Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
A win! A win! A Boogieless win! Not a dominant win. Not a rousing win. But a win! Yay!
You can feel the lack of talent out there for us, you can feel how when we go on a run now its like a 6pt run. How 5pts is a good lead now. But we ground this one out. Ground and ground, finally played some defense and reestablished our rebounding presence (and yes, I think the decision to start Evans was a good one for those purposes). And we had some good things develop. Ben didn't give us much (except a burst of good defense in the third), but this time it wasn't a disaster as we finally FINALLY got a breakout game from Stauskas. Rudy was huffing and puffing and I hope he has some gas left for tomorrow, but he huffed and puffed his way to a carry you down the stretch performance. Reggie recovered from a wobbly start to bring his special style of havoc, sneaky tricks, and boardwork inside, and we won with minor little performances from just enough people. That's the way its got to be with Cuz out, and unlike the Indiana "win" this was a true victory we didn't have to apologize for, albeit against a young team that has now lost 9 in a row.
Still... a win!!! We need them all. Take it, get back over .500 and onto L.A. for another must win.
Boxscore
Stats: 33min 29pts (10-19, 0-1, 9-10) 6reb 1ast 3stl 1blk 4TO
Gay ( A ) -- Rudy had a tremendous night tonight. There are things to complain about, but overall his game was so strong that I can't justify busting him down to even an A-. Gay started out the game focusing on the offensive end. In the first six minutes he established that he could get anywhere he wanted with the dribble, getting three very good shots in the lane in the opening stint (although he did miss two of those). At the same time, his defense on Hayward was sloppy. He was slumping off of Hayward and practically daring him to shoot open threes, but Hayward declined, opting instead to demonstrate that HE could drive around Rudy and get open with screens too. On one play Hayward blasted right past Rudy, who was forced to foul him, and was granted some very questionable free throws. By the time that Rudy sat in the first, the Gay/Hayward matchup was tied up 5-5. Hayward then proceeded to knock down 7 points in the final two minutes of the quarter while Rudy sat. Gordon didn't see the same Rudy Gay for the rest of the game. Rudy returned with Hayward on the bench, but shortly Gordon came back in and faced a Rudy who was up in his face and contesting shots and passes. Hayward did not manage to drive around Rudy for the remainder of the game. Even better, in the second and third quarters Rudy got completely in Hayward's head. Some of his shots were open, but in the second and third, Hayward managed exactly zero points on seven shots against Rudy (six of those threes, and one a drive where Rudy rejected the layup into the fifteenth row). In a highlight play, Rudy jumped the passing lane on an intended swing to Hayward for a steal and a breakaway dunk - one of three steals for Rudy on the night (he also caused a fourth turnover and broke up a fast break on two other deflections). Rudy had a little bit of rough luck on offense, committing turnovers on two straight possessions late in the third, one stepping out on a baseline drive (I thought he was pushed but no call) and one on a travel call on a north-south drive (I can't really explain that one as it didn't remotely look like a violation). Rudy sat for a good portion of the fourth while the bench began to extend a lead but came in with six minutes left in the game and hit two tough shots at the end of the shot clock to keep the pressure on the Jazz. Finally, with under 1:30 left Rudy beat the shot clock on a solid drive to put us up by 9 and pretty much seal the deal. His 9-10 from the line (4-4 in the end game) was also a big factor. In the end, Rudy convincingly won the matchup with Hayward, scoring 29 points on 10-19 shooting while holding Hayward to 9 points on 15 shots while Rudy was guarding him (and two of those were after the game was effectively over, another two were really Nik's fault for giving Hayward a breakaway on a bad pass). Even with Nik's big night, it's hard not to call Rudy player of the game. As a sidelight, Rudy actually rode the bench a bit more than I would have expected tonight in a game that was tight for most of the way, getting only 33 minutes, but with a back-to-back tomorrow Malone was likely trying to rest our current #1 guy a bit. --Capt.
