleased with the energy and effort.

Nice to be home.

 

[Siranthony]

We played a VERY good team and competed the whole game. Great fun to watch. Watch out for the Kings next year! Not sure what the "Pace ball" thing is about really. I really can't see much to complain about tonight, other than Cousins complains too much. We just need another pace er piece or two on this team.

 

[Bricklayer]

We played a VERY good team and competed the whole game. Great fun to watch. Watch out for the Kings next year! Not sure what the "Pace ball" thing is about really. I really can't see much to complain about tonight, other than Cousins complains too much. We just need another pace er piece or two on this team.

Allow me to help you out:

Paceball One, Last 8 Game Opponent Points
112
119
114
130
106
114
113
110
-------
114.8 pts/gm

Which means even if we scored points as prolifically as poor little Vivek's lost Golden State team (dude if you can't stand on your own two feet and hack it out in the world, you should really buy back in and get back those comfy courtside seats to watch the dreamy Chuck Brothers at work), we'd STILL be losing every night by almost as much as the Lakers have on the season.

And its not an accident. More pace = more open court = more opponent points. More three pointers = more long rebounds = more opponent points. More shots early in the shotclock, in the "flow" = more open court plays = more...well you get it.

You know a really good way to limit an opposing team's points even without great defensive personnel? Control tempo. Run a halfcourt offense. Pound the ball inside, get to the line, dominate the glass. Sound familiar?

Were 29th in defense again this year, and it is self imposed. If you aren't well and tired of that after all these years, there is something very much wrong.

 

[KingsFanGER]

Allow me to help you out:

Paceball One, Last 8 Game Opponent Points
112
119
114
130
106
114
113
110
-------
114.8 pts/gm

Which means even if we scored points as prolifically as poor little Vivek's lost Golden State team (dude if you can't stand on your own two feet and hack it out in the world, you should really buy back in and get back those comfy courtside seats to watch the dreamy Chuck Brothers at work), we'd STILL be losing every night by almost as much as the Lakers have on the season.

And its not an accident. More pace = more open court = more opponent points. More three pointers = more long rebounds = more opponent points. More shots early in the shotclock, in the "flow" = more open court plays = more...well you get it.

You know a really good way to limit an opposing team's points even without great defensive personnel? Control tempo. Run a halfcourt offense. Pound the ball inside, get to the line, dominate the glass. Sound familiar?

Were 29th in defense again this year, and it is self imposed. If you aren't well and tired of that after all these years, there is something very much wrong.

You can control the tempo and play in the halfcourt, but when you can't feed your go to guys the ball in good positions to score without turning the ball over time and time again and when your spacing is poor enough to allow easy double or sometimes triple teams on your main scorer at the moment he catches the ball and therefore get even more out of control passes or dribblings out of it - you still won't beat a team, which is able to execute at a high rate in transition and in the half court.

 

[Siranthony]

I saw lots of good defense and effort from the Kings. They just don't have it all down yet. The Hawks are just a lot better at getting open. The kings can hang in the for 15, 18 seconds but they finally break down. Still I don't think the Hawks shot as well as they are used to. The Hawks are very good at collapsing to the paint on defense when there is penetration. Which should have left us open elsewhere. We where not good at finding the open man in those situations. At this point the problem is not pace. It's execution. We have a lot to learn.

 

[kingsboi]

I can appreciate the effort and hustle by the players. They really wanted to get this one. However, when ever they needed a few consecutive stops, it wasn't happening. Atlanta lives and dies by the three so they shoot a lot of them. Could not stop Teague's penetration or Schroder's....this offseason will be very telling to see if these analytic professionals can see the amount of points, FG% and 3pt FG% they are giving up since the hiring of the great Karl.

 

[CruzDude]

Losing to the best (or one of two) team by 7, matching 2nd half points yet having 20 TO's shows progress again. Can you imagine score if only 10-12 TO's? Great ball movement was there but not consistent yet (as was Hawks) is plus. If Cuz can cut down his "personality disorder" TO's dribbling/trying to go thru too many triple teams and shuts up rambling on to refs too much those 7 points might just have been made up. Andre's 5 TO's mostly team coordination issues trying to be worked out. Big cudos to JT and RayMac for really good games.

