Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Okay this one was a bit frustrating because we could have had this. We competed well. We hung around. But we just made too many mistakes and had too many bad breaks. But it wasn't a discouraging loss. Just a young loss.
As an aside, Reke is averaging 27.0pts 6.5rebs and 6.5ast on 53% shooting in the 2 games since Smart took over. If he wants to continue doing that, we'll be just fine in the end.
Since the loss tonight was due in no small part to a Big Baby having by far his best game of the season, I figured I would go with Ugly Renaissance Babies as a theme. Anybody who has ever had an art history class knows that medieval painters had some rather major issues with painting babies, amongst other things. Sometimes they were comic. Note: medieval baby art may include badly painted nudity, so if you're too prude for The Lourve, you may avert your eyes.
Boxscore
Salmons ( C- ) -- missing his shots early as father time creully twisted the fork in his back, and for 3/4 of the game was a nonentity with nobody to stop on the defensive end, and unable to hit even open looks on offense as he led the parade on a 3-20 shooting night from 3pt land. But as it was the first game under Smart, there appeared to be a concerted effort to get him involved in the late game, and maybe that's a plan of some sort by Smart. Came up with a nice drive along the baselineand dish to Thompson on a called play out of a timeout at the end of the 3rd. Forced a 1 on team drive that he got smushed back in his face to start the 4th. Again that had to be something called during the intermission, but it was terrible. Finally got a drive to go with less than 5 min to go but it was his only contribution late. He wasn't disruptively awful and did not force up much selfish junk, but when you have one of the premiere post big men and premiere driving guards it would be nice if the other guys could knock down shots.
This was apparently the deformed alien version of the Madonna/Christ painting.
Hickson ( B+ ) -- gave us a good game this time out. Active from the beginning and got to the line a lot early, with the thrid time being on a spectacular up and under flip attempt. Very efficient on a night when we agian had the offense organizaed aroudn the stars, and the roleplayers took mostly high percentage shots on the way to a 52.1% shooting night for the team. In some ways does not feel liek a major rebounder -- not physical -- but came up with double figures again for us. Finish through contact to start the thrid, and made a great defensive play on the break to save a 3 on 1 in the third. Unfortunately his achilles this night was turnovers, including a terrible outlet pass attempt to Reke on what should have been our final possession of the 3rd, and a particularly egregious one with a terrible off balance drive and wild pass to start a Magic breakout in crunchtime.
This creepy little dude apparently works out.
Cousins ( B ) -- now this is a hard one to get a handle on gradewise, but suffice it to say we have seen both this year and last that DeMarcus isn't the least bit intimidated by Dwight Howard and is perfectly capable of giving him all he wants...for those 20 minutes a night he gets between boneheaded fouls. Of course the foul problems tonight were even worse for Dwight, who for some reason got into early pushing matches with Cousins as the kid went right at him, leading to a bunch of whistles and Dwight having one of his worse overall games in years. And after Dwight was gone, after an appropriate interlude while our young gunners threw up three pointers at the rim apparently unaware of the huge advantage we had down inside, Cousins really went to work on the rest of the Magic frontline, contiuing to draw fouls, dominating the offensive glass, adding a steal and a block. Used his length to block Big Baby while staying away from the body and triggering a break (Cousins stil does not have the length or explosiveness to block shtos as a defensive anchor, but he is showing a real knack for blocking his own men/people right around the paint by just reaching over and getting a few fingers on the ball. Of course it was too good to last, as wehn the fouls started coming, they came in his typical big waves. Made a mistake and got his third foul just before half and tapped himself on the head to say he knew he screwed up. Drew the 4th foul on Howard on a touchy call and did some more good work with some beautiful spin moves in the post. But picked up his 5th foul on a dumb play trying to take a charge on Big Baby just seconds after getting a bad call for his 4th (and I rellay really wish he would quit trying to take charges -- he has a knack, but he's also the most foul prone player int he NBA and simply can't afford the extra fouls you pick up doing that). With 5 fouls came back in the game in the last 5 minues to battle Howard and promptly one on one blocked Dwight's shot. In fact if you had nothing but this game to go on, you would have said it was Howard who was intimidated by DeMarcus, not the other way around. So all in all it was nother prolidic, sloppy, brillaint and error prone half game out of Demarcus. If he could just stay on the court for 35min a night he might average 25-15. Still, I gotta mark this down somehow for once again fouling himself out of our lineup, and likely costing us the game in the process.
Of course the ugly little dude above ain't got nothin' on Baby Adonis here. This is probably how Dwight looked at birth. Shoot the moon dude!
Thornton ( D+ ) -- for the second Smart coached game in a row got off to the absolutely terrible start and literally missed everything in the first half, finishing with a big ole zero points. With Dwight out early, responded with a quick missed three rather than feeding Cousins inside or attacking to expose the lack of a shotblocker. Just ineffective and chucking off the dribble after awhile. Even when he occasionally did make a hustle play to get close to the hoop it wouldn't fall. Finally hit a jumper in the early third off a nice easy assiat from Reke. Catch and shoot on a called play -- what a concept! Finally finally got on a run in the 3rd and exploded for 2 threes and a fastbreak hoop, which is why you keep playing a guy as explosive as Thornton even when he's struggling -- you never know when he will give you a burst. Who knows how long it would have continued on, or what the outcome in the game would have been, because a few minutes later he joined Reke in the ranks of the walking wounded after he took a hip to the thigh from from Howard (meaning for the 4th both our start guards were hobbled and our star center had 5 fouls -- heck of a way to try to win a game). Was perhaps effected by his injury than Reke was, as he never did anything much afterward. Did get set up for and hit a single three in the final minutes before fouling out. Just a rough night.
