[Grades] Grades v. Jazz 2/7/2015

Best guess, on penalty of having to actually watch the rest of the Kings games this season:


  • Total voters
    37
  • Poll closed .

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
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Alright, I didn't want to have to do it, but...Fluffy Kittens Thread!! I see no alternative.

um, Cuz tried, nobody else could shoot. This wasn't Sessions fault actually, as he did one of the best jobs of any Kings PG this year at setting people up, but nobody was going to hit a shot. Just refused. Rudy looks dead out there. Got a burst of energy from our old 2.0 bench of Reggie and Omri thrashing around out there, otherwise this would have been uglier. Eventually Boogie tired, then fouled out. Game over man.

come in here, check out the kittens. Then go back over and haunt the Who's Gonna Coach thread.


Boxscore

Stats: 29min 4pts (1-8, 0-2, 2-2) 1reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 2TO
Gay ( F- ) -- This is going to be short and sweet. Well, not so sweet. Gay without a doubt had his worse game of the year, if you can call it a game. He stunk the place out, and I hate to say it, but he was just going through the motions out there tonight. He went 1 for 8 from the floor, and somehow managed to pull down one, count them, one rebound. Two of his misses were wide open threes from the corner. On the other end of the floor, he pulled out his smart phone, and took pictures of Hayward on his way to the basket, or stepped back and admired the form on his jump shot. His defense was non-existent. There's just not much else to say. He mailed it in. --Baja
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Stats: 28min 7pts (3-5, 0-0, 1-2) 5reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 0TO
Thompson ( D ) -- JT was miserable out there until the fourth quarter, when it was far too late. He was having trouble boxing out and his defense was basically poor. He allowed Favors to plow right through him in the post, he got beat by Kanter down the floor on a fast break, and he did nothing to stop Hayward in the lane at the end of the third quarter, not that we had any chance to win the game at that point. He came into the fourth quarter with one point and two rebounds. In the fourth, he managed to pick up 3 rebounds, all offensive, and all leading to a putback. Still, other than that he was butterfingering around out there and getting his unacceptable defense bailed out by a couple of travels. He allowed 18 points on 12 shots. 'Nuff said. --Capt.
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Stats: 37min 27pts (10-24, 0-0, 7-11) 10reb 2ast 0stl 2blk 4TO
Cousins ( B- ) -- having more problems thsn you might think getting around Kanter in the early going. Jumper was finally back online though, and that made a huge difference as he peppered the Jazz's big frontline from the perimeter, and was basically doing all of our scoring. There was literally a point when Cuz had 15 points, Reggie Evans had 4, and nobody else on the team had more than 2. IN the first quarter I think all but 2 of our hoops were directly attributable to either Cuz scoring himself, or Cuz passes. He added several nice blocks on Hayward -- particularly important since nobody else on the team was wiling to guard him. there was a problem on the boards though. I couldn't entirely figure whether it was our coach, their coach, or Boogie himself. But the Jazz were having their bigs take jumpers against Boogie. even ones who don't normally. And that was pulling Boogie away from the d-glass. And combined with the utter lack of fight in Jason and Rudy and Ben that meant the other Jazz were pounding the hell out of us on the boards. Thing was though that Cuz wasn't running back to get in the scrum. Instead he was lingering outside and even leaking out like he was a guard rather than the team's biggest player and best hope on the glass. Did Corbin tell him to do that? Did he decide to do it on his own? Dunno. But whatever it was, at the point that he had 15pts? he had 2 rebs. And we were getting killed on the glass as a team. After half he was greeted with the now familiar double team schtick. And the way the other guys were shooting, why not. Got scrappier as the half rolled along, and really began to get to the line int eh late 3rd, and get bigger on the boards. When he came back in the 4th though we were a complete mess, and so was Cuz. he quickly racked up fouls, missed forces in traffic, and while he got a couple of impressive drives in the mix, it was fugly. Fouled out with 5min to go on a semi-flop by booker, and was probably glad not to have to participate anymore. Still, this was the guy, along with his scrappy mentor Reggie, who was giving us something in this one. Just something won't do it at this point. Until something happens to bring his teammates back online, its clear Cuz will have to put up 40-15 nights in order for us to win every night. --Brick
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Stats: 32min 15pts (6-15, 3-7, 0-0) 2reb 0ast 1stl 1blk 1TO
McLemore ( C- ) -- worse than his padded numbers, but at least he did SOMETHING. Or at least had a few little bursts of doing something. Now what he did not do, at an ever higher rater than the boxscore shows, is hit shots. At one point Boogie had scored 15 on 50% shooting. Our second leading scorer was Reggie Evans with 4. And Ben was a major part of that again as he and Rudy were being set up for open shot after open shot by a surprisingly effective Sessions, and just could not throw the ball into the ocean. Clang clang clang went the trolley. Unlike Rudy, late in the half Ben began to finally get hold of himself and while the shooting was barely better (he did finally hit a three), he picked up his defensive activity, blocked a Burke jumper, got a steal and breakaway dunk (his 3rd hit of the half was also a dunk) and at least made a contribution. Any hope though that that meant Ben was back were quickly squelched in the third though. Because of what's behind him our first pair of subs that quarter were Reggie and Omri for our dead eyed and dead legged starting forwards. But Ben barely did anything either, and his entire output for the quarter until we reinserted Rudy for him was a single little pullup jumper in the mid quarter. He would tag on a couple of garbagetime threes to make things look respectable, but this was only passing in relation to the disastrous play of the rest of the team. --Brick
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Stats: 31min 11pts (3-6, 0-1, 5-6) 4reb 5ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Sessions ( C+ ) -- of course the easy thing to do if you didn't watch this one would be to blame our offensive ineptitude on having Sessions starting rather than DC, but that really wasn't the case as Sessions started this game off putting on a bit of a passing clinic. He created at least 6 wide open shots in the first quarter, and by wide open I mean threes with nobody within 10 feet, layups etc., but fell victim to the same poor shooting displays that have doomed almost every attempt to rack up assists since the Tyreke era (just had a career high 16 assists the other night) at least. Just wide open shot after wide open shot bricked by Rudy and Ben in particular, and instead of half a dozen early assists, I think he ended up getting credited with 2. There needs to be a "created really good shot" stat divorced of whether your guys are competent enough to hit it. When he returned to the game the first thing he did was immediately set Ben up for ANOTHER wide open corner three, and this one Ben actually consented to hit. Now his own offense...well, at least he didn't try too much of it. Same sporadic, almost random drives to the hoop, heedless of traffic or situation. Some worked, some did not. first drive blocked out of bounds by Favors. Impact, or at least potential impact if guys would have hit shots, waned after half, but still, he wasn't the worst guy out there nor our biggest problem. For stretches he in fact was our second best player on the floor. Which tells you everything you need to know about how you get blown out by the Jazz. An entirely respectable backup PG making a fill in start. Unfortunately we are such a mess now that's not nearly enough. --Brick
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Bench