 

[Padrino]

You can control the tempo and play in the halfcourt, but when you can't feed your go to guys the ball in good positions to score without turning the ball over time and time again and when your spacing is poor enough to allow easy double or sometimes triple teams on your main scorer at the moment he catches the ball and therefore get even more out of control passes or dribblings out of it - you still won't beat a team, which is able to execute at a high rate in transition and in the half court.

meh, the kings were beating those teams early in the season despite all of their offensive inefficiencies, and they were hanging tough in the games they didn't win. in my mind, slowing the pace down and grinding it out as a smash mouth basketball team is a much better strategy for engendering a less turnover-prone environment than pushing the pace and inviting further unpredictability to the offense, all while the defensive effort spirals into oblivion (as does the hope of consistency in the win column)...

more to the point, i don't know why kings fans are forgetting that this team is currently starting a second-year second-round pick at PG, and have the faint shadow of the ghost of father time backing him up. elsewhere in the guard rotation, the kings are currently starting an inconsistent second-year SG with notoriously shaky handles, and have a first-year SG who has rarely looked even the slightest bit comfortable on an nba court backing him up. it's not as if that rotation is a model for stability and spacing. put a couple solid veterans on the court (who don't have one foot in the retirement home), and you're likely to see fewer turnovers and a few more made three's...

and yeah, even when malone was the head coach in the early part of the season, turnovers and spacing were still a big problem, but the team was winning games at a more consistent clip, and that was with a starting PG who had barely logged a quarter of a season's worth of games with the team in darren collison. patience has always been the operative word in creating a stable environment on both ends of the court. it was what vivek and PDA preached on day one, and it's not malone's, cousins', gay's, collison's, the fans', or anyone else's fault that the kings' brass decided to abandon patience 24 games into the season...

you know how you cut down on turnovers? you know how you grease an offense along and improve its spacing and its execution? how about believing in stability? how about not firing your head coach, promoting his lead assistant as the "permanent" replacement, then firing that replacement in order to install your third head coach on the season? how about allowing a single coach to implement a sound, defensively-oriented strategy for more than 106 games, with a roster that doesn't dramatically shape-shift every few months?

kings fans act as if it's a huge surprise that the team's offense sputtered so often under malone, or that it still struggles to maintain discipline and composure despite its injuries, roster deficiencies, lack of experience, and lack of talent. they act as if san antonio, atlanta, golden state, etc. just arrived one day with the most well-oiled offenses in the league. those teams are stacked with talented veterans who have played together long enough to develop a sixth sense for each other's tendencies. control the tempo and play in the halfcourt, bring in a couple of actual outside shooters who can help throw simple passes, and my guess is you'll see this team win a few more games than they will attempting to outrun teams that are much better-suited to such a style...

 

[lawlman91]

meh, the kings were beating those teams early in the season despite all of their offensive inefficiencies, and they were hanging tough in the games they didn't win. in my mind, slowing the pace down and grinding it out as a smash mouth basketball team is a much better strategy for engendering a less turnover-prone environment than pushing the pace and inviting further unpredictability to the offense, all while the defensive effort spirals into oblivion (as does the hope of consistency in the win column)...

more to the point, i don't know why kings fans are forgetting that this team is currently starting a second-year second-round pick at PG, and have the faint shadow of the ghost of father time backing him up. elsewhere in the guard rotation, the kings are currently starting an inconsistent second-year SG with notoriously shaky handles, and have a first-year SG who has rarely looked even the slightest bit comfortable on an nba court backing him up. it's not as if that rotation is a model for stability and spacing. put a couple solid veterans on the court (who don't have one foot in the retirement home), and you're likely to see fewer turnovers and a few more made three's...

and yeah, even when malone was the head coach in the early part of the season, turnovers and spacing were still a big problem, but the team was winning games at a more consistent clip, and that was with a starting PG who had barely logged a quarter of a season's worth of games with the team in darren collison. patience has always been the operative word in creating a stable environment on both ends of the court. it was what vivek and PDA preached on day one, and it's not malone's, cousins', gay's, collison's, the fans', or anyone else's fault that the kings' brass decided to abandon patience 24 games into the season...

you know how you cut down on turnovers? you know how you grease an offense along and improve its spacing and its execution? how about believing in stability? how about not firing your head coach, promoting his lead assistant as the "permanent" replacement, then firing that replacement in order to install your third head coach on the season? how about allowing a single coach to implement a sound, defensively-oriented strategy for more than 106 games, with a roster that doesn't dramatically shape-shift every few months?

kings fans act as if it's a huge surprise that the team's offense sputtered so often under malone, or that it still struggles to maintain discipline and composure despite its injuries, roster deficiencies, lack of experience, and lack of talent. they act as if san antonio, atlanta, golden state, etc. just arrived one day with the most well-oiled offenses in the league. those teams are stacked with talented veterans who have played together long enough to develop a sixth sense for each other's tendencies. control the tempo and play in the halfcourt, bring in a couple of actual outside shooters who can help throw simple passes, and my guess is you'll see this team win a few more games than they will attempting to outrun teams that are much better-suited to such a style...

