Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
It suddenly occurred to me that maybe all this is an incredibly devious power play by Cuz and his representatives. Because at this point you might as well just rename the franchise the Sacramento DeMarcuses. So point taken big guy, we got it. Just tell us when and how you want your coffee and donut, and we'll send in the French masseuses and quit procrastinating on turning the lockerroom into your personal walk in closet. Our apologies for anything you think we need to apologize for. Now please hurry back.
This is also of course why yesterday's weebly wobbly "victory" in name over a ruined Indy team didn't exactly inspire confidence that the curse was broken. These 5 games haven't been a learning experience. They haven't let the rest of the team grow together, or gain confidence. They've done exactly the opposite. If we lose Cuz again at some point later in the season, our guys are going to go into that next stretch of games suffering from traumatic flashbacks.
On a more positive note, I correctly answered my own question in the "Predict how the back to back games will go" with the Indy win, Orlando loss option, and Baja finally graded somebody who didn't suck (JT) So it all balances out.
But hey, for all of you who are somehow convinced it DOESN'T balance out, well I've decided to decorate this thread with some Pretty Girls because hey, we haven't done that yet this year, and watching this franchise struggle to win without Boogie is downright depressing.
Boxscore
Stats: 34min 16pts (7-14, 0-2, 2-3) 5reb 5ast 2stl 1blk 2TO
Gay ( C+ ) -- Rudy Gay started the game somehow without a spark. It took more than a minute before Rudy even touched the ball. Keeping Tobias Harris is not easy, but Rudy was somehow a step behind. Slow movement in defense, an unwarranted missed 3-pointer from far beyond the line with plenty of clock remaining. A lackluster drive with poor floater attempt. It almost looked like Collison was looking more for JT than Rudy. When Rudy finally got a pass he passed that on to Hollins who took a wild but successful hook. Only a steal and run away dunk 7 minutes into the game Gay on the scorer list. The second FG came from a prayer scoop following a drive almost turned over. Rudy was not in there to win. The 2nd quarter was not different from the previous. Probably a bit more effort, but still Rudy was not in the game. DMC almost fell a sleep watching it. Still not trying to get involved. Some bad passes along with low scoring and assists. Next quarter started better. Nice pass and fast break dunk were encouraging, but the next nice hook came 5 min into the quarter. More bad passes and difficult shot attempts. Finally a super difficult drive, but unfortunately not resulting in a three point play. The 4th quarter started with great hustle from the bench crowd. They brought the game within 4-5 points, when Malone started to bring back the starters. They continued the momentum for a while, but the great block by Gay resulted in Fray’s unfortunate 3-pointer. From here on the difference started to grow again. It seemed like DWill took over Rudy’s job. For someone else this could have been a more or less B level game, but the lack of leadership, especially when lacking DMC, was just too obvious. Therefore, IMHO, C+ for Rudy in this game seemed appropriate. --Kingston
Stats: 32min 18pts (9-12, 0-0, 0-0) 9reb 4ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( A ) -- JT was one of the bright spots tonight as he had his best game of the year and posted a season high in points with 18. And he did it very efficiently, hitting nine of twelve shots. He also grabbed nine boards and had four assists against only one turnover on the night. And, except for a couple of mishaps, he was solid to excellent at times on defense. He got off to a good start, setting up on the right block, spinning to his right and kissing it off the glass. His defensive mishaps occurred when Oladipo and Frye started running the pick and roll. McLemore would get caught in the pick, JT would switch, but McLemore for some reason didn't, and instead came back to his man leaving Frye open in the corner. After Frye hit the three, you could see the frustration on JT's face. After the third time this happened, Malone called a time out, apparently straightened out the assignments, and it never happened again. JT did some punishing of his own. He got the ball at the basket surrounded by three Magic players and somehow powered the ball up for a basket. He followed that by hitting an 18 footer along the left baseline. He got his first assist with an entry pass to Hollins at the basket. JT used his entire offensive arsenal tonight. He hit a floater on one occasion. On another he drove to the basket from 18 feet out, and hit a little flip shot. And he threw in a few dunks along the way. Not many negatives to talk about. He did lose focus a couple of times and forgot to box out, costing a couple of rebounds. But all in all, a very good game, including playing some smothering defense on Frye late in the game. Now if we could only get JT to play this way every night.--Baja
Raquel Alessi -- who we may have had on here before, but that's ok. No official rules on not repeating lovely ladies.
