Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Well...this one fell apart after half. There were some seeds already planted in the first half -- we were playing 3 on 5 with Salmons and JT largely awful, there was too much 1 on 1, and of course every opponent we face feels like its the 80s again and they should score 115. But despite all that we rode a trio of performances from IT, Reke and Patterson to a halftime tie. Then the delicate balance was broken however, and I think we did a lot of it to ourself. Reke went suddenly barbarically cold, but that was chicken and egg with a larger problem -- IT got hot. And normally a big weakness for us is we don't feed the hot guy. Except this time we did. A lot. Too much. And of course it was IT, so he started playing keepaway. The whole game stopped to watch IT be hot. Reke turned it over several times trying to force passes to him. Patterson was forgotten about entirely. MT came in and acted like he was in a fight for the ball. And our offensive balance was fractured. As much on the team as on IT, and the shame of it is I think it may have been us trying to do the right thing, but doing it badly -- the Lakers PGs are a joke defensiely and haven't been able to guard IT all year. In any case, we fought our way back into the game and cut the lead to 2, notably without IT on the floor...and then JT ran about the worst fastbreak in the history of the NBA, mishandling, misdribbling, mispassing and finally charging, and we never recovered the moment.
Ah well. If we'd won all that would have meant is more from certain corners about how we are better without Cousins -- I know this fanbase by now. We had our chances though.
Full Grading Consortium for tonight:
Bricklayer
Capt. Factorial
bajaden
Boxscore
Stats: 31min 3pts (1-7, 1-3, 0-0) 0reb 5ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Salmons ( C- ) -- I grabbed Salmons for the absent Baja tonight, remembering how Baja was complaining about having to create a macro for "Salmons misses another three" in his notes. Well, Salmons had another terrible shooting night, hitting one three and missing six other shots including a retarded turnaround jumper to beat the shot clock. He did a better job passing tonight, hitting both Tyreke and Patterson for open threes and racking up 5 total assists. Defensively he did pretty well. For one thing, he was able to knock the ball loose directly under the basket twice, once from Metta and once from Clark. One thing that's easy to miss with Salmons if you're not specifically watching is his help defense - he seemed to spend the entire night picking up his teammates' backs and challenging shots by running at a guy that got open because somebody else left them. In the end, Salmons allowed 4 points tonight on 9 shots, which is nothing at all to scoff at. Yeah, he couldn't shoot, but his passing and D save him from a horrible grade. --Capt.
Stats: 36min 22pts (9-12, 2-2, 2-2) 5reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Patterson ( A ) -- If there was a bright and shining star tonight, it was Patterson. Yeah, he could have had a few more rebounds, and perhaps kicked Antawn Jamison in the groin a couple of times to slow him down. But other than that, he probably came closer than any other King to having a perfect game. He played 36 minutes, and one could argue, that perhaps he sat on the bench too long while others played give away, or lets throw up a wild shot and see where it lands. He scored 22 points on 12 shots, and the amazing thing is, he made it look very easy. Now I don't expect him to be able to do this every night, but one thing is very obvious, he knows how to play the game. He makes few mistakes, he's unselfish and he just makes smart plays. Just the simple play of IT picking up his dribble at the top of the key, passing the ball to Patterson, who immediately passed it right back to a cutting IT for a drive to the basket.. A quick decision, and a good decision. If the Kings had five players that could play with the intelligence, and the skill level of Patterson, we'd be winning a lot more games. --Baja
Stats: 25min 4pts (2-8, 0-0, 0-0) 7reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( F ) -- JT had an absolutely horrible game, but despite that, I still had him hanging onto a D. But when everything was going our way and we had the Lakers back on their heels, JT managed to screw up a three on one break with a charge. Instead of tying the game, a minute later we were down by seven. That one play seemed to change the outcome of the game. I'm not saying we would have won, but that any chance we would have had went down the drain. I like JT, and he always puts forth the effort. This is one of those days that he should have stayed in bed. JT played 25 minutes and scored four points. All four coming in the second half. He did manage to pull down 7 boards and a steal. But basicly, his whole night was a disastor. Hey! It happens to everybody. I just wish it hadn't been the Laker game. --Baja
Stats: 42min 13pts (6-19, 1-6, 0-0) 5reb 7ast 3stl 1blk 1TO
Evans ( D ) -- Tyreke had a terrible shooting night tonight. Not only was his jumper off, (1-8 on jumpers) but his shot at the basket was pretty bad as well, going 5-11 in the paint and several of those layups that he should have hit. He reverted several times into pound-the-ball Tyreke, stopping the ball movement and dribbling through his legs so that his defender knew he was going to jack up a bad shot. His passing was a different story, as he came up with seven total assists, one on a fantastic outlet pass to MT23, but only two of those came on the drive-and-kick that's been so effective for him lately. Defensively he was the typical Tyreke mixed bag - early in the game after leaving Meeks resulting in a layup he got called for a defensive three-second violation when he once again slumped about 20 feet off of his man (I wrote dirty words in my notes), though he cleaned it up a bit after that. But, he had three steals on the night and made one nice rotation onto Clark that he ran through earning himself a breakaway at the other end. Ultimately he allowed 15 points on 14 shots, which is maybe a bit better than par for the course, but that doesn't forgive his own 13 points on 19 shots, many of which he should have hit. --Capt.
Stats: 34min 26pts (9-20, 3-10, 5-5) 1reb 6ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Thomas ( C- ) -- IT was out to score tonight, and while he didn't do it extremely efficiently (26 points on 22 shots), he did do it pretty often. He was on fire in the third quarter, hitting 5-7 shots and 2-4 threes (both hits being originally ruled twos and then overturned). One on drive in the third he jetted down the left side of the lane and put the ball high off the glass to avoid Dwight Howard's block, though that may have been a bad outcome as it gave him the confidence to get stuffed by Dwight twice in the fourth at times when we really needed a good possession. He had a total of 6 assists on the game (I counted four, so the official scorer might have been feeling pretty generous) but for as well as he was running the team in the first half, he turned himself into the #1 option in the third balancing out his seven shots with zero assists and only one pass that really ought to have led to one. Defensively, we know who IT is - he's the guy who boldfaced in my notes for getting killed by Nash on a screen that he was actively looking at when he ran into it. Somehow he hasn't figured out that he's not going to successfully bend time and space to allow himself to run through Dwight Howard. On another play he got caught on a screen at the three point line and let Nash simply walk in to about a 12 foot shot without even trying to catch back up to him, which he obviously could have done with any effort at all. Sure, he got onto the ground and earned (and won) a jump ball with Blake, but if he can't be bothered to put forth that kind of effort on every play, what good is it? He allowed 21 points on only 13 shots, and not a single shot that was taken against him inside the arc missed on the night. 26 points is nice, but 26 inefficient and selfish points offset by bad defense is not so nice.--Capt.
Ah well. If we'd won all that would have meant is more from certain corners about how we are better without Cousins -- I know this fanbase by now. We had our chances though.
Full Grading Consortium for tonight:
Bricklayer
Capt. Factorial
bajaden
Boxscore
Stats: 31min 3pts (1-7, 1-3, 0-0) 0reb 5ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Salmons ( C- ) -- I grabbed Salmons for the absent Baja tonight, remembering how Baja was complaining about having to create a macro for "Salmons misses another three" in his notes. Well, Salmons had another terrible shooting night, hitting one three and missing six other shots including a retarded turnaround jumper to beat the shot clock. He did a better job passing tonight, hitting both Tyreke and Patterson for open threes and racking up 5 total assists. Defensively he did pretty well. For one thing, he was able to knock the ball loose directly under the basket twice, once from Metta and once from Clark. One thing that's easy to miss with Salmons if you're not specifically watching is his help defense - he seemed to spend the entire night picking up his teammates' backs and challenging shots by running at a guy that got open because somebody else left them. In the end, Salmons allowed 4 points tonight on 9 shots, which is nothing at all to scoff at. Yeah, he couldn't shoot, but his passing and D save him from a horrible grade. --Capt.
