Notice the difference 2pts can make in the mood around here as we go into this bizarre little 5 day mini-break in our schedule?
Boxscore
Stats: 40min 10pts (4-16, 1-4, 1-1) 8reb 2ast 1stl 3blk 3TO
Summary:
Gay ( C ) -- this is a tough game to grade for Rudy. Offensively he was horrid. Contested, challenged, and every time Boogie left the game we went backward in part because Rudy just did not get it done in his absence. He had two hits of note the whole game, one on a drawn up play straight out of halftime that I am sure was meant to get him going, and did not. And then a big, and well timed, three pointer with 3:40 to go in the 4th to help us hold on. Now the difficulty: Rudy Gay, who is normally good (and sometimes great) offense, meh defense, came out in this one and really competed like hell against Melo on the defensive end of the court. he obviously did not completely stop him and lost the individual battle. But he was all over him and made everything hard, notched a steal and 3 blocks, and scrapped in most un-Rudylike fashion. He still got outmuscled inside when he guarded Porzingis, but then again that's why Rudy is truly a pure SF more than any kind of SF/PF. And against his small forward matchup he very well...on one end of the floor. 4-16 shooting strictly limits how high you can go here, but these was not a game completely without merit.
Stats: 40min 11pts (4-10, 0-2, 3-6) 8reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Summary:
Casspi ( B- ) -- early in the game got his first attempt on the break swatted away by a looming Porzingis, but then began to show his quality, showing no fear of the big man at all, and repeatedly going right at him, using his mobility to get around him and then outracing him to the rim. Porzingis greeted the Kings in the second half, getting inside and scoring over Cousisns, but then Omri went right back at him and drew the foul. Played some soft interior defense late in the 3rd as we began to give away our huge lead, and his offensive game got quiet as well as the Knicks slipped into a smallball look with Porzingis or Kyle O'Quinn at center. Would have one more thing to say about the outcome of this one in the final minute, as with 24 seconds left on a very questionable decision he broke out ahead of Rondo, took the pass (some of the questionable decision was Rondo's) and charged right at the rim looking for a layup. He got the shot smushed, and its damn lucky we got the foul call. Then he went to the line, only having shot 1-4 through the game to that point, and having run off no clock at all for us. As I said, highly dubious decisionmaking. But Omri came through, hit both clutch FTs, and despite a new attempt to flub the game by Collison, we hung on.
Stats: 37min 27pts (12-25, 0-2, 3-4) 11reb 2ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Summary:
Cousins ( B+ ) -- was our real bellweather this game. When he left in the late first, our offense so completely died that Karl reinserted before the end of the quarter to stabilize things, which you rarely see. When he left the game in the late 3rd, our 17pt lead at the time immediately plummeted, and was under 10 within a couple of minutes. He began the game perhaps too jumper oriented with the two 7 footers in there for the Knicks, but he knocked down several, grabbed several good defensive boards, and other than Lopez surprisingly hitting a couple of little midrange jumpers over him, it was a solid start, and he capped it with a big drive down the lane and dunk over Lopez, which drew complete crickets from Webb and Barkley (they were very pointed in completely refusing to acknowledge Cousins until after halftime). he began to really take over in the third, finally stirring to life our wonderful color commentary crew, although mostly for Barkley to accuse him of being out of shape, based on not much evidence. He battled Porzingis in the 4th, took a charge, dropped a big spin move on Porz which included an elbow to the kid's head and dunk over his shoulder. Tried another dunk and did not quite get it. Came up with a big man drive and follow and follow sequence at the 2:30 mark that should have drawn an easy Moses comparison from Barkley, who played with him, but...well you know. But did not get it done in the final two minutes, as we tried to ride him against the looming Porzingis, but he ended up turning it over twice (well, looking at the box they called the first one an Afflalo blocked shot, even though it was about chest high for Cuz). And then to top things off a moderately deceptive .gif of the the final play of the game with Melo driving seems to show Boogie too far away from Porzingis to have prevented a pass to him for a tying dunk, if that's the route Melo had chosen. A good night with some big highlights, but on a season where he's already been over 30 half a dozen times, 27 and 11 is just, ho-hum.
Stats: 24min 7pts (2-5, 1-2, 2-2) 2reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Summary:
McLemore ( C- ) -- hit an early transition three on a pass ahead from Cousins, but it would be his highlight on the night. In fact for most of it the Knicks appeared to revive an old scouting report on him that seems to question his strength, and just post him up again and again until he was chased. And some misadventures around Zinger, once wandering into the paint area, seeing a 7'3" guy lurking, and just sort of flipping up a prayer in the general direction of the hoop. Another time found himself down in the paint being posted by the same 7'3" kid, but luckily got bailed out when Koufos came racing on over. Was long gone by the stretch run
Stats: 40min 16pts (7-10, 1-2, 1-1) 9reb 12ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Summary:
Rondo ( A ) -- somebody knew the bright lights of national TV were on and wanted to make a point, and Rajon was our best player on the night, and even out-spectaculared Cuz with a whole string of great plays scattered out over the game. He hit an early three, and a nifty layup off of a Cousins screen in the final minute of the quarter. Added a gorgeous falling down fullcourt pass late in the half to a streaking Casspi for an assist. Then a +1 blowing by Calderon. Spectacular 3rd quarter play as we opened up a commanding lead...before trying to blow it. And then of course came up with the play of the game with the Knicks on our heels, we were struggling to feed it into Cuz with Porzingis towering over him and half fronting him, and so Rajon saw his opportunity once Porzingis got caught on the top side of Cuz's body, and darted along the baseline for the huge baseline dunk at the 2:45 mark that caused Quincy Acy to faint dead away. Huge rebound at the 25 second mark as well, but then made one of two risky plays in the final seconds for him, as he gunned it upcourt to Casspi for that dangerous layup attempt rather than trying to run clock. A few seconds later, after we let Melo walk through for the layup, it was again Rondo throwing a good pass (hit Collison right in both hands) to a streaking Kings player, but this time Collison could not handle it, turned it over, and suddenly we were facing being beat at the buzzer by the Knicks. Not really satisfactory decisionmaking from our prime decisionmaker there, but we won, and the rest of his game was huge, so yay.
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