Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat

Running out of superlatives here. This wasn't just