Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Ok, not a whole bunch to say here. With Cousins and Gay out, we are back to Smart era gunner guards which is just *yawn*, sorry. And just like we have for years, our gunner guards get out, try to run with the Nuggets without discipline, the Nuggets, who do this professionally, then outscore us playing their game, and we lose. So easy story. Two things of note: 1) Ben finally had a game. Marcus was still pretty good too, but for Ben it might have been his best game of the season. he missed big shots down the stretch that we needed, but until that point he actually looked like a professional basketball player out there, on both ends of the floor. So that was a definite yay. Thing too was what looked to be a new passing series to turn our non-passing wings into creaters for their teammates by having them attack along the sides, draw doubles, and then hit the open men cutting to the rim. Ben and Outlaw made a number of good passes out of that sequence, and combined with nice passing from the Last of The Big Men in Aaron Gray, we got enough ball movement on the night.
Anyway, we lost kinda the way you'd expect we'd lose. Scored a lot. Gave up even more. Lots of smallball.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 31min 12pts (3-5, 0-0, 6-7) 8reb 0ast 2stl 1blk 2TO
Williams ( C+ ) -- This was sort of a mixed bag type game for Williams. I liked a lot of what I saw, but we just didn’t get enough out of him overall. He was having a rough game on both ends that included forced jumpers and lazy defense until Quincy Miller kind of embarrassed him on a poke-steal that finally woke him up. From this point on his defensive effort was much better, and he started hitting some of the tough shots he was missing earlier in the night. He also started to get to the line a lot as the Wilson Chandlers and Quincy Millers of the world couldn’t handle his size and strength inside, but the Kings never made a conscientious effort to feed him the ball down there. While his defensive and offensive effort varied throughout the game, he deserves some credit for his rebounding, which was solid throughout. I think it’s been pretty obvious since Williams was traded to Sacramento that he’s most effective either moving without the ball and cutting or on the block, and the Kings failed to ever really get him rolling tonight. And without Rudy Gay or DeMarcus Cousins, they really needed more out of Williams. It’s worth noting that late in the fourth quarter he was forced out of the game with some sort of cut and was replaced by Outlaw. He looked fine on the bench soon after, but Malone kept Outlaw in there instead. I don’t know if Malone ever gave an exact explanation of what happened there, but that’s what it looked like, and Outlaw was having the better game overall. --Mass
Stats: 28min 13pts (5-7, 0-0, 3-4) 10reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Thompson ( B+ ) -- Thompson started the game with two quick fouls, getting quickly yanked. He only logged about nine minutes in the entire first half and grabbed a grand total of one rebound and was well on his way to a dismal grade. But somehow the locker room turned things around and JT came out a new man in the second half. He grabbed three rebounds in the first two minutes of the third, and finished the game with a total of 10 - 9 in the second half. He was nicely efficient on offense, attempting 7 shots (all in the paint) and only missing one dunk (blocked by Mozgov) and a tip attempt in traffic. JT's unsung contribution on the night was his defense. Not only did he hold his man to practically nothing (3 points on 3 shots), but he also did a fantastic job on help. I counted 17 help opportunites for JT, and in those there were only three made shots and one set of free throws. JT forced four misses on help and made nine stops on the drive to force a pass out of the paint. So good D, good boards, good shooting...good grade. --Capt.
