Just like old times.
Unfortunately that also means, just like old times.
So we started with a bang, fell back, competed well, had so many chances to go up, and then down the stretch appeared to suffer from a terminal case of either youngness or Smartness (our apparent plan to win the game in the final minute was DeMarcus Cousins shooting threes, believe it or not). And so it becomes yet another in the long line of close game, lost at the end, against the Lakers. Excellent crowd though. Way to kick off BOG month.
P.S. To add insult to injury this loss also mathematically eliminated our chances of catching the Lakers for the #8 spot. Boo!!!
Highlights:
Two Legged Grading Consortium for tonight:
Bricklayer
Capt. Factorial
Boxscore
Stats: 44min 13pts (5-12, 3-7, 0-0) 3reb 3ast 1stl 1blk 1TO
Salmons ( A ) -- Salmons was on his way to an A+ in the first quarter, playing incredible D on Kobe and hitting his first three triples to outscore Kobe 9-0, forcing two turnovers on Kobe, breaking up a pass that would have been a dunk, and turning down a three to hit JT wide open under the basket for an easy two. The rest of the game wasn't quite so great - Salmons only hit 2 of his remaining 9 shots and was unable to keep Kobe scoreless for the final three quarters. Still, Kobe scored a total of 9 points on Salmons (and the free throw was pretty much a cow patty call) on 4-11 shooting - and that was basically the whole game. Salmons sat for less than four minutes and was still able to shut Kobe down in the fourth quarter (0-4, 0-5 if you count "the foul") including a nice block on a Kobe drive. In the end, I don't care that John didn't score after the second given his defense. I just can't give him the plus because of it. --Capt.
Stats: 24min 15pts (7-10, 0-0, 1-1) 4reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( B ) -- just as we have for the last few, we attacked the opponents with JT in the early going as they focused on Cousins, and JT responded again with another fast start as IT and Reke found him repeatedly for little jumpers. But impressively showed he was willing to go right at Dwight with power as well. Unfortunately that impressiveness vs. Dwight only ran to the offensive side of the ball. Gasol is just a roleplayer for them anymore and he didn't badly hurt JT offensively, but when we tried JT on Dwight at various times to try to save Cousins from fouls, it inevitably went badly as Howard simply overpowered him. Long been the thing about JT as a center -- and here you can feel free to completely ignore Jerry Reynolds' blatherings -- JT is not nearly as strong as his size would suggest. So Dwight just banged him back out of the way, and finished at the rim. And on the glass JT was nowhere to be seen. We actually won the board battle thanks to Cuz and some great boarding efforts from our guards -- Reke and MT had 16rebs, JT had 4. it was another. Resumed the third with a hit from Reke again, but then as kept going back to it it seemed to dry up and we weren't getting much out of it. Had one more highlight play with a very aggressive offensive board flying in, and then following his own blocked shot for a finish. But in the 4th we went to Patterson...and stayed with Patterson no matter how unproductive he was on the night. --Brick
Stats: 39min 19pts (8-20, 0-2, 3-4) 11reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
Cousins ( B ) -- played 39min in this one accumulating only 3 fouls, which is even more impressive when you consider that to start the game he immediately picked up a foul on Howard in the post, and then had to play with his hands in his pockets. Of larger concern was the effect that avoiding foul trouble had on his defense over the course of the game. He was the only one on the team capable of contending with Howard, who simply overpowered JT at every opportunity, and treetopped Hayes. But DeMarcus was rarely willing to fully engage with Howard on defense or the glass, instead backing off whenever a potential fouling situation arose. On offense ended up settling for long jumpers in the early going, but once we began to feed him down inside he became very effective around the hoop, hit a couple of circus shots in there, and Reke found him repeatedly for dunks. When he returned started off with another jumper, and again it did not look like a comfortable stroke, which made the end to this game even more dubious. Began the 3rd active and muscling Gasol, but the game was probably lost for us in the later stages of the quarter when all of a sudden it became a turnoverfest, and