Despite my own infatuation with smash mouth basketball, I like the idea of pushing the pace only right after a defensive rebound, if possible. Its gotten us uncontested points because the opposing defense was not in position. Unfortunately, this strategy requires that we have one guy leak after an opponent's shot. But at least if there is a turnover, we'll already have a large part of our defense set up. If anyone can find evidence that shows the cost/benefit between having a guy leak out or having the guy stay back to play defense, I'd like to see it! So far, though, eye test says that the baseball passes to leaking players works.

I agree wholeheartedly with all that you said.

 

[KingsFanGER]

meh, the kings were beating those teams early in the season despite all of their offensive inefficiencies, and they were hanging tough in the games they didn't win. in my mind, slowing the pace down and grinding it out as a smash mouth basketball team is a much better strategy for engendering a less turnover-prone environment than pushing the pace and inviting further unpredictability to the offense, all while the defensive effort spirals into oblivion (as does the hope of consistency in the win column)...

more to the point, i don't know why kings fans are forgetting that this team is currently starting a second-year second-round pick at PG, and have the faint shadow of the ghost of father time backing him up. elsewhere in the guard rotation, the kings are currently starting an inconsistent second-year SG with notoriously shaky handles, and have a first-year SG who has rarely looked even the slightest bit comfortable on an nba court backing him up. it's not as if that rotation is a model for stability and spacing. put a couple solid veterans on the court (who don't have one foot in the retirement home), and you're likely to see fewer turnovers and a few more made three's...

and yeah, even when malone was the head coach in the early part of the season, turnovers and spacing were still a big problem, but the team was winning games at a more consistent clip, and that was with a starting PG who had barely logged a quarter of a season's worth of games with the team in darren collison. patience has always been the operative word in creating a stable environment on both ends of the court. it was what vivek and PDA preached on day one, and it's not malone's, cousins', gay's, collison's, the fans', or anyone else's fault that the kings' brass decided to abandon patience 24 games into the season...

you know how you cut down on turnovers? you know how you grease an offense along and improve its spacing and its execution? how about believing in stability? how about not firing your head coach, promoting his lead assistant as the "permanent" replacement, then firing that replacement in order to install your third head coach on the season? how about allowing a single coach to implement a sound, defensively-oriented strategy for more than 106 games, with a roster that doesn't dramatically shape-shift every few months?

kings fans act as if it's a huge surprise that the team's offense sputtered so often under malone, or that it still struggles to maintain discipline and composure despite its injuries, roster deficiencies, lack of experience, and lack of talent. they act as if san antonio, atlanta, golden state, etc. just arrived one day with the most well-oiled offenses in the league. those teams are stacked with talented veterans who have played together long enough to develop a sixth sense for each other's tendencies. control the tempo and play in the halfcourt, bring in a couple of actual outside shooters who can help throw simple passes, and my guess is you'll see this team win a few more games than they will attempting to outrun teams that are much better-suited to such a style...

How does a very general post about a halfcourt offense turn into an answer about our FO and Malone and our roster in general?
I'm well aware of the failure of our FO and our lack of talent.
But I do not believe that the only way to be successful is to play a grind it out, smashmouth type of basketball. I like this kind of basketball - was a huge fan of the Pistons and Knicks back in the days - but you can't deny that the current NBA is more about fast play and pick&rolls. Bricklayer believes that you can still win it all with a smashmouth approach - I respect his opinion, but I'm not that convinced of it. And to win with a smashmouth approach you will need huge changes to the roster. Good start to the season or not - with Cousins as the focal point of our offense and Gay as a subpar outside shooter, it would be way too easy to stop us on offense.
That's my whole point. I'm tired of this Malone vs our FO, pace vs defense debate. Multiple teams show us, that you can play good defense AND play fast. It's not one or the other. And those kind of teams don't have magic, super IQ basketball players - they have a competent coach and play as a unit - that's it.
No matter how the offense looks - we agree that it all starts on the defensive end. If the Kings manage to defend at an at least mediocre level, they will be a much better team.