Stats: 18min 5pts (2-3, 0-0, 1-2) 0reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Hollins ( D ) -- unfortunately while the last time out Hollins gave us really steady defensive roleplayer work, this time out turned out to be more a demonstration of his limitations, and just how frightenly ineffective he can be at times. Tried to play help defense to modest effect, but the problem was that the man he was leaving to help, Kyle O'Quinn, is a big body with some skill, and so time and again he was left open and just converted easy easy finishes while Ryan was off floating around after various guards and forwards. The same trait kept Hollins so far from the boards that at 7;0" tall he managed to play 18 minutes and not grab a single board. Not even the of the ball movement was working much this time out, although he did manage to go to a 1 on 1 post move and hit a long range half hook. I have him down as picking up a bad pass turnover trying to hit a circling Ben, but the boxscore doesn't agree. In any case, after a sluggish 3rd by the starters that nearly killed us, Ryan again did not return for the stretch run. And the teeny tiny downgrade from a 23pt 12reb center to a 5pt 0reb center could have just a little something to do with explaining this outcome. --Brick
Miriam Giovanelli -- Spanish actress
Stats: 24min 2pts (1-3, 0-2, 0-0) 2reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
McLemore ( D- ) -- fairly remarkable game in a way -- I was almost going to rely on some variety of the "not sure Ben ever showed up" joke, but that was the thing, Ben was quite literally the King who got the game off to a good start when he took the opening tip and raced down for a quick athletic finish in the opening seconds. What is remarkable of course is that was IT. He completely and totally disappeared and was never heard from again. he had 2pts 10 seconds in the game. He still had 2pts 24 minutes of action later. Fournier was up on him, and I may have to start paying more attention to him, because I would not have said he was a great defender. But for whatever reason Ben rarely got free, his teammates rarely looked for him, and Ben just quietly drifted back into a haze, never accomplishing much of anything other than scoring either. His defense was solid enough during the first half, but Fournier started clicking after half, and Ben I think just wanted to go home, and so ended up watching none other than Ramon Sessions take his late minutes. At least Ramon had a pulse. --Brick
Amy Paffrath -- who seems to have a little Rachel McAdams in her and fearlessly has explored every haircolor in the color spectrum.
Stats: 34min 22pts (6-14, 3-6, 7-9) 3reb 4ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Collison ( B ) -- lost in the euphoria of our first strong/solid start in the better part of a decade is the continuing oddity of asking and expecting a 27yr old PG who has never averaged more than 13.2pts per game in a season to step out on court and be this consistent major weapon. And yet here we were again with DC raggedly leading us in scoring. Unfortunately it was little ore than enough to earn a draw vs. Oladipo, who was occasionally causing DC problems with his athleticism for much of the night. In the early going DC mostly won the matchup against Oladipo and Payton with his saavy, and after returning got the easiest layup of his career as the Magic just parted like the Red Sea as he darted in on the left side. Active in the final minutes of the half once Malone finally let him back on the floor -- apparently we were determined to rest our key personnel on the 2nd night of a back to back, even if that meant letting the bench fall far behind. Darted in front of Oladipo to draw the charge and made a nice dish to JT inside for the dunk as the starters tried to recover from the whole the bench had left them in. Not dominant, but productive and keeping the scoreboard moving. After half it wasn't as settled, and for whatever reason Darren's response to our teamwide struggles appeared to be to flail into the paint wildly and hope the refs bailed him out. Why DC would take a look at Sessions' game and say hey, that looked like a good strategy, I do not know. At a perfect time in the early 4th with us on life support, DC stepped up behind DWill and hit tow huge threes from the left angle, almost exactly the same spot for each. The first one he added a FT on the 4pt play to cut the lead to 9. Two huge daggers to help drive us right back in it, but for the most part the 4th for us was about DWill and Sessions. DC and Rudy were just along for the ride. Padded out the scoring line with a third 3 with the game over in the final seconds, but wasn;t actually doing much else except suddenly playing Damian Lillard for us (despite Jerry's odd conviction that Collison is just right about ready to become a deadly top of the circle facing three point shooter, he's never shown that at any point in his career. Normally he can hit them from the corners, but so far this year, not even that). I actually pondered putting a minus behind this B as it was kind of a scruffy run of the mill 22pt game, but a leading scorer is a leading scorer. --Brick
Camille Belle
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But for now third guard with handles, ability to make open shots and average defense, plus competent big body with some length would go a long way.