Boogie was at the heart of it, I think picking up 3 turnovers himself in the space of 3 minutes. Still played big down the stretch, drawing a foul, and draining an open jumper to keep us within 4. But the brainfart plays in the final 30 seconds absolutely require somebody to get slapped by a stinky smelly week old fish. I just can't be sure whether it was Smart or Boogie who came up with the brilliant plan to win this one by having our 275lb center stand out at the three point line and chuck up threes. If it happened just once you say, well, desperation time and a guy just panicked. It didn't. On one of the plays it looked like we almost called it. On both of them he was certainly extremely involved receiving the ball multiple times at the three point stripe, and in fact on the first one he tried to put one up, may have gotten Howard to foul him, and then when the refs didn't call it pulled it down and ended up shooting it anyway. Sigh. Still, this was a game where our young stars looked like they absolutely could play with the Lakers old ones. They just in the end played like young guys.--Brick
Stats: 43min 21pts (9-15, 0-1, 3-3) 9reb 6ast 0stl 0blk 4TO
Evans ( B ) -- I've got to breathe a little bit here and focus on offense. OK. So Tyreke started out distributing the ball really well, getting four of his six assists in the first quarter, while taking (and making) only two shots. After that he got a bit more selfish on offense, only setting up six more shots (two assists) the remainder of the game. In the second half Tyreke scored 15 of his 21 points and spent a lot of time at lead guard (including all of the fourth quarter as IT sat). Tyreke also came perilously close to a double-double, grabbing nine rebounds on the night. But defense? Oh, defense. Oh, oh, oh the...defense. Since one is always supposed to say something nice, I'll point out that for the few minutes that Salmons sat, Tyreke did a nice job on Kobe - even though on the first possession he got beat on a screen for a layup, he picked it up and that was all Kobe got off of him. Kobe did miss a no-chance well-defended three and a good sideline doubleteam earned Kobe a jumpball with Cousins. But when Tyreke was NOT on Cousins...he spent much of the game slumping off of his man and guarding the paint, and the Lakers took full advantage of it (or at least tried to). The Lakers attempted 10 threes against Tyreke (only making three), and outside of the one Kobe shot mentioned above, all of them came when Tyreke had established defensive position fifteen feet from his man. The idea must be that he's playing "help" defense, but there's literally nothing "helpful" about it. In fact, I believe Tyreke had two useful help plays on the day, once fouling Howard hard to stop an otherwise easy layup, and once helping John stop a Kobe drive (though that resulted in Kobe passing to Tyreke's man, who hit a three, so...) For instance, on one play, Kobe drove past Salmons into a lane patrolled by Evans - who obligingly watched Kobe pass within arm's length for a dunk. Remind me again why he's there? Anyway, I've got to believe given the game-after-game, guard-after-guard pattern, that this is a "Smart" strategy, so I can only blame Tyreke a little bit. Enough that the defense drops him down to a B, but not as far as it would had I thought he was doing it on his own. --Capt.
Stats: 25min 10pts (3-5, 2-4, 2-3) 0reb 5ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thomas ( D+ ) -- Thomas had an uncharacteristically quiet game considering his history of late, with a lot of the on-ball duties passed over to Tyreke. He did a very good job of distributing the ball early in the game (3 assists, 2 setups in the first quarter) but finished with only 2 more assists and 2 more setups. His 10 points on 6 shots were nicely efficient, though he did have to hit a crazy turnaround three at the end of the second quarter to get there. He finished off the third quarter with a pretty bad turnover driving into a crowd, and given a couple of shaky possessions in the first, he was pretty lucky that was his only TO for the game. Defensively, Thomas had his normal struggles, despite the fact that the Lakers (mostly Steve Blake) didn't attack him much. 16 points given up on 8 shots is really not getting it done, and while there was only one play where he got beat badly (early in the first when Nash got loose on a screen and found a giftwrapped empty baseline for a layup) the Lakers just didn't have any trouble shooting over him, going 4-6 on threes. --Capt.