 

[rainmaker]

Allow me to help you out:

Paceball One, Last 8 Game Opponent Points
112
119
114
130
106
114
113
110
-------
114.8 pts/gm

I swear that's worse than our defense under Corbin. Remember posting our opponents PPG during his time here but don't believe it was that high, maybe about 112 PG.

Unbelievable. And the amazing thing is Karl has openly acknowledged that Cuz is a better defender than he thought he was. Of course Karl, you won't come close to maximizing that ability by turning him into a "rim runner" and leaking out when shots go up, which is increasingly happening and really starting to bother me. If you're going to have guys leak out when a shot goes up, at least make sure it's a wing, not our f'ing franchise center who in your own words is at least a top two rebounder in the league.

I just can't believe I'm seeing Cuz contesting 3's and breaking down court attempting to cherry-pick. That is not how you use your defensive foundation. You never see/saw a Duncan or Gasol doing that for a reason.

 

[Padrino]

How does a very general post about a halfcourt offense turn into an answer about our FO and Malone and our roster in general?
I'm well aware of the failure of our FO and our lack of talent.
But I do not believe that the only way to be successful is to play a grind it out, smashmouth type of basketball. I like this kind of basketball - was a huge fan of the Pistons and Knicks back in the days - but you can't deny that the current NBA is more about fast play and pick&rolls. Bricklayer believes that you can still win it all with a smashmouth approach - I respect his opinion, but I'm not that convinced of it. And to win with a smashmouth approach you will need huge changes to the roster. Good start to the season or not - with Cousins as the focal point of our offense and Gay as a subpar outside shooter, it would be way too easy to stop us on offense.
That's my whole point. I'm tired of this Malone vs our FO, pace vs defense debate. Multiple teams show us, that you can play good defense AND play fast. It's not one or the other. And those kind of teams don't have magic, super IQ basketball players - they have a competent coach and play as a unit - that's it.
No matter how the offense looks - we agree that it all starts on the defensive end. If the Kings manage to defend at an at least mediocre level, they will be a much better team.

see, i disagree mightily with your assessment that simply having a competent coach and playing as a unit is enough to yield winning results on both sides of the ball. the players in that equation matter more than anything else. and in my estimation, finding the right combination of players who are able to play excellent fast-paced basketball and play excellent defense for a coach that understands how to emphasize each is a bit like trying to find yourself a unicorn, especially given the kings' status as a small market backwater that few players are itching to play for. there's a reason that the warriors and the hawks and the spurs are outliers in the contemporary nba spectrum; it's rather difficult to fill a team with legitimate two-way talents. and sometimes, you just luck into the right players at the right time. have the kings been very lucky in, i dunno, the last 30 years?

you can ink demarcus cousins to a max extension, you can trade for low-hanging fruit like rudy gay, you can bring in a head coach who favors an up-tempo offense and hasn't prioritized defense in a decade, and then you can glue a horn to the thing's head and christen it a "unicorn," but that does not make it so. as you say, there are many different ways to be successful in the nba. however, the discussion isn't about whether or not "smash mouth basketball" is the only way to win; the discussion has been about whether or not it's the right way for these kings to win. my point in bringing up mike malone was precisely that he did not require "huge changes to the roster" in order to get his team to play effective smash mouth basketball. in fact, he did it with a woefully limited roster, and he coaxed wins from a kings team that honestly had no business being competitive against the upper echelons of the western conference...

you'll certainly hear no argument from me that this roster requires significant improvement before the kings can seriously enter the playoff discussion, but when will the rubber of the new regime's philosophy meet the proverbial road? where are these up-tempo, two-way players going to come from? who is pete d'alessandro going to successfully acquire that will fit into george karl's rim-to-rim approach and also make an impact on the kings' tremendous defensive shortcomings? again, the reason i continue to bring up mike malone is that he managed to win games with a practical approach, rather than a theoretical one...

now, i like talking basketball theory; it's fun and engaging. but at the end of the day, the kings were at least a .500 team when malone had them focused on defense, despite being a bit of a mess on offense. and the kings have been a big-time loser since vivek/d'alessandro/corbin/karl shifted the emphasis to "pace," while being an utter disaster on the defensive end. that's simple math for me. i don't have any problem with the assertion that efficient offense matters, and that three-point shots have a lot of value in the contemporary nba landscape. "pace and space" absolutely has its place in that landscape, but if there is, indeed, more than one way to skin a cat in this league, then i'm gonna go with the defensively-oriented strategy that was already working, rather than pin my hopes to some in-vogue notion of how an offense "should" be run in the nba...