Meet baby Nicholas Cage and his receding hairline.
As an aside, Reke is averaging 27.0pts 6.5rebs and 6.5ast on 53% shooting in the 2 games since Smart took over. If he wants to continue doing that, we'll be just fine in the end.
Since the loss tonight was due in no small part to a Big Baby having by far his best game of the season, I figured I would go with Ugly Renaissance Babies as a theme. Anybody who has ever had an art history class knows that medieval painters had some rather major issues with painting babies, amongst other things. Sometimes they were comic. Note: medieval baby art may include badly painted nudity, so if you're too prude for The Lourve, you may avert your eyes.
Boxscore
Salmons ( C- ) -- missing his shots early as father time creully twisted the fork in his back, and for 3/4 of the game was a nonentity with nobody to stop on the defensive end, and unable to hit even open looks on offense as he led the parade on a 3-20 shooting night from 3pt land. But as it was the first game under Smart, there appeared to be a concerted effort to get him involved in the late game, and maybe that's a plan of some sort by Smart. Came up with a nice drive along the baselineand dish to Thompson on a called play out of a timeout at the end of the 3rd. Forced a 1 on team drive that he got smushed back in his face to start the 4th. Again that had to be something called during the intermission, but it was terrible. Finally got a drive to go with less than 5 min to go but it was his only contribution late. He wasn't disruptively awful and did not force up much selfish junk, but when you have one of the premiere post big men and premiere driving guards it would be nice if the other guys could knock down shots.
This was apparently the deformed alien version of the Madonna/Christ painting.
Hickson ( B+ ) -- gave us a good game this time out. Active from the beginning and got to the line a lot early, with the thrid time being on a spectacular up and under flip attempt. Very efficient on a night when we agian had the offense organizaed aroudn the stars, and the roleplayers took mostly high percentage shots on the way to a 52.1% shooting night for the team. In some ways does not feel liek a major rebounder -- not physical -- but came up with double figures again for us. Finish through contact to start the thrid, and made a great defensive play on the break to save a 3 on 1 in the third. Unfortunately his achilles this night was turnovers, including a terrible outlet pass attempt to Reke on what should have been our final possession of the 3rd, and a particularly egregious one with a terrible off balance drive and wild pass to start a Magic breakout in crunchtime.
This creepy little dude apparently works out.
Cousins ( B ) -- now this is a hard one to get a handle on gradewise, but suffice it to say we have seen both this year and last that DeMarcus isn't the least bit intimidated by Dwight Howard and is perfectly capable of giving him all he wants...for those 20 minutes a night he gets between boneheaded fouls. Of course the foul problems tonight were even worse for Dwight, who for some reason got into early pushing matches with Cousins as the kid went right at him, leading to a bunch of whistles and Dwight having one of his worse overall games in years. And after Dwight was gone, after an appropriate interlude while our young gunners threw up three pointers at the rim apparently unaware of the huge advantage we had down inside, Cousins really went to work on the rest of the Magic frontline, contiuing to draw fouls, dominating the offensive glass, adding a steal and a block. Used his length to block Big Baby while staying away from the body and triggering a break (Cousins stil does not have the length or explosiveness to block shtos as a defensive anchor, but he is showing a real knack for blocking his own men/people right around the paint by just reaching over and getting a few fingers on the ball. Of course it was too good to last, as wehn the fouls started coming, they came in his typical big waves. Made a mistake and got his third foul just before half and tapped himself on the head to say he knew he screwed up. Drew the 4th foul on Howard on a touchy call and did some more good work with some beautiful spin moves in the post. But picked up his 5th foul on a dumb play trying to take a charge on Big Baby just seconds after getting a bad call for his 4th (and I rellay really wish he would quit trying to take charges -- he has a knack, but he's also the most foul prone player int he NBA and simply can't afford the extra fouls you pick up doing that). With 5 fouls came back in the game in the last 5 minues to battle Howard and promptly one on one blocked Dwight's shot. In fact if you had nothing but this game to go on, you would have said it was Howard who was intimidated by DeMarcus, not the other way around. So all in all it was nother prolidic, sloppy, brillaint and error prone half game out of Demarcus. If he could just stay on the court for 35min a night he might average 25-15. Still, I gotta mark this down somehow for once again fouling himself out of our lineup, and likely costing us the game in the process.
Of course the ugly little dude above ain't got nothin' on Baby Adonis here. This is probably how Dwight looked at birth. Shoot the moon dude!
Thornton ( D+ ) -- for the second Smart coached game in a row got off to the absolutely terrible start and literally missed everything in the first half, finishing with a big ole zero points. With Dwight out early, responded with a quick missed three rather than feeding Cousins inside or attacking to expose the lack of a shotblocker. Just ineffective and chucking off the dribble after awhile. Even when he occasionally did make a hustle play to get close to the hoop it wouldn't fall. Finally hit a jumper in the early third off a nice easy assiat from Reke. Catch and shoot on a called play -- what a concept! Finally finally got on a run in the 3rd and exploded for 2 threes and a fastbreak hoop, which is why you keep playing a guy as explosive as Thornton even when he's struggling -- you never know when he will give you a burst. Who knows how long it would have continued on, or what the outcome in the game would have been, because a few minutes later he joined Reke in the ranks of the walking wounded after he took a hip to the thigh from from Howard (meaning for the 4th both our start guards were hobbled and our star center had 5 fouls -- heck of a way to try to win a game). Was perhaps effected by his injury than Reke was, as he never did anything much afterward. Did get set up for and hit a single three in the final minutes before fouling out. Just a rough night.
Meet baby Nicholas Cage and his receding hairline.
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