Stats: 25min 6pts (3-4, 0-0, 0-0) 8reb 5ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Gray ( B ) -- Aaron Gray started for the 2nd time with Cousins out and did Aaron Gray sort of things. He got defensive rebounds, set nice screens, made the proper pass, stayed out of the way on offense and played passable defense. There was nothing extraordinary going on in this one. Just pretty solid play. He was better on the offensive end than the defensive one. He is the best screen-setter on the team, and he used those screens to free up the wing players for easier shots or easier lanes to the rim. He also made a number of ‘correct’ passes and in the process ended up with 5 assists, which tied a career high. (I went through the game logs and he had one other 5 assist game back on December 19, 2007…)On defense he got to match up with Faried, which really isn’t a good match-up for him because he doesn’t possess the quickness and athleticism to properly handle Faried, and he lacks the offensive skills to take advantage of Faried on the other end. So though he played decently on defense, Faried got the better of him in this match-up. But we didn’t lose this game because Gray was unable to contain Faried, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. On offense, he had a couple of scoring opportunities and he made the most of them, converting on 3 of the 4, and other than that, just used his big body to set screens to create for other players. --Uncia
Stats: 28min 19pts (8-13, 0-3, 3-3) 2reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thornton ( B+ ) -- if you notice dogs and cats singing Sound of Music tunes together on your way home from work today, don't be surprised, because this is now two nights in a row where the lowly SG grader may have gotten to give out the best grades of the lot. Early in the game MT scored in a variety of ways that showed that the talent is still there, but which unfortunately are going to be largely worthless to us once our top guys get back. Scored the first hoop on a MT special that you only see on bad teams as he dribbled, dribbled, crossed over, crossed over again..and unlike a Tyreke Evans who would have a layup by that point, he was still standing in the same spot on the floor and settled for a fallback midrange jumper, which he drained. After missing an open jumper, he then scored a tough tough +1 charging right into Mozgov's chest and finishing with strength through the center. Actually lost a good chunk of his first half minutes because Ben came off the bench and was so good himself -- again, this is kind of an unprecedented writeup for us this year. And when he finally did return, he and Ben actually played together for a spell. Started out the 3rd with bang bang hits that got us back tied in the game, but then was forgotten about as IT decided to gun. Not doing the other things as much this time out, which holds the grade back a bit. Largely just a scorer, but an efficient one again, and there most of the night. Hit another high skill shot with a pretty fake and finish in the early 4th, easily hit as jumper over Nate with 4:30 to go...but then in another bit of this-won't fly-in-the-long run, grabbed a good d-board, then raced down court and forced the 1 on 4 hero drive into the teeth of heavy traffic for what was basically a bonehead turnover. Better was a play with 1:30 to go where we used him as a decoy, and he did a nice job drawing 2 guys off a pick, and slipping it to the open JT for a dunk to cut the lead to 5 with 1:30 to go. This wasn't 42 points, but it reinforced the point that Marcus Thornton the 18-20ppg scorer is still on this team, he just can't function as his style of 18-20ppg scorer (run n' gun undisciplined 1st/2nd option) as an afterthought alongside a more disciplined post attack. These injuries might give us a better chance to trade him though if teams take note the talent is still there.( --Brick
Stats: 36min 22pts (7-21, 1-6, 7-8) 5reb 8ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Thomas ( D+ ) -- thought about C- on this one, but I just couldn't, in good faith, give a better grade to a player that dominated the ball as much as he did, and accomplished so little. He may have appeared to have been an active and contributing factor in the game, but it was all smoke and mirrors. Because when you look at the results, they don't add up to the image that was presented. Yes, he scored 22 points, but it took him 21 shots to accomplish that. He only made 7 of those shots. By my math that's a 33% clip. Now you can say that every player has a bad shooting night, and I would agree. If it was my SG, or my SF that had that kind of night, I would just chalk it up to one of those nights, but were talking about Thomas our PG here, and that position comes with other responsibilities. He started the game very well, and I remember thinking at the time that this is the kind of play I want from him. He ran a pick and roll with Gray resulting in Gray scoring a layup. He followed with a full court pass to a streaking Thornton who laid it in. He then made a beautiful pass as he crossed halfcourt to JT right under the basket for another easy bucket. We're just a minute and a half into the game, and he's already logged 3 asssists. Then it started to go downhill. He followed with a lazy pass to Thornton that was picked off. On the next possession he had a mismatch with Chandler guarding him. But Chandler did a nice job of staying in front of IT and and forced him into a tough shot that missed. After making a floater, and then a very tough 16 foot jumper over two defenders, he led a 3 on 1 break with one trailer and Outlaw to his right with two defenders between him and the basket. I remember the Nuggets announcer saying, "He won't give it up and everybody knows it", or something very close to that. And of course he was right! IT tried to spit both defenders when he had an easy basket in Outlaw right there. Now it would be easy to look at Thomas counterpart in the game and decide how good a job he did defensively, but it actually wouldn't be quite fair. Although Lawson scored 27 points on 9 of 15 shooting, he wasn't being guarded by Thomas all that time. There were some good moments for IT against Lawson, who is one of the quickest guards in the NBA. I thought IT worked hard at times, and then other times, like in the second half, when Lawson was crossing halfcourt, he suddenly blew by Thomas and headed for the basket for a layup. Thomas was caught flatfooted, but then just stood there and watched as though he had bought a ticket. At times, he has this tendency to become a spectator when he gets beat. Now I know it sounds like I'm being overly hard on Thomas. If, I thought he was playing to his abilities, I would be more lenient, but IT is capable of being much better. Offensively IT has had moments of brilliance with his creativity. He's like the Dr Jeckell/Mr. Hyde of PG's. Unfortunately, Mr. Hyde seems to be the dominate personality. Too bad, because Dr. Jeckell is one smart dude!--Baja
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