Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
You know, I generally like Michael Malone, but that said he's damn lucky I was not invited to his postgame press conference because I would have some serious questiosn for him about what the hell he was thinking in this game with his rotatioins and subs.
-- why on earth is Reggie Evans, with 14rebs in 28min, sitting on the bench in the 4th quarter as the Lakers pummeled us on the glass? I was watching you Malone you were hopping around flipping out at the sidelien screaming at guys to rebound, while sitting right behind you were Reggie and JT, and they weren;t even getting ready to check in.
-- on the flipside, what the hell did Carl Landry do to earn any of those minutes?
-- why the hell was the wild and out of control Derrick Williams suddenyl so resolutely advaned above the well rested Omri Casspi in the rotation?
-- why did Ben McLemore, who had played well, get left out of the game unti the final 4 minutes as we collapsed?
-- why was Nik Stauskas handling the ball on our final play of the game? Kid looks terrified.
Man do we suck without Cousins We literally have proven absolutely nothing. An OT win over a bad East team at the end of a roadtrip won on a lucky bounce, and a home win against a young team on an 8 game losing streak, And we're losing gimmes. Help us Oboogie Kenobi, you are the only hope.
Boxscore
Stats: 34min 23pts (7-18, 2-4, 7-8) 5reb 5ast 0stl 1blk 4TO
Gay ( B- ) -- Rudy off to a hot start scoring comfortably from both midrange on pullups and on longballs that were unexpectedly falling for us for 3/4 of the game. Came back in and was being covered by Swaggy P, but not taking advantage as he should as if anything his shots got more contested, not less. Was again maybe our most effective setup man, notching 5 more assists and setting up hits by Collison outside and Reggie inside, but i some ways that almost makes our sans-Cousins ineptitude worse. Our #2 is generally stepping up, scoring more, passing more, and its still not enough. Hit another three in the third, but thta would be his last as that well not surprsingly dried up. It was nice to hit a few, but that's not who we are and when you sre relying on somethign you aren't naturally good at its eventually going to return to the norm. As soon as Ben left with fouls Rudy had to take Kobe, and Kobe immediately juked him and scored over him, and in fact that wold become an issue downt he stretch as Malone very wisely rested Ben for national TV thumping by the Rockets in a few days, and gtried to guard Kobe wiht our SFs instead. We were still up at that point though, still had a little of our swag. When Rudy got fouled hard by Sacre on the break, and sent to the floor, he roled over and did the Amare pushups afterwards. Things began to go south soon afterward, as once again an opposing team, even just the 5-16 Lakers, began to squeeze, and once again the illusion that our #2 guy is a #1, that ior PG can shoot FTs, and that our coach can make smart decisions under pressure all got shattered Rudy turned it over going 1 on 1 at the end of the third, and while it briefly looked like he might save us after returning in the 4th to hit a shot and grab a tough board with the offense dead in the water, his late game quickly descended into a mess as he got his next shot blocked, got the ball stolen, and missed a three we did not need him to take So instead down the stretch it was Collison trying to 1 mn save us, except there all the Lakers had to do was foul him everytime and he turned into DeAndre Jordan at the line. This was a solid enough effort again by Rudy..as a #2 guy. Unfiortunately he was the #1 guy on the ngiht and when the going got tight late in this one the Lakers ancient rickety guard still knew how to be a #1 and racked up 8pts and 3ast down the stretch while Rudy was smothered and disappeared. --Brick
Stats: 28min 5pts (1-5, 0-0, 3-4) 8reb 4ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thompson ( D ) -- One nice thing to be said about JT tonight is that he grabbed a reasonable number of rebounds. He didn't get any of them down the stretch when we needed them (he gave up at least one needed offensive rebound to Jordan Hill), but at least he found 8 somewhere along the line. JT's other positive tonight was that he had four assists - mostly on kick-outs but he did have a nice pass to give Collison a shot right at the rim. Other than that, JT wasn't terribly involved, or terribly good, in this game. On offense he missed two easy shots in the lane in the first quarter and completely bricked a jumper in the third, his only make being a layup right at the rim. On defense, he was playing mostly on Hill, who has no post game and instead hangs out on the perimeter, which takes JT right out of his comfort zone, makes him ineffective at help D, takes him out of rebounding position. You gotta admit, for a guy who has very little offensive skill, Hill's positioning took JT right out of the game. The bottom line is that one rebound could have made the difference in this game, and JT didn't fight very hard to get it. --Capt.
