Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Ok, so the hard fought loss thing? Getting old already, and its the first week old December. This time it was a late megacollapse worthy of the Smart and earlier years. Turnovers, bad shots, coaching questions (waited too long to go back to the starters) etc. After a brilliant first half, IT was never the same in the second and the offense fell apart under him, and to top it he may have tweaked an ankle. The Big Guy can't escape the blame either as he was swarmed, and had ball after ball poked away or blocked when it came winning time. Just...hard fought loss doesn't cut it here. Didn't feel good. Didn't feel like an accomplishment. Felt like we blew it. Again. And this is one of those fences you can't balance on forever. Either you get it together, clean up your act, and start winning enough to justify the effort, or you fall off the other way into ugly despair. But nobody goes through an entire season losing in the final 2 minutes every night. Something has to give.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Spudfan
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 25min 9pts (2-5, 0-0, 5-6) 9reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Williams ( C+ ) -- Williams was quiet on offense tonight. He looks like he's getting comfortable in Malone's plays, moving where he needs to be when he doesn't have the ball but tonight he wasn't terribly involved. He did get to the line 6 times (making 5), which is very nice, but he only made two FGs. Both of those were dunks, one off of a hard cut receiving a pass from Cousins and the other on a pretty reverse jam from a baseline pass from McLemore. His other three shots were also at the rim, one a missed reverse on a baseline drive and two missed putbacks following offensive boards. The boards were a much better part of Williams' game tonight, as he was credited for nine rebounds (though two of those were technically loose balls). On defense, Williams was doing a lot of sagging off of his man to provide hesitant double-teams in the paint. Still, that really only resulted in two makes and 5 points, and one consequence of Williams sagging was that he was there to make some stops when help rotation was needed. He stepped in on a Sacre drive in the first and stopped a dunk but was forced to foul - with Sacre missing on one FT it was a net-positive. Very early in the third he was needed in the paint twice, once to stop a driving Sacre and once to stop a planted Gasol, and he forced a miss at the rim both times. He also put some very tough contests on a couple of Nick Young jumpers. Altogether, he's putting together a pretty good argument against the idea that he can't guard the SF position, but I'd like to see a bit of offense away from the rim. --Capt.
Stats: 23min 9pts (4-5, 0-0, 1-2) 5reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 0TO
Thompson ( B ) -- Tonight was one of those perfect JT games where he played within himself and did exactly what we want him to do. In limited minutes (23) he made 4-5 field goals which included 2 makes from 20 feet and 2 baskets off of strong moves near the rim. Although Pau scored on about half his attempts vs JT, the defense was solid. He forced one turnover when Pau made an attempt at backing him down and even blocked a 6 foot jumper! The 5 rebounds he grabbed is what we expect from him and I don’t think he had any missed block outs which have been a bit of a problem recently. If he gets more playtime tonight there is a good chance we come away with the win. These kind of strong games is what have made it so hard for other players to supplant him in the starting lineup. JT’s bonus stat of tonight? Zero turnovers! --Spud
Stats: 32min 20pts (6-17, 0-0, 8-12) 11reb 4ast 2stl 1blk 6TO
Cousins ( C- ) -- This was a tale of two halves for DMC in this one. In the first half he was a dominant presence and there simply was nothing that the Lakers could do to stop him. My favorite possession of the night is when Cousins did his work early and established deep post position on the right side. The right side isn’t the side that he prefers which perhaps why the Lakers didn’t fight too hard to stop him from getting that position. Anyway, he spun into the lane and finished with a nice little left-handed hook over Gasol. The move was really smooth and if he can gain confidence with using the left hook after establishing position on the right block it will open up his post game tremendously to be able to start on either block and finish with either hand. Anyway, the Lakers couldn’t stop him in the post so they resorted to hacking/slamming/fouling him at every opportunity, probably with the hopes of beating him up to the point where he’d slow down. They even started Robert Sacre (1st start of the season) to be a big body and bang with him from the opening whistle. (Sacre picked up a number of fouls and had his 3rd by the mid-way point of the 2nd half.) By the end of the 1st half he had only taken 7 shots (making 4) but was sitting on 13 points as he continually went to the foul-line. In the third quarter it was a mixed bag for Cousins. His shot wasn’t falling for him and in one sequence I think he ended up with 3 shot attempts and 2 offensive rebounds and ultimately no points as he couldn’t seem to get anything to go. He was however, passing the ball very well and found multiple guys at the rim for good shot opportunities. Cousins’ demise, as well as the teams came in the 4th quarter. He left the 3rd quarter earlier than normal (5 minute mark) and therefore came in earlier than we’re used to seeing at the 9:30 mark of the 4th quarter after the Lakers went on an 11-0 run to take a 1 point lead. Unfortunately for us, he didn’t make a single basket in the 4th quarter. He did manage to score three points on 4 free-throw