Unfortunately that also means, just like old times.
So we started with a bang, fell back, competed well, had so many chances to go up, and then down the stretch appeared to suffer from a terminal case of either youngness or Smartness (our apparent plan to win the game in the final minute was DeMarcus Cousins shooting threes, believe it or not). And so it becomes yet another in the long line of close game, lost at the end, against the Lakers. Excellent crowd though. Way to kick off BOG month.
P.S. To add insult to injury this loss also mathematically eliminated our chances of catching the Lakers for the #8 spot. Boo!!!
Highlights:
Two Legged Grading Consortium for tonight:
Bricklayer
Capt. Factorial
Boxscore
Stats: 44min 13pts (5-12, 3-7, 0-0) 3reb 3ast 1stl 1blk 1TO
Salmons ( A ) -- Salmons was on his way to an A+ in the first quarter, playing incredible D on Kobe and hitting his first three triples to outscore Kobe 9-0, forcing two turnovers on Kobe, breaking up a pass that would have been a dunk, and turning down a three to hit JT wide open under the basket for an easy two. The rest of the game wasn't quite so great - Salmons only hit 2 of his remaining 9 shots and was unable to keep Kobe scoreless for the final three quarters. Still, Kobe scored a total of 9 points on Salmons (and the free throw was pretty much a cow patty call) on 4-11 shooting - and that was basically the whole game. Salmons sat for less than four minutes and was still able to shut Kobe down in the fourth quarter (0-4, 0-5 if you count "the foul") including a nice block on a Kobe drive. In the end, I don't care that John didn't score after the second given his defense. I just can't give him the plus because of it. --Capt.
Stats: 24min 15pts (7-10, 0-0, 1-1) 4reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( B ) -- just as we have for the last few, we attacked the opponents with JT in the early going as they focused on Cousins, and JT responded again with another fast start as IT and Reke found him repeatedly for little jumpers. But impressively showed he was willing to go right at Dwight with power as well. Unfortunately that impressiveness vs. Dwight only ran to the offensive side of the ball. Gasol is just a roleplayer for them anymore and he didn't badly hurt JT offensively, but when we tried JT on Dwight at various times to try to save Cousins from fouls, it inevitably went badly as Howard simply overpowered him. Long been the thing about JT as a center -- and here you can feel free to completely ignore Jerry Reynolds' blatherings -- JT is not nearly as strong as his size would suggest. So Dwight just banged him back out of the way, and finished at the rim. And on the glass JT was nowhere to be seen. We actually won the board battle thanks to Cuz and some great boarding efforts from our guards -- Reke and MT had 16rebs, JT had 4. it was another. Resumed the third with a hit from Reke again, but then as kept going back to it it seemed to dry up and we weren't getting much out of it. Had one more highlight play with a very aggressive offensive board flying in, and then following his own blocked shot for a finish. But in the 4th we went to Patterson...and stayed with Patterson no matter how unproductive he was on the night. --Brick
Stats: 39min 19pts (8-20, 0-2, 3-4) 11reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
Cousins ( B ) -- played 39min in this one accumulating only 3 fouls, which is even more impressive when you consider that to start the game he immediately picked up a foul on Howard in the post, and then had to play with his hands in his pockets. Of larger concern was the effect that avoiding foul trouble had on his defense over the course of the game. He was the only one on the team capable of contending with Howard, who simply overpowered JT at every opportunity, and treetopped Hayes. But DeMarcus was rarely willing to fully engage with Howard on defense or the glass, instead backing off whenever a potential fouling situation arose. On offense ended up settling for long jumpers in the early going, but once we began to feed him down inside he became very effective around the hoop, hit a couple of circus shots in there, and Reke found him repeatedly for dunks. When he returned started off with another jumper, and again it did not look like a comfortable stroke, which made the end to this game even more dubious. Began the 3rd active and muscling Gasol, but the game was probably lost for us in the later stages of the quarter when all of a sudden it became a turnoverfest, and Boogie was at the heart of