Stats: 30min 8pts (3-3, 0-0, 2-2) 14reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Evans ( B ) -- Reggie did what Reggie does. He took up space under the basket, scored on putbacks and rebounded the daylights out of the ball. But rebounding is something you can always count on with him. Offensively and officially, he only took three shots, and he made all three. One came off of a nice pass from Gay as he was cutting down the lane to the basket. He sat out a big part of the fourth quarter, and we got killed on the boards. It might be fair to say that it greatly contributed to our loss, since the Lakers got second chance after second chance with him sitting on the bench. Defensively, for the most part he was fine. He had a couple of lapses where he left Hill to help on the perimeter, and it resulted a couple of baskets. There's not much else to say, other than it was a horrible loss, and one that we worked hard to accomplish. --Baja
Stats: 25min 15pts (3-7, 3-5, 6-7) 1reb 2ast 1stl 1blk 2TO
McLemore ( B+ ) -- Getting smoked by Kobe in the early going whatever the numbers were saying, because old Kobe simply misses a great many of those shots But Kobe was shaking him and juking him and generally giving him an education. But because it was old Kobe, we weren't really being hurt by all those shots going up, and it may have been as big a problem for the Lakers as it was for us. Finally struck back with feet set three late in the quarter, but then immediately picked up his second foul in what would become the story of his game. Had a burst at the end of the half when Gay found him for another open corner three, and he followed it with a third 30 seconds later, and while what Kobe was doing was infinitely more difficult, at that point Ben was mathcing him point for point and far more efficiently just as a spot shooter and court runner.. Kobe came right out after half and dropped a classic Kobe jumper on him, but Ben after missing an off balance three, got fouled on the break and hit all 3 FTs. Unfortunately they would be the last points of the game for him He turned it over with bad ballhandling and then picked up his 4th guardng Kobe, and from that point on had to face a nasty double team of Kobe bracketing him on one side, and his coach on the other. And while it was hard to see how Ben was really harassing Kobe when he was out there, it was notable that as soon as he went to the bench Kobe started really heating up against everybody not named Ben. If nothign else I think ben at least was giving him somethign to think about. When malone finally went back to him over a quarter later there was non more offense and he missed his only shot downt he stretch But what he did bring again was defensive hustle, not on Kobe who we oddly seemed to be hiding him from, but using his athelticsm to come up with a big block to save a hoop, and after he missed a shot he raced back to breakup the resulting fast break with the Lakers already up 1 with 2:15 to go. All in all I am not quite sure there was as much here as people were making out -- it was largely 3 three pointers int he first half out of only 7 total shots -- but down the stetch he and Reggie were certainly obvious key personnel that somehow got forgotten about while our game died on the vine while the coach fiddled--Brick
Stats: 38min 26pts (11-18, 2-3, 2-8) 4reb 6ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Collison ( B+ ) -- able to score easily from the beginning of this one against the awesome Ronnie Price/Jeremy Lin duo Pullups, layups, and we even rana play for gay to set him up for one of those corner threes. Jerry seems just utterly committed to the idea that DC is going to start bombing facing threes like Stephen Curry, but his range has always been those short corners, and that's where he thrived with CP3 to set him up last year. But despite hsi efficient statline (11-18FG, 6ast, 0TO) there wee some issues here that prevented me from being wildly enthusiastic. The largest of course would be this number: 2-8. DC is a career .852 free throw shooter, but damn if he hasn't struggled for us at key times, and at no time worse than tonight. Not only did he miss 6, but his timing was awful. He missed so many it actually scuttled our momentum at the end of the third, and it took him 6 tries to finally hit 1. He got back to the line again with 2min to go, and only split the pair, and hell, you felt lucky. Might as well have had Reggie Evans taking them, and when you lose by three, and your rookie collapses on a desperation three point play to try to tie at the buzzer, only being down 2 in that situation would have been handy, Of course DC just hits them at normal efficiency and we jsut flat out win, which is better yet. But while 2-8 hangs over this, there were some other issues. Showed a diappointing lack of composure in the third when he fell into a trap helping the Lakers more than us by getting into a Reno Bighorns race up and down the court shooting as fast as physically possible run n chuck contest. Not who we are. Continued to be efficient hitting pullups, but losing focus and falling asleep on defense. Still, FT shooting aside, with Rudy turning into a pumpkin it was Darren who tried to carry us down the stretch, hitting a little pullup jumper to give us a 3pt lead, darting in at the 40 second mark to put us up by 1, and logically the guy you would have wanted running the offense on the final play rather than Nik, but...well... --Brick
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