 

[IfAt1st]

(Casspi) always seems to play this "electron defense" - you know he's going to be located somewhere in this oddly-shaped probability cloud around his man but exactly where he'll be is indeterminate until you actually check to find out. --Capt.

you can ink demarcus cousins to a max extension, you can trade for low-hanging fruit like rudy gay, you can bring in a head coach who favors an up-tempo offense and hasn't prioritized defense in a decade, and then you can glue a horn to the thing's head and christen it a "unicorn," but that does not make it so.

Funny stuff here, people. :thumbsup:

I guess pain brings out the humor in a fanbase like nothing else.....

 

[pshn80]

Allow me to help you out:

Paceball One, Last 8 Game Opponent Points
112
119
114
130
106
114
113
110
-------
114.8 pts/gm

Which means even if we scored points as prolifically as poor little Vivek's lost Golden State team (dude if you can't stand on your own two feet and hack it out in the world, you should really buy back in and get back those comfy courtside seats to watch the dreamy Chuck Brothers at work), we'd STILL be losing every night by almost as much as the Lakers have on the season.

And its not an accident. More pace = more open court = more opponent points. More three pointers = more long rebounds = more opponent points. More shots early in the shotclock, in the "flow" = more open court plays = more...well you get it.

You know a really good way to limit an opposing team's points even without great defensive personnel? ControL
l tempo. Run a halfcourt offense. Pound the ball inside, get to the line, dominate the glass. Sound familiar?

Were 29th in defense again this year, and it is self imposed. If you aren't well and tired of that after all these years, there is something very much wrong.

Sounds good even logical. Some how if we did as you say on offence and defense we would allow less points for the opponents and score less to the same win loss result. I'm not sure which way is better for this team (and this team is all we have). I think I'll go with the coach. He's motivated more than you or I.

 

[KingsFanGER]

see, i disagree mightily with your assessment that simply having a competent coach and playing as a unit is enough to yield winning results on both sides of the ball. the players in that equation matter more than anything else. and in my estimation, finding the right combination of players who are able to play excellent fast-paced basketball and play excellent defense for a coach that understands how to emphasize each is a bit like trying to find yourself a unicorn, especially given the kings' status as a small market backwater that few players are itching to play for. there's a reason that the warriors and the hawks and the spurs are outliers in the contemporary nba spectrum; it's rather difficult to fill a team with legitimate two-way talents. and sometimes, you just luck into the right players at the right time. have the kings been very lucky in, i dunno, the last 30 years?

you can ink demarcus cousins to a max extension, you can trade for low-hanging fruit like rudy gay, you can bring in a head coach who favors an up-tempo offense and hasn't prioritized defense in a decade, and then you can glue a horn to the thing's head and christen it a "unicorn," but that does not make it so. as you say, there are many different ways to be successful in the nba. however, the discussion isn't about whether or not "smash mouth basketball" is the only way to win; the discussion has been about whether or not it's the right way for these kings to win. my point in bringing up mike malone was precisely that he did not require "huge changes to the roster" in order to get his team to play effective smash mouth basketball. in fact, he did it with a woefully limited roster, and he coaxed wins from a kings team that honestly had no business being competitive against the upper echelons of the western conference...

you'll certainly hear no argument from me that this roster requires significant improvement before the kings can seriously enter the playoff discussion, but when will the rubber of the new regime's philosophy meet the proverbial road? where are these up-tempo, two-way players going to come from? who is pete d'alessandro going to successfully acquire that will fit into george karl's rim-to-rim approach and also make an impact on the kings' tremendous defensive shortcomings? again, the reason i continue to bring up mike malone is that he managed to win games with a practical approach, rather than a theoretical one...

now, i like talking basketball theory; it's fun and engaging. but at the end of the day, the kings were at least a .500 team when malone had them focused on defense, despite being a bit of a mess on offense. and the kings have been a big-time loser since vivek/d'alessandro/corbin/karl shifted the emphasis to "pace," while being an utter disaster on the defensive end. that's simple math for me. i don't have any problem with the assertion that efficient offense matters, and that three-point shots have a lot of value in the contemporary nba landscape. "pace and space" absolutely has its place in that landscape, but if there is, indeed, more than one way to skin a cat in this league, then i'm gonna go with the defensively-oriented strategy that was already working, rather than pin my hopes to some in-vogue notion of how an offense "should" be run in the nba...

