Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Peja ( A ) -- and so we go back the other way -- excellent game for Peja. Better first half than second half, when he kind of drifted back a bit. Again not just a questin of him being hot, question of him playing inspired, determined ball. Tonight he did and it resulted in aggressive offensive cuts + layups, threes in guy's faces, pretty good boardwork in the first half, and nice defense on Vince Carter before halftime as well. Second half was not nearly as strong, disappeared on the glass, Vince started scoring on him. But the game was pretty much over by that point, and the offense was still very efficient. 25 pts on 14 shots works for me, and too efficient to go with the "-".
Songaila ( C+ ) -- Darius wasn't terrible, but neither was he very good, and just on that basis alone he stood out amongst our starting 5. Of course he is a bencher just filling in, so both the motivation and talent level is different. Couldn't get his shooting touch going tonight, not much on the glass -- Brad kind of took care of that. Had a couple of ugly turnovers, but also made a nice skip pass to Bibby for an open three. 8pts 6rebs in a fill in start. *Shrug*
Miller ( A+ ) -- Just completely pummeled the Nets in every conceivable fashion tonight. Best player on the floor. Hit everything, inside and out. Dominated the glass. Passed well. Came out with a determined look in his eye that was appreciated -- with Webb out somebody had to step forward up front and Brad really led us out there. Of course there was not much competition, but you go for 31-12-5 and shoot 14-18 that's an A+ no matter who you are and who you are playing.
Mobley ( A- ) -- started slowly, but as per his wont, got stronger and stronger as the game went along and finished with such a rush of well rounded play that it was hard to hold the line on the "-" to his A. Basically he gets it for a middling first half and some troubles handling Carter defensively. But he came within 3 rebounds of a triple double and there were several interesting and welcome developments with Cat along the way. First, in the third quarter he broke out the ole Christie to a backcutting Peja pass from the top of the key -- nice to see that reappear in our offense with our new OG. Second, at the end of the third he took on the Bobby role as the guy to go one on one and take the shot at the end of the quarter, and hit it. Replacing some of the special plays of both of our old veteran guards. And tonight, with Webber's assists out of the lineup, Cat really stepped into that Christie role to be that third passer with Bibby and Miller. Very encouraging game because a few forced shots aside, tonight his game reeked of "Kings".
Bibby ( A- ) -- strong and easy game tonight. Really keyed our vastly improved passing, and was repeatedly set up for and drained open threes around the perimeter. In years past, doing this to Jason Kidd would have been a flat "A", but Jason is so obviously a shell of himself anymore, that its not that big of an accomplishment anymore. Webb is not always 100%, but he remains the only player as far as I know to ever come back as anything approaching his former self from that injury. In any case Bibby was excellent, and maybe even an straight A given that he was every bit as efficient as Peja and Brad, but still felt like probably only our #3 guy tonight.
Ostertag ( C+ ) -- short stint in the first half, and then back for garbagetime. Not much to report. Couple of blocks, nice no look drop off pass to Barnes in the last 20 seconds of garbagetime. Is making Shaq look like Reggie Miller on the line right now -- UGLY.
Martin ( C ) -- short first half stint and then played the entire 4th -- mostly extended garbagetime as we were up by 20 the whole way. Didn't do much again. Got his only points off a brilliant full court pass from Brad in the first half.
House ( INC ) -- extended garbagetime, almost enough minutes to rate him on, but game was over. Hit his shots, which is a nice change.
Barnes ( INC ) -- grabbed some garbagetime boards. Also made some garbagetime turnovers.
Bradley ( INC ) -- little scruffier effort for Bradley than the first two. Looked a little shaky on defense.
Daniels ( INC ) -- welcome back to the roster Erik. Now unfortunately didn't make much of a case for yourself in garbagetime.
Adelman ( B ) -- did something very interesting, maybe alarming, maybe brilliant -- more or less played our 5 starters almost straight on through the first 3 1/2 quarters. Just some short stints for Tag and Martin, but at the end of 3 I think all 5 starters were well over 30 minutes. Could be the confidence in the players, could be trying to restore us to rhythm after the Spurs disaster, could be just trying to knock the Nets out early and get to garbagetime. Whatever it was though, was interesting but I can't really sign off on it (which I am sure causes Rick no end of angst
). Just no way Brad Miller and Cat should be in THIS game with 4:30 minutes left. No way we should have 3 starters logging 40+ minutes. That's just silly and excessive. The Kingsfans.com All-Stars could probably have played the 4th quarter and held off the Nets. No need to rack up extra wear and tear on the starters. Okay, for the rest -- team quite obviously listened up to whatever Rick said in the last couple of days, because we played this one right from the start. This was a bad team, and we would pretty much have had to beat ourselves to lsoe it. But we didn't just win, we played our game and dismantled them.
