Grades v. Mavs 11/02/04

slugking50 · Nov 3, 2004

i can understand somebody saying Webb looks hobbled. Webb has that funny running style which IMHO looks so painful. I guess I need to see some old footage to compare but watching him run makes my whole body hurt.lol

I agree with the grade pretty much.

Barnes was fabulous, Miller was good but definately got whooped early. Although, His rebounding needs work!! Webbwas pretty good as well. Same thing about rebounding though!!

Bibby and Peja forgot we were playing I guess. Peja was abused by Dirk and Bibby was abused by the rook. Well No excuses tonight for either of them.

I think the 43 even rebounding numbers are lying a bit. We had a lot of tips which skewed the numbered a tad. I watched the replay of the game and if it werent for the tips the Mavs would of had atleast a 8-10 board edge.

For the first game we didnt look too bad. The engine is being tuned and its going to take a while before its working on all cylinders. Its just 1 game of 82. Still a long way to go....

Double-K · Nov 3, 2004

Was he just hanging out with his new born baby during the summer? Was he suppose to train to be a better all-rounder? Am I mistaken or something? I know it's just one game and I know Pedja would not play like that most of the time.... but from some highlight I saw, he didn't seem to care about his "performance" ......Is he too lay back or is it just me?????

Bricklayer · Nov 3, 2004

Maybe we should keep an "empty minutes" stat. Now I thought Tag was effective in there, and Evans and Songaila both had their moments, but nonetheless we had a LOT of guys who really were invisible statistically: Evans, Songaila, Tag and Martin combined for:

60min 5pts (2-10, 0-1, 1-2) 4rebs 3ast 0stl 1blk 2TO 4FL

that's kind of a whole lot of nothing, in particular while 2 of your three leading scorers are taking the night off.

Truconfidence · Nov 3, 2004

Bricklayer said:

Bricklayer I think you hit the nail on the head. Ostertag gets a pass cause he hasnt played with these guys but the rest of them, if you arent scoring can do something else. I thought Evans and Songalia's minutes were completely empty. Martin just was way too nervous. When he passed up that first open shot took a dribble in and hit the side of the backboard, I immediately looked at the Kings bench to see if Adelman was walking down looking for someone to point at to come in. cause he passed up a wide open 21fter to take a contested 16fter.

Truconfidence · Nov 3, 2004

My take on the game was that they played really well in the 2nd half. No reason to be discouraged by the loss at all if the game was 2mins longer they would have won. Barnes played with confidence and i hope he starts at the 2 tonight. Webber and Miller both played well, it seems Chris was holding back in the pre-season fooled all of us. Bibby was horrid as well as Peja. Sonaglia, Martin and Evans showed up..thanks for coming..Ostertag really seemed to settle thigns down, very impressed in his limited minutes, that he is going to end up being a huge factor on this team. Bobby Jackson was B-Jax...jacking up ill-advised shots but you live with it,lol. considering how they ended the pre-season, i give the performace as a team broken down into halves 1st half=D, 2nd half=B+...showed heart in the 2nd half at least....and although Barnes played well, i dont think we wanna see him in crunch time on the floor ever as he did make a mistake there at the end that hurt the comeback chances. He has hit his shots but he isnt a very good shooter...so im gonna wait 3 more games before i reconsider my mental file on his ability.

piksi · Nov 3, 2004

slugking50 said:

Pedja had an extremly bad game but this statement is not entirely true. Dirk Player PF all night long. Dallas did not play small ball.

KingKong · Nov 3, 2004

I' m actually quite hopeful about our bench:

Otag semes like a good backup for Miller, will clog the lane and provide some needed toughness.

Songaila didn't play well tonight, but he hustles and has a decent offensive game, he needs to become a better rebounder though.

Matt Barnes, what can you say about this guys first game. Just awesome

Courtney Alexander, this guy is definately gonna get the nod over Flash, as soon has he gets healthy. An efficient and proven scorer with some athleticism. From you takes, Flash seemed lost out there. Needs to get more confident, but he is still a rookie. He will learn. Not too sure how Mo evans played.

Bobby, essentially played starting mins over a lackluster Bibby. Plays hard and plays great defense.

I think our second is much better defensively than our starting lineup. That's a good thing but our starting 5 needs to pick it up on the defnsive end or were gonna get run out by a lot of teams and we will be having to play catch up most of the game.

sloter · Nov 3, 2004

Well, so many people complained about Pedja not being rested enough for the season, and critiqued his decision to play for the national team over the summer and now that he finally had a basketball-free summer they are criticizing him for not being in shape. Which one do you want ?
I didn't see the game, but Webber's numbers look good - but this is really no surprise - Dallas is one team he's been torturing on a regular basis.

Bricklayer · Nov 3, 2004

sloter said:

I don't really think he's not in shape. He should be fine but:

1) I am not 100% sure of where his head is. Have nothing to really prove its not in the game/team/winning, but nothing really to prove it is either (and a summer full of vague indications of unrest). Was glad to see that he was one of the signatories to that ad in the Bee, but I have a feeling they came to him with it rather than the other way around.