Well we disagree completely with the assessment of teams like the Hawks. Carroll, Korver, Bazemore, Scott, Antic those guys weren't glorified two way players for their whole career. Carroll got traded multiple times, Bazemore was almost out of the league, Scott is an undersized PF who chucks 3's - in fact every one of those players would be a well hated by the fans, when playing for the Kings. The Hawks turned all those players into something useful, cause basketball is just so much easier, when you have space to operate.

We agree on your assessment on Malone. He got the most out of our roster in the beginning of the season.
We disagree on DMC. I don't think he is necessary at his best in a smashmouth approach. I believe he is that versatile, that he can be effective in a lot of different ways. Same goes for Rudy.
Do I want DMC to rim run all the time? No! This interview of Karl really was something I did not expected.
For me the question is, if a smashmouth approach based on low post play is still able to win it today.
I'm really not that convinced it is, but I guess, given the Kings common absence in the post season, we will all watch Memphis go to work. Let's see how far they can go in the playoffs and let's see if their playstyle is really as smashmouth as a lot of poster around here say it is. I watched quite a few Memphis games and always was suprised by the assessment of their playstyle on this board.

 

[IfAt1st]

I just want to point out, that in the time-honored tradition of KF's counting quasi-assists from Tyreke back in the day, Demarcus should/would have had a triple-double vs the Hawks, cuz he set up Omri 3 times wide open (2 3's and a layup), Stauskas once (a 3), and JT once (layup stone-hands).

I've noticed Demarcus REALLY gets frustrated when he gives up the ball to a wide-open teammate (especially in the 3rd, when the game is starting to get away from the Kings) and they blow the shot or mishandle the ball.
Boogie REALLY likes getting assists and setting up teammates. I believe he values it personally more than he does blocks. (BTW - they REALLY need to combine the Blocks and Charges Taken categories into a defensive statistic. Demarcus would be Top 10 at least (IIRC he's Top 16 in Blocks alone, and going up each month).)

 

[Bricklayer]

I just want to point out, that in the time-honored tradition of KF's counting quasi-assists from Tyreke back in the day, Demarcus should/would have had a triple-double vs the Hawks, cuz he set up Omri 3 times wide open (2 3's and a layup), Stauskas once (a 3), and JT once (layup stone-hands).

I've noticed Demarcus REALLY gets frustrated when he gives up the ball to a wide-open teammate (especially in the 3rd, when the game is starting to get away from the Kings) and they blow the shot or mishandle the ball.
Boogie REALLY likes getting assists and setting up teammates. I believe he values it personally more than he does blocks. (BTW - they REALLY need to combine the Blocks and Charges Taken categories into a defensive statistic. Demarcus would be Top 10 at least (IIRC he's Top 16 in Blocks alone, and going up each month).)

They used to have a stat that was something like that called "Defensive Efficiency' on nba.com back before the big messy superstats makeover they did. Don't know if its still buried in there somewhere or not.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

Allow me to help you out:

Paceball One, Last 8 Game Opponent Points
112
119
114
130
106
114
113
110
-------
114.8 pts/gm

Which means even if we scored points as prolifically as poor little Vivek's lost Golden State team (dude if you can't stand on your own two feet and hack it out in the world, you should really buy back in and get back those comfy courtside seats to watch the dreamy Chuck Brothers at work), we'd STILL be losing every night by almost as much as the Lakers have on the season.

And its not an accident. More pace = more open court = more opponent points. More three pointers = more long rebounds = more opponent points. More shots early in the shotclock, in the "flow" = more open court plays = more...well you get it.

You know a really good way to limit an opposing team's points even without great defensive personnel? Control tempo. Run a halfcourt offense. Pound the ball inside, get to the line, dominate the glass. Sound familiar?

Were 29th in defense again this year, and it is self imposed. If you aren't well and tired of that after all these years, there is something very much wrong.

spot on brick, spot on