attempts, but that the extent of his scoring. I don’t know if it was the ankle, which it definitely could have been, or if he was just worn out with all the body blows he’d received during the course of the game, but he had no spring to his step and was really sluggish. Two times he made a move in the middle of the paint and had the ball stuffed back into his face and he had a couple of turn-overs to complicate things. But what will be remembered are the last two offensive possessions by the kings. With the Kings up 1, he received the ball at the left elbow, and even though the opportunity to post/drive was there, with the Lakers in the penalty, he took and missed the elbow jumper. (He hadn’t hit a jumper this game.) Gasol made his jumper on the other end putting the Lakers up and on the next possession Cousins did try to take it into the paint from the left post and turned it over while falling down. The Lakers in transition hit the three since they were playing 5 on 4 and that was basically the game. On defense he and Vasquez were not at all on the same page as Blake continually connected with Sacre on the pick-and-roll, allowing Sacre easy scoring opportunities. He actually did a very good job guarding Gasol in the post and his PnR coverage did improve in the 4th quarter. So in the 1st quarter he was sitting at 13 points on 7 shots and he ended the game with 20 points on 17 shots. He just didn’t have it on the offensive end in the 2nd half and it could be due to the ankle. This was a game where he wasn’t able to come through for the team in the clutch and probably personally takes the blame for the team’s loss due to his inability to deliver down the stretch. He still put up 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists and he’s only one of three guys currently putting up 20 and 10, but the turn-overs and lack of production in the fourth lost us the game so I felt that I had to be a bit hard on the grade. --Uncia
Stats: 32min 20pts (8-17, 4-7, 0-0) 6reb 1ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( B+ ) -- I think we are starting to see some tangible progress in regards to McLemore’s development. He opened the game up doing a little bit of everything. Scored on a fast break dunk off of a pass from Williams (something that is becoming more than a trend). He hit an early 3, but he was also mixing it up inside, scrapping on defense, hustling to save the ball from going out of bounds, etc. Malone must have noticed this as well, because McLemore was the last starter to get subbed out in the first half. I think this was the first time that has happened all year. He was impossible to miss out there tonight. I also thought he handled the ball more tonight than he has in games past, and while the results were very hit or miss, it’s important that he isn’t shying away from it. On the positive side, he used his dribble to escape his man and hit more than one jumper pulling up. He used his dribble on a drive to the rim, and instead of taking the ball all the way to the basket himself he made a smart pass to Williams who was wide open in the paint. It wasn’t perfect by any means. He still had his far share of dribble-induced turnovers, including one late in the 4th quarter that probably sealed the game for the Lakers. Overall though, this was a very good game from Ben, particularly on offense. The funny part is, it could have been even better! I thought his shot selection was really good most of the night, and he actually missed quite a few wide-open jumpers that you’d expect him to make. Defensively Ben spent some time on just about all of the Lakers guards, and while the effort was there (it always is) he was still to late to often closing out on 3 point attempts, but he didn’t kill the Kings on that end like he has before. --Mass
Stats: 23min 5pts (2-5, 1-3, 0-0) 0reb 6ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Vasquez ( C ) -- the Greivis chronicles part...well I've already forgotten what part we are up to, but its beginning to feel familiar. Fortunately this time out there was no quickness to particularly burn him on defense, at least not any worse than our other guards who simply refused to stay with the Lakers three point chuckers. But one more time we had him leading our starters in the first quarter, and just not getting much done. He's out there, but he could be anyone. He missed a pullup three, he did slap one ball away on defense, but he mattered not at all and was a statistical bagel. But then as we have sometimes seen, he came out in the third, and was a new man. He stepped into a three for his first points of the game, and maybe that triggered something as a minute later he began an extended run of excellent playmaking setting up dunks at the rim for Ben, for Williams, finally for Cuz. In fact that stretch was the best the team as a whole played in the entire game, he had the offense humming and we caught up and then opened a lead. Queue the tiebreaker for this grade, as the 4th quarter turned into a real mess for us, extending all the way up to the coach who left in a struggling IT for too long, then in desperation finally went back to what had been working 12 minutes ago, and reinserted Greivis and several other starters. Except what we got back was first quarter Greivis again, not 3rd quarter Greivis. He did nothing to steady our meltdown, showed his limited shooting range again. He did get shot over, but it was a good challenge at elast. And in any case we get another night where we get a guy who put up big numbers on a bad team last year looking a lot like somebody who could only put up big numbers on a bad team. He has these little bursts when he's good, but it was another night when he mysteriously just could not sustain. --Brick
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He wants them to run.