2) If his head is fine he should be back to the same ole Peja. Which is mostly good, but wherein also lies the problem. Many people wanted him to take some time off from playing year around, but not from practicing too. In fact one of the hopes for him taking time off was not even so much about being "tired" as it was that if he took time off, he could use that time productively to, for instance, work on a back to the basket game to punish smaller defenders with and make it impractical to guard him with twerps like Hassel. But now it appears that when he took time off, he REALLY took time off. Rested sure (well maybe -- hardly the most restful summer for him). But no improvements in his game. That could really become an issue if we once again run into Minnesota or San Antonio in the playoffs and Peja basically doesn't have any new tricks to beat Bowen/Hassel with. Tonight might be interesting. Would LOVE to see Peja show something to indicate he is figuring out how to beat the Bowens of the world.

vj9999 · Nov 3, 2004

I think Peđa will be fine, but I was kind of worried when I saw him towards thje end of the game making funny facial expressions. It almost seemed like "Win or loose, doesn't matter to me.". I guess it also could have been "What a hell is wrong with you Peđa?! You know you can do better than that."

sloter · Nov 3, 2004

Pedja should just start dunking on people.

webberfan · Nov 3, 2004

piksi said:

yeah, for the most part it was webber getting abused by dirk and miller getting abused by dampier, especially early. i'm not worried about peja. he had a bad game, and probably will tonight against bowen, too.

but, he'll get better as the season goes on. after all, he basically took the summer off so i'm going to reserve judgment for at least a few games.

CruzDude · Nov 3, 2004

I generally agree with all Bricklayer's evals except for CWebb. His defense was lacking and he got beat off the dribble most of the time. His lateral movement is still suspect. His rebounding numbers were misleading when it came to banging under the basket or offensive rebounds. I'd give him a straight B because it is the first game and he is about 85%-90%.

Don't expect to see as many minutes from him tonight tho' and that is good. Want him 100% for last 20 games and playoffs.

Otherwise the second half was a "B" level game as a team with the "Bench Mob" doing better than the "core".

VF21 · Nov 1, 2005

BUMP. I brought this forward for comparison purposes - to see how we felt after the first game last year.

stevetaebo · Nov 1, 2005

Not so outragous predictions afterall =/

Ric Bucher ESPN Mag:

Bonzi Wells and Shareef Abdur-Rahim aren't suited to play the Princeton style that has been the Kings' hallmark since GM Geoff Petrie built this team. Another talented team that will be searching for an identity.

Chris Sheridan ESPN.com Insider:

Bonzi for Bobby was the rare risky move by Geoff Petrie, and it might blow up on him. Shareef was a decent signing, but he hasn't played a playoff game in nine NBA seasons. He'll make it 10 under Rick Adelman and whoever replaces him.

VF21 · Nov 1, 2005

What are you talking about? This is the grade thread from our first game last year (Nov. 2, 2004) and has absolutely no mention of the Kings acquiring SAR or Bonzi a year later...

love_them_kings · Nov 2, 2005

hmm... didn't think I'd ever look back on that game fondly, but compared to this game, that was a picnic!

QueensFan · Nov 2, 2005

There's a difference between losing 107-98 at Dallas and scoring 67 pts and losing by nearly 30 in OKC to the Hornets. Big difference.

VF21 · Nov 2, 2005

That's kind of the point, QueensFan. I revived the thread because, even though we lost our first game last year, too, the particulars were totally different.

I mentioned in another thread - I did some quick checking and it looks like the last time the Kings scored as low as 67 points was in a 89-67 loss to the Chicago Bulls in Chicago on March 19, 1996.

QueensFan · Nov 2, 2005

VF21 said:

Oof! Those were Jordan's Bulls!

These are...Speedy Claxton's Hornets?

ONEZERO · Nov 2, 2005

Wow when I first saw this thread, I was like brick has wayyyy too much time on his hands to make a grades for the suns against the mavs hahahhahaha. I thought he had picked up a new trend on making grades for our divisional rivals hahahha.

Oh and that game last year shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as yesterdays game, yesterdays game was a complete disgrace.

And one more thing, if webb continues his play like he did yesterday(big IF), then we will surely be kicking ourselves in the head(and I know about the huge contract, but still, 34 points and 14 rebounds against one of the best frontlines in the league- bogut, gadzuric, magloire, etc...-?? That's just amazing).

And its just one game. We'll see how we fair against the rockets tonight. It'll give us a better clue(win or loss) of how good we can be. We still gotta give this team time. It'll all come together, trust me.

stevetaebo · Nov 2, 2005

VF21 said:

heh very sneaky VF. I didnt read the header, thought it was from the game last night.

bdouble013 · Nov 2, 2005

QF!!!! You better not disappear again!

Grades v. Mavs 11/02/04

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