Songaila ( C+ ) -- Darius wasn't terrible, but neither was he very good, and just on that basis alone he stood out amongst our starting 5. Of course he is a bencher just filling in, so both the motivation and talent level is different. Couldn't get his shooting touch going tonight, not much on the glass -- Brad kind of took care of that. Had a couple of ugly turnovers, but also made a nice skip pass to Bibby for an open three. 8pts 6rebs in a fill in start. *Shrug*
Miller ( A+ ) -- Just completely pummeled the Nets in every conceivable fashion tonight. Best player on the floor. Hit everything, inside and out. Dominated the glass. Passed well. Came out with a determined look in his eye that was appreciated -- with Webb out somebody had to step forward up front and Brad really led us out there. Of course there was not much competition, but you go for 31-12-5 and shoot 14-18 that's an A+ no matter who you are and who you are playing.
Mobley ( A- ) -- started slowly, but as per his wont, got stronger and stronger as the game went along and finished with such a rush of well rounded play that it was hard to hold the line on the "-" to his A. Basically he gets it for a middling first half and some troubles handling Carter defensively. But he came within 3 rebounds of a triple double and there were several interesting and welcome developments with Cat along the way. First, in the third quarter he broke out the ole Christie to a backcutting Peja pass from the top of the key -- nice to see that reappear in our offense with our new OG. Second, at the end of the third he took on the Bobby role as the guy to go one on one and take the shot at the end of the quarter, and hit it. Replacing some of the special plays of both of our old veteran guards. And tonight, with Webber's assists out of the lineup, Cat really stepped into that Christie role to be that third passer with Bibby and Miller. Very encouraging game because a few forced shots aside, tonight his game reeked of "Kings".
Bibby ( A- ) -- strong and easy game tonight. Really keyed our vastly improved passing, and was repeatedly set up for and drained open threes around the perimeter. In years past, doing this to Jason Kidd would have been a flat "A", but Jason is so obviously a shell of himself anymore, that its not that big of an accomplishment anymore. Webb is not always 100%, but he remains the only player as far as I know to ever come back as anything approaching his former self from that injury. In any case Bibby was excellent, and maybe even an straight A given that he was every bit as efficient as Peja and Brad, but still felt like probably only our #3 guy tonight.
Ostertag ( C+ ) -- short stint in the first half, and then back for garbagetime. Not much to report. Couple of blocks, nice no look drop off pass to Barnes in the last 20 seconds of garbagetime. Is making Shaq look like Reggie Miller on the line right now -- UGLY.
Martin ( C ) -- short first half stint and then played the entire 4th -- mostly extended garbagetime as we were up by 20 the whole way. Didn't do much again. Got his only points off a brilliant full court pass from Brad in the first half.
House ( INC ) -- extended garbagetime, almost enough minutes to rate him on, but game was over. Hit his shots, which is a nice change.
Barnes ( INC ) -- grabbed some garbagetime boards. Also made some garbagetime turnovers.
Bradley ( INC ) -- little scruffier effort for Bradley than the first two. Looked a little shaky on defense.
Daniels ( INC ) -- welcome back to the roster Erik. Now unfortunately didn't make much of a case for yourself in garbagetime.
Adelman ( B ) -- did something very interesting, maybe alarming, maybe brilliant -- more or less played our 5 starters almost straight on through the first 3 1/2 quarters. Just some short stints for Tag and Martin, but at the end of 3 I think all 5 starters were well over 30 minutes. Could be the confidence in the players, could be trying to restore us to rhythm after the Spurs disaster, could be just trying to knock the Nets out early and get to garbagetime. Whatever it was though, was interesting but I can't really sign off on it (which I am sure causes Rick no end of angst
). Just no way Brad Miller and Cat should be in THIS game with 4:30 minutes left. No way we should have 3 starters logging 40+ minutes. That's just silly and excessive. The Kingsfans.com All-Stars could probably have played the 4th quarter and held off the Nets. No need to rack up extra wear and tear on the starters. Okay, for the rest -- team quite obviously listened up to whatever Rick said in the last couple of days, because we played this one right from the start. This was a bad team, and we would pretty much have had to beat ourselves to lsoe it. But we didn't just win, we played our game and dismantled them.
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