Stats: 23min 7pts (2-7, 0-0, 3-6) 11reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Evans ( B ) -- you know, I'm sorry but Reggie has been missed. After being flat being not even dressed the last couple of games, the old banger made a surprisingly early out of the blue entry to this one in the first quarter after JT refused to rebound at all, and Reggie made a difference. He was greeted by getting blocked by Gobert, but he would get him later on by slamming his body into the skinny kid, kicking him back, and then finishing before he could recover. More importantly he gave us a rebounder back there when Cuz was being pulled out on those jumpshooting bigs, and when Cuz left Reggie was the leader of our old pack of scrappy benchers as he, Omri and Carl inefficiently scrapped and thrashed around out there. But comparatively it was a thing of beauty. I'll take scrappy, fugly, efforting failure everyday over elegant laying down. Came back in the third and quickly turned things a bit with his energy, and at the end of the quarter just reached out and flat took the ball from Hayward on the perimeter (ironically the only guys on the night to stop Hayward weren't our guards or forwards, ti was Cuz and Reggie). Still, there were the normal problems of not being able to shut the rim, and he was inefficient following against the Jazz length -- in fact it would have really been helpful if he would have grabbed the boards and kicked the ball back out rather than trying to force it up through all the long arms. Although given the way our perimeter people shoot, maybe he just figured what the hell. In an case, one of only a handful of guys doing something approximating his job description in this one. We actually won his minutes out there by +9pts.. We lost Jason's by -31. --Brick
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Stats: 25min 11pts (3-9, 0-1, 5-6) 3reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Casspi ( D+ ) -- Omri wasn't good, and he wasn't bad. He did score 11 points, but a lot of those points came when it didn't matter. During his first stint on the floor in the 1st half, he did little to nothing, and like Gay, his rebounding was horrible, but he did manage to pull down three, making it a grand total of four from the SF postion. Five of his points came at the freethrow line. The best I can say about Omri, is that he didn't play as badly as most of his teammates and he did do a decent job of guarding Hayward for a period of time. It was bad enough that I had to watch this game, but I also had to listen to the Jazz announcers who spent the entire night talking about how Cousins was on the verge of blowing up. I'll stop now! --Baja
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Stats: 17min 4pts (2-3, 0-1, 0-0) 1reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
McCallum ( C ) -- missed an open three of his own in the final minute of the
first, because why not join the party, you know? But in his first stint did a reasonable job of trying to run the team, and he and Stauskas (yes I know) actually were playing better defense than the starters. He wasn't creating as much as Sessions (yes I know), but solidly generaling and notched 3 assists. In his second stint we saw him getting a little more self oriented, there wree non more assists, although he finally got on the scoring board himself. Turned the ball over up top in the early 4th as we dropped down 18 again. --Brick
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Stats: 11min 0pts (0-1, 0-1, 0-0) 1reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Stauskas ( INC ) -- well, the contributions were modest, but at least they were there. I don't know how to grade such nothingness, so I'll just tap out with the INC, but he wasn;t damagaing us this time, other than by simply not being the shooter we thought we were getting, and the shooter we need. Actually played some good defense in the ealy 2nd, and that's happened several times of late and could be a key to him being a playable entity going forward. Made a nice pass ahead to a leaking out Cuz for a dunk in the mid 2nd. Missed a corner three, because of course. Somebody needs to go to his childhood home and check to see if that basket in his backyard he hit so many shots on was really 10 feet or not. --Brick
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Stats: 6min 2pts (1-2, 0-0, 0-0) 1reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Landry ( INC ) -- Carl's continued disappearance under Corbin still a mystery, especially on nights when we need points. Maybe it was his loyalty to Malone. Maybe he called Corbin the substitute coach, who knows. Was in fro a while in the first half in this one, and while he was the least of it, he combined with Reggie and Omri to give us a little scrap and stabilize things. --Brick
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Stats: 2min 2pts (1-2, 0-0, 0-0) 1reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Miller ( INC ) -- just mop up --Baja
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I actually watched this game. Utah so-called tired in a back-to-back.