Stats: 36min 10pts (3-8, 0-0, 4-6) 9reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thompson ( B- ) -- A pretty good statline for JT tonight, with a bunch of hustle thrown in. Utah's frontcourt is pretty big, but not terribly skilled. JT had a good night on the boards, getting his hands on a few beyond the 9 he was credited and tipping them to teammates to open up the breaks. For a good portion of the game, the team was running the offense through JT at the high post and he made some very nice high-low passes that didn't turn into assists because either 1) the recipient of the pass was fouled, and/or 2) the recipient of the pass was Reggie Evans. He took a key charge at the end of the fourth to stop any chance of a Jazz comeback. A nice lunchpail effort. --Hadlowe
Stats: 34min 6pts (2-4, 0-0, 2-4) 13reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Evans ( B ) -- announced at the last minute as a starter, I was kind of surprised we didn't go to this earlier with Cuz out. Its just such a huge across the board downgrade when starting Hollins, and at least with Reggie you know you have a guy who has a certain presence to him in one aspect of the game. The decision looked marginal early, Reggie looked active, and on one of several surprising plays just professionally pinned Derrick Favors under the hoop inside for a post score. But more notable was on the other end, where he per usual wasn't able to protect the rim (JT has apparently entire given upon that idea and just plays his man anymore) and he also let Kanter walk inside from all the way out near the 3pt line. And for some reason as usual our guards seem to need some facial recognition technology, because they insisted on throwing the ball inside to him as if He were DeMarcus. The poor results of that aren't even really on Reggie, its not like he is dribble driving it in there. Its just a very odd thing we seen to do as a team sometimes, and I don't get it. In any case, I wasn't sure whether he was a positive or not in his first stint, but when he came back in in the 2nd he immediately had an impact setting a big screen on Hayward and taking a pass for a layin. Then grabbing a strong rebound. But really in the first half Reggie was banging around in there, but he wasn't dominating the glass as he battled it out with Favors, Booker etc. That would change though as we ended up thumping a solid Utah rebounding team by +10 on the night. We went right to Reggie in the post on the first play to start the 3rd, which seemed like a bizarre coaching call and which could have resulted in a turnover, but the refs missed the call and gave Favors a 4th foul on the play, and just like that, we had fouled the Jazz's best young big man to the bench using Reggie bleeping Evans. Gotta love it, and one of those maybe sneaky little moments that helped us win this (although the way Rudy Gobert's length bothered us you weren't sure for a while). In any case, Reggie got stronger as the game went along, but he continued to be hindered by not finishing his touchless groundbound shots inside, and by an unusual case of the butterfingers, as several times he banged himself into offensive rebounding position only to see the ball slip off his fingertips out of bounds. Think maybe the physical play wore down the Jazz though, because Reggie really began to come on strong gobbling d-boards, and during the 4th his hustle and boarding became infectious and was a major factor as we pulled away. Not to mention a role as a human screen as he ran around up top sometimes setting 3 or 4 screens per play fro Rudy, DC, Nik (a much more useful role I think than us trying to have him actually do the scoring) . Had several clever little cheats in the quarter too of the sort that make me chuckle, but that you would hate to play against. On one play early in the quarter pinned Favors arm under his thus keeping Favors from chasing the ball and letting Nik pick it up for one of his 8rebs. On another a nice little two handed push right in the right spot on Kanter's back moved him just far enough out of position that Reggie could scoop up the board. Added a nice little scoop pass inside to JT for a dunk that got the crowd (hey crowd, where are you? We're 11-10 for the first time in a very long time) on its feet to make the lead 7. In any case, by the end of this one he'd hustled his way to 13rebs, and the remarkable thing is we just shrug about that. His limitations were too evident earlier in the game for this to be a huge grade, but sure enough by the end he'd had an impact and outrebounded Favors and Kanter combined. --Brick
Stats: 18min 6pts (2-5, 0-2, 2-2) 0reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 0TO
McLemore ( C ) -- Ben didn't score much tonight, and only played eighteen minutes. But he was mostly effective, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Offensively, he started by almost throwing the ball away. Only a great save by Gay avoided a turnover. On the next possession Ben curled off of a pick, drove the lane and laid it in. He tried it again a bit later and was fouled, going two for two from the line. His only other points came on a break away and a dunk shortly before the half. In between the was short on a three, and had his shot partially blocked on another attempt. His defense was very good though. He got back on a break in time to keep Hayward from an easy basket. Actually looked like he got a lot of ball to me. On another sequence he foiled Kanter under the basket, and then before going to the bench, he blocked a shot. My only complaint is that he recorded no rebounds. Other than that, not a bad --Baja
Stats: 32min 16pts (6-12, 0-2, 4-4) 2reb 6ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Collison ( C+ ) -- I wasn't wildly in love with this outing by Collison, and indeed there was a point in the first half where Ramon Sessions was actually running the team better than Collison was. Seriously. He didn't dominate his matchup with Burke, but by the end he had done just enough, stayed efficient, and had a few little spurts to contribute. And contribute was the watchword for most of the Kings tonight. off to a good start scoring on a jumper and then a drive as he had no problem with Burke and was able to repeatedly pullup for little jumpers. But seemed to lose the thread defensively as Burke was able to pop open himself. Not able to get around Burke as easily in the 2nd quarter and if anything was forcing his offense more than Sessions did. Only had 6pts after the break, although some of them were timely, and during the Quarter the Offense Died (the 13pt 3rd quarter that nearly sunk us) we could have really used something. He did finally broke a long drought for us at the 7min mark of the quarter with one of his pullups, but that would be his only points in the quarter, and he missed what looked like an open baseline layup that would have put up by 4. Down the stretch Rudy was the man on offense, but DC chipped in with a little midrange jumper after he passed on the three and decide to dribble into a little more comfortable distance for him, and he forced a tough drive into traffic with us up 7, got to the line and pushed it back to 9. Not actually a great decision there actually as he kind of got bailed out, but that happened several times this game. His final statline remained efficient, but it feels at times he's pressing without Cousins out there--Brick
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