Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
That was seriously, no exaggeration or hyperbole, the best defensive game I can remember us playing since 2003. Its a real bummer to lose one when you put in that kind of effort. but damn, if we could just bottle that...
Theme will be Top Sacramento Kings Defenders Through the Years:
Official Boxscore
Greene ( A ) -- this was a pretty remarkable effort. If it were not for the up and down nature of Donte's career thus far, you would be tempted to point to it as a breakout game. Let's get to the negative first -- he still isn't hitting his threes. And if he had, we win this game. In particular missed a big one on a nice setup to the corner by Reke at the 2:00 mark that we just had to have. Almost enough to bring on a minus here. Almost. Except that in all other ways Donte was kicking *** and chewing bubblegum for us tonight, and teaming with fellow defensive roleplayers Head and Daly (if this keeps up the trio may need a nickname) to inspire a ferocious defensive effort the likes of we have not seen in Kingsland in many a season. He hit his only three in the early going, but he was attacking teh hoop all night long, getting out on the break, and coming up with a couple of are you kidding me alley oops, including one airballed Landry jumper that Donte picked out of midair and finished with the flush. Was making use of that great length to be a formidable help defender, and came up with several big help blocks on what would have been point blank shots for the Hornets. Great hustle on the glass to close the first half, making a huge effort chasing and tipping a ball across the key on a missed FT that got him fouled and to the line himself for a brief 3pt lead until either Cisco or JT belw their defnsive assignemnt and let the Hornets tie it going into the break. Smacked the hell out of an Okafor hook in the early 3rd. Bill russel would not have approved as it flew into the stands, but it was an inspiring play...at least hopefully to his teammate, because the Arco crowd just sucked this afternoon, and reacted to an actual display of defense as if it were some brand new sport that confused them. Donte was really using his size on both boards this time as well. As mentioned he missed the three at the 2:00 mark that we really needed, which sucks, but again came back with a great help block on Ariza to save a hoop and give us a few more chances in the last minute+. Note to Arco fans: defense is fun too. And on that standard this was a very fun effort by a guy we were drawing up trade proposals for a week ago.
Randy Brown -- one of my favorite old time early 90s Kings precisely because he was one of the few who played defense. You know that smothering efforting thing stuff that is winning Head fans right now? Well Randy brought that every game, and as you can see from the pic above, brought it with some muscle as well. His achilles was his jumper and being injury prone, but it did not prevent the Bulls from scooping him up as a member of their second threepeat. Defense wins championships.
Landry ( D+ ) -- this was on, off, and ultimately a fail for Landry, but it should be noted that his struggles were pretty much mirrored by every other primary weapon on either team as the defenses were just strangling out there and any attemtp to force the action led to failure (Landry, Reke, Cousins, CP3 and West combined for 21-67 from the field). In the early going Carl was actually almost completely ignored offensively, as we again got off to the very odd offensive start centering around Head and Daly -- that keeps happening, and at some point you ahve to suspect that for whatever reason we are doing it intentionally. But despite being compeltely uninvolved on offense ( had only one shot, a miss, in the first quarter), I thought Carl was actually contributing to the early defensive effort. The offensive woes continued into the second, but I thoguht the defense/rebounding woes began to reappear, and he was eventually replaced by Cousins as we went big (huge actually, not only twin towers, sometimes tri towers), and often, in this game. Came out of the halftime break firing with a layup from Daly and a pair of jumpers, but that little burst was almsot all the offense he would provide on teh whole evening. Started settling for too many jumpers and not converting, then going inside into double teams and not passing. Nor was the defensive intensity any better, and he began to hurt us as the quarter went along. Again started the 4th with a turnaround hit, but it was his last basket. Shaky play in the final minute helped seal our fate, and made sinjking this grade a bit easier. Got it knocked away against the clock on our possesion at the 45 second mark, then shot over by West for the game sealer a few seconds later. Responded by trying a three on our next possession, and airballed it. That kind of night.
Keon Clark -- the stickman, and last major King to be a truly intimidating shotblcoking presence before Daly arrived. Sure he was an idiot who would rather get high than earn millions of dollars to play a game, but he upped our interior defense to previously unacheived levels during the best defensive season in Sacto King history (02-03).
Dalembert ( A- ) -- another flat out defensive star on the night, and notice an A- grade despite an 0-5 nothgin offensive night. The D was that special, and watching Daly smush shot after shot was fist pumping hand clapping fun even from the couch at home. His offensive incompetence in the early going was a problem, but he again was anchoring the interior as we got off to a great defensive start. Back in the 2nd and loomed over Okafor again with a great block after Okafor pinned him under the rim and it did not matter. Hit Landry for a layup to start the second half in what was probably a called play. Dominated the interior defensively in the third, and just made Okafor look small and incompetent. Erased Bellinelli at the 2:20 mark to keep the lead at 2. Not only was the last a huge play for us, but it was notable because amazingly enough most of his defensive work on the night was in squelching Okafor and entirely taking away the post option -- our perimeter guys were doing such a good job that rarely did anyone get beat and send somebody screaming down the lane, and when they did, we often had 3 near 7 footers back there waiting for them.
Michael "the Animal" Smith -- Animal was a tweener forward, too short to play PF, too bulky and unskilled to play SF. That's normally not a formula for much defensive success (just ask Landry). But Animal came from the "if I tear your scrawny little leg off and use it a as backscratcher you're going to have a hell of a time taking me off the dribble" school of defense, and when you are in a defensive dogfight you always want the big mean drunk guy on your side.
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