JT: F- (yeah threw couple more pts in after having exactly 1 plus couple boards, totally disappearing first 3Qs)
Rudy: F (want to cut him break only because of slight nagging injury but Hayward didn't care dropping too easy 30)
Cuz: B (I no longer am sure how to grade Cuz but he needs A+ tomorrow against Phoenix in Sac waiting, licking their chops)
Sessions: C- (a remarkable Sessions performance - hardly)
BMac: D (played disappearing act for most of game - what's new)
 
Watched Million Dollar Arm with my family instead of the game and then caught the last 4±minutes of it.

I made a wise choice.
 
I watched Kentucky. They do interesting things like pass the ball to each other, look for the open man, set picks, grab rebounds and a bunch of other basketbally stuff. When I was watching, I couldn't help but wonder if DMC will shed a bit of a tear for what used to be when he watches the game later tonight.

It's amazing what a good coach can do for a team. You know, things like give them the confidence to trust each other. Yeah, the Kings do not have that.
 
I turned the game off in the 3rd quarter. Didn't want my family to waste the time watching this garbage.

See, the thing is - I'm an aggressive fast-forwarder and have gotten through many games that can't be watched real-time (by skipping free throws, commercials, talking heads, etc).

But this team is so bad they can't even be watched in fast-forward anymore.

I can't even spin a conspiracy theory where this ends up with a Kings team that can compete.
I mean, I guess the only one I can come up with is this:

Demarcus and the entire team are conspiring to play as crapty of team ball as is humanly possible. Everyone is in on it, and doesn't care about their individual stats/careers taking a hit.
EXCEPT Demarcus is allowed to get his double-doubles. Notice how he keeps getting them, almost like clockwork? (10 RBDS tonight before fouling out)

I just don't see how a team can recover from becoming this bad.
I see no light at the end of the tunnel, George Karl or no.
I don't see how the rest of the league doesn't just continue stepping on the Kings' neck even after they come out of their funk and start playing real basketball again.
I think the other teams like this. They like having easy nights and sinking open shots, and I don't see why they should start missing them at some future point when the Kings start trying to fight back.
 
Getting harder and harder to watch games. Have been turning off games earlier and earlier and seeing same ole thing every game now: Team seems to have given up, except for Boogie thru early 4th anyway, and except for Ben but he doesn't get the ball much and is missing lots of wide open shots. Kinda reminds me of an old Tim Conway movie, but an unhappy version, " The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight". If this is the bottom, the FO can't be blind and deaf, can they?
 
I watched Kentucky. They do interesting things like pass the ball to each other, look for the open man, set picks, grab rebounds and a bunch of other basketbally stuff. When I was watching, I couldn't help but wonder if DMC will shed a bit of a tear for what used to be when he watches the game later tonight.

It's amazing what a good coach can do for a team. You know, things like give them the confidence to trust each other. Yeah, the Kings do not have that.
You solved it. Headline tomorrow. Cousins camp resistant of Karl, holding out for calipari. :)
 
I watched Kentucky. They do interesting things like pass the ball to each other, look for the open man, set picks, grab rebounds and a bunch of other basketbally stuff. When I was watching, I couldn't help but wonder if DMC will shed a bit of a tear for what used to be when he watches the game later tonight.

It's amazing what a good coach can do for a team. You know, things like give them the confidence to trust each other. Yeah, the Kings do not have that.

**** it. #JohnCalipari4Coach
 
I watched Kentucky. They do interesting things like pass the ball to each other, look for the open man, set picks, grab rebounds and a bunch of other basketbally stuff. When I was watching, I couldn't help but wonder if DMC will shed a bit of a tear for what used to be when he watches the game later tonight.

It's amazing what a good coach can do for a team. You know, things like give them the confidence to trust each other. Yeah, the Kings do not have that.

They are also the second best defensive team in college basketball. Only Virginia is ahead of them. Hmmm, Kentucky is ranked number one, and Virginia is ranked number 2 in the nation. I wonder wonder why.
 
One of the first and best quotes out of this mess was from an opposing GM or coach who said something to the effect of "Now there's one less well coached well prepared team to deal with."

How right he was.

Yes, I distinctly remember that response.
 
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