Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
sry for the delay. Do not fear, I came, I saw, I grade. With a little help from Baja even.
Tonight it was Rudy and a lot lot of little nibbles from various others. But Rudy was remarkable for 3/4, DWill provided some thrills for the crowd, Reggie gobbled up every rebound while he was out there, and a bunch of other guys scored 8pts, 9pts, hit a couple of shots in a row during a mini-run, then gave way to somebody else who did the same. So for all the cratering interest in these games, maybe there was still a little something to be gained here. Rudy solidifying his return next year as the #2. Roleplayers who may or may not be here next year at least making an argument. And while the Hornets are a lousy offensive team, there was a lot of good defensive effort out there for once, assisting the lousy. Watching this one was not a waste of time.
Boxscore
Stats: 37min 33pts (11-20, 2-5, 9-10) 9reb 4ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Gay ( A ) -- there really wasn't any other possible grade on this one. As the last of our amigos we absolutely needed Rudy to do exactly what he did, and he obliged. He was our show, and outscored the next three highest scoring Kings combined. And it began from the very beginning of the game, he joined the early 3pt shooting party, he hit pullups, he hit turnarounds, he repeatedly hit tough contested shots, just smoothly rising up and dropping in swishes. Once he even got back on the break to save a sure layup. He was on the boards. In a game decidedly lacking in starpower, he was it. Sometimes against the Durants and LeBrons it feels like we're lacking, then you see Rudy have one of these against the league's B-listers, and it highlights just how good he is. There were a few forces, a bad 1 on 1 attempt when Kidd Gilchrist finally hiked up his pants and wanted to get into him. A random pull up for a 25 foot three at a bad time in the third. But some of that always comes with carrying the scoring mantle. He did finally cool down the stretch, and his final few points were courtesy of the Hornets extending the game at the end trying to do the fake hustle charge down the stretch. But for most of the night whenever the punchless Hornets would accidentally string together 2 or 3 hoops in a row, Rudy was there time and again to turn them back. So kind of the big thing on the night -- in my Teams of the Great Centers series I already knew Cuz was performing on par with the great bigs of the past, but what is also become evident is that Rudy is actually on par with the #2s to many great centers. And performances like tonight have to up the chances he'll be back again next year in that role. --Brick
Stats: 33min 10pts (4-6, 1-2, 1-3) 5reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
Casspi ( B- ) -- got the start at PF this time, something which I would normally abhor (and which truly indicates how little use this coach has for Landry and all that nasty old school post game stuff), indeed I still do, but he was only matched up against Cody Zeller, who despite his 7ft can't decide if he's going to be a guy who makes any impact in this league or not. And in the end Omri won the matchup. He hit an early three, as hustling on the boards (despite only getting 5 himself he was constantly, and a bit dangerously, falling out of bounds along the baseline saving them in) and hit a nice roleplayer sweet spot of getting a few of his drives and flips to go without actually disrupting or taking the ball away from the guy carrying us (Rudy). What is so often holding his grade back nowadays are the TOs, of which there were three more tonight, two careless, once just getting stripped by Walker. The final one though was a headslapper, as we just needed to run the clock out in the final seconds and Omri threw a terrible pass for a turnover with us only up 6, and if the Hornets had had anybody better to shoot the open three the other way than Henderson, it could easily have been a 3pt game with 15 seconds to go and us in some danger. Late game execution guys. Anyway, this wasn't a blow your doors off effort, but overall it was nice solid positive roleplayering one. --Brick
Stats: 27min 8pts (4-8, 0-0, 0-1) 8reb 1ast 0stl 2blk 2TO
Thompson ( B ) -- Jason played well tonight. He only had eight points, but was 4 of 8, shooting the ball at a 50% clip. He added eight boards, all defensive rebounds, which is a little unusual for JT, who gets a lot of his boards on putbacks. He got off to a good start by posting up in the right box ans scoring on a little spin move and a kiss off the backboard. Unfortunately the next two times he touched the ball, he turned it over. Once with a bad pass, and the other by driving into traffic and getting the ball slapped away. But those were his only turnovers of the night, and to his credit, he got them out of the way early. JT struggled to keep Jefferson from scoring in the first half. He did a good job of contesting Jeffersons shots, he simply made them. The second half was a different story. I believe Jefferson only scored four points in the second half, thanks to JT and to Evans. Jason came into the game in the fourth quarter, and scored two baskets down the stretch that helped the Kings maintain the lead. He also blocked two shots. Except for a couple of turnovers, he had a very solid game. --Baja
Stats: 27min 9pts (3-7, 2-4, 1-1) 0reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( C- ) -- hit an early three on the semi-break, prompting Jerry to immediately say something ridiculous like "and with a start like that he may be set to explode tonight". At which point Ben of course completely disappeared for the rest of the half. Had some ballhandling misadventures, was neither featured nor efffective when he did have the ball, and in what has become a disturbing development for him, was once again not our best SG of the half. It wasn't until the mid 3rd we'd hear from Ben again, but when we did it was on two three point plays within a minute of each other, the first after a lucky carom ended up in his hands and he crashed into a Hornet and got the flip to go for a +1, the second when he hit his 2nd three of the night. And then...he disappeared into the night again. He was in for a few more minutes of the third, doing little, was back for a few minutes of the 4th during which he missed a three and turned it over, and then he was replaced by Casspi and that was it. He was once again badly outscored by his wildly mediocre counterpart, as Henderson had 20 on the night, although maybe only half were against Ben directly. And...it was just those two moments really. A three to start the game, and then a 1 minute burst in the mid 3rd, with few other contributions. Same team he dropped 27 on last time, on the road. Dunno. --Brick
Stats: 23min 8pts (4-9, 0-1, 0-0) 4reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 4TO
McCallum ( C- ) -- as settled into pretty much a straight platoon with Old Man River now. And in the early going, Ray may have been the better half of it. Or at least him treating the position like a scoring position was helping more than hurting as he kept on scooting in every time the Hornets defense parted. Meanwhile Walker wasn't hurting us back the other way. When Ray returned he immediately called his own number and added another score, but Walker was beginning to wake up, and after that point Ray wasn't adding much more than turnovers. In the third quarter things took a turn as Ray's tendency to force things really came to the fore. He did notch his only assist after he was basically forced into it by getting smothered not once, but twice under the rim and kicked it out to Ben I think it was for a three. But otherwise Rudy was actually running the offense more than he was, and after he committed a charge out on the break for his 4th TO (a 1:4 A/T ratio isn't normally what you look for from a PG) it was time for the old man to come back in and show the whippersnapper how you used to run the point back in the day with hoary old concepts like passing and floor generaling. --Brick
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