Stats: 36min 22pts (9-12, 2-2, 2-2) 5reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Patterson ( A ) -- If there was a bright and shining star tonight, it was Patterson. Yeah, he could have had a few more rebounds, and perhaps kicked Antawn Jamison in the groin a couple of times to slow him down. But other than that, he probably came closer than any other King to having a perfect game. He played 36 minutes, and one could argue, that perhaps he sat on the bench too long while others played give away, or lets throw up a wild shot and see where it lands. He scored 22 points on 12 shots, and the amazing thing is, he made it look very easy. Now I don't expect him to be able to do this every night, but one thing is very obvious, he knows how to play the game. He makes few mistakes, he's unselfish and he just makes smart plays. Just the simple play of IT picking up his dribble at the top of the key, passing the ball to Patterson, who immediately passed it right back to a cutting IT for a drive to the basket.. A quick decision, and a good decision. If the Kings had five players that could play with the intelligence, and the skill level of Patterson, we'd be winning a lot more games. --Baja
Stats: 25min 4pts (2-8, 0-0, 0-0) 7reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( F ) -- JT had an absolutely horrible game, but despite that, I still had him hanging onto a D. But when everything was going our way and we had the Lakers back on their heels, JT managed to screw up a three on one break with a charge. Instead of tying the game, a minute later we were down by seven. That one play seemed to change the outcome of the game. I'm not saying we would have won, but that any chance we would have had went down the drain. I like JT, and he always puts forth the effort. This is one of those days that he should have stayed in bed. JT played 25 minutes and scored four points. All four coming in the second half. He did manage to pull down 7 boards and a steal. But basicly, his whole night was a disastor. Hey! It happens to everybody. I just wish it hadn't been the Laker game. --Baja
Stats: 42min 13pts (6-19, 1-6, 0-0) 5reb 7ast 3stl 1blk 1TO
Evans ( D ) -- Tyreke had a terrible shooting night tonight. Not only was his jumper off, (1-8 on jumpers) but his shot at the basket was pretty bad as well, going 5-11 in the paint and several of those layups that he should have hit. He reverted several times into pound-the-ball Tyreke, stopping the ball movement and dribbling through his legs so that his defender knew he was going to jack up a bad shot. His passing was a different story, as he came up with seven total assists, one on a fantastic outlet pass to MT23, but only two of those came on the drive-and-kick that's been so effective for him lately. Defensively he was the typical Tyreke mixed bag - early in the game after leaving Meeks resulting in a layup he got called for a defensive three-second violation when he once again slumped about 20 feet off of his man (I wrote dirty words in my notes), though he cleaned it up a bit after that. But, he had three steals on the night and made one nice rotation onto Clark that he ran through earning himself a breakaway at the other end. Ultimately he allowed 15 points on 14 shots, which is maybe a bit better than par for the course, but that doesn't forgive his own 13 points on 19 shots, many of which he should have hit. --Capt.
Stats: 34min 26pts (9-20, 3-10, 5-5) 1reb 6ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Thomas ( C- ) -- IT was out to score tonight, and while he didn't do it extremely efficiently (26 points on 22 shots), he did do it pretty often. He was on fire in the third quarter, hitting 5-7 shots and 2-4 threes (both hits being originally ruled twos and then overturned). One on drive in the third he jetted down the left side of the lane and put the ball high off the glass to avoid Dwight Howard's block, though that may have been a bad outcome as it gave him the confidence to get stuffed by Dwight twice in the fourth at times when we really needed a good possession. He had a total of 6 assists on the game (I counted four, so the official scorer might have been feeling pretty generous) but for as well as he was running the team in the first half, he turned himself into the #1 option in the third balancing out his seven shots with zero assists and only one pass that really ought to have led to one. Defensively, we know who IT is - he's the guy who boldfaced in my notes for getting killed by Nash on a screen that he was actively looking at when he ran into it. Somehow he hasn't figured out that he's not going to successfully bend time and space to allow himself to run through Dwight Howard. On another play he got caught on a screen at the three point line and let Nash simply walk in to about a 12 foot shot without even trying to catch back up to him, which he obviously could have done with any effort at all. Sure, he got onto the ground and earned (and won) a jump ball with Blake, but if he can't be bothered to put forth that kind of effort on every play, what good is it? He allowed 21 points on only 13 shots, and not a single shot that was taken against him inside the arc missed on the night. 26 points is nice, but 26 inefficient and selfish points offset by bad defense is not so nice.--Capt.
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