it, I think picking up 3 turnovers himself in the space of 3 minutes. Still played big down the stretch, drawing a foul, and draining an open jumper to keep us within 4. But the brainfart plays in the final 30 seconds absolutely require somebody to get slapped by a stinky smelly week old fish. I just can't be sure whether it was Smart or Boogie who came up with the brilliant plan to win this one by having our 275lb center stand out at the three point line and chuck up threes. If it happened just once you say, well, desperation time and a guy just panicked. It didn't. On one of the plays it looked like we almost called it. On both of them he was certainly extremely involved receiving the ball multiple times at the three point stripe, and in fact on the first one he tried to put one up, may have gotten Howard to foul him, and then when the refs didn't call it pulled it down and ended up shooting it anyway. Sigh. Still, this was a game where our young stars looked like they absolutely could play with the Lakers old ones. They just in the end played like young guys.--Brick
Stats: 43min 21pts (9-15, 0-1, 3-3) 9reb 6ast 0stl 0blk 4TO
Evans ( B ) -- I've got to breathe a little bit here and focus on offense. OK. So Tyreke started out distributing the ball really well, getting four of his six assists in the first quarter, while taking (and making) only two shots. After that he got a bit more selfish on offense, only setting up six more shots (two assists) the remainder of the game. In the second half Tyreke scored 15 of his 21 points and spent a lot of time at lead guard (including all of the fourth quarter as IT sat). Tyreke also came perilously close to a double-double, grabbing nine rebounds on the night. But defense? Oh, defense. Oh, oh, oh the...defense. Since one is always supposed to say something nice, I'll point out that for the few minutes that Salmons sat, Tyreke did a nice job on Kobe - even though on the first possession he got beat on a screen for a layup, he picked it up and that was all Kobe got off of him. Kobe did miss a no-chance well-defended three and a good sideline doubleteam earned Kobe a jumpball with Cousins. But when Tyreke was NOT on Cousins...he spent much of the game slumping off of his man and guarding the paint, and the Lakers took full advantage of it (or at least tried to). The Lakers attempted 10 threes against Tyreke (only making three), and outside of the one Kobe shot mentioned above, all of them came when Tyreke had established defensive position fifteen feet from his man. The idea must be that he's playing "help" defense, but there's literally nothing "helpful" about it. In fact, I believe Tyreke had two useful help plays on the day, once fouling Howard hard to stop an otherwise easy layup, and once helping John stop a Kobe drive (though that resulted in Kobe passing to Tyreke's man, who hit a three, so...) For instance, on one play, Kobe drove past Salmons into a lane patrolled by Evans - who obligingly watched Kobe pass within arm's length for a dunk. Remind me again why he's there? Anyway, I've got to believe given the game-after-game, guard-after-guard pattern, that this is a "Smart" strategy, so I can only blame Tyreke a little bit. Enough that the defense drops him down to a B, but not as far as it would had I thought he was doing it on his own. --Capt.
Stats: 25min 10pts (3-5, 2-4, 2-3) 0reb 5ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thomas ( D+ ) -- Thomas had an uncharacteristically quiet game considering his history of late, with a lot of the on-ball duties passed over to Tyreke. He did a very good job of distributing the ball early in the game (3 assists, 2 setups in the first quarter) but finished with only 2 more assists and 2 more setups. His 10 points on 6 shots were nicely efficient, though he did have to hit a crazy turnaround three at the end of the second quarter to get there. He finished off the third quarter with a pretty bad turnover driving into a crowd, and given a couple of shaky possessions in the first, he was pretty lucky that was his only TO for the game. Defensively, Thomas had his normal struggles, despite the fact that the Lakers (mostly Steve Blake) didn't attack him much. 16 points given up on 8 shots is really not getting it done, and while there was only one play where he got beat badly (early in the first when Nash got loose on a screen and found a giftwrapped empty baseline for a layup) the Lakers just didn't have any trouble shooting over him, going 4-6 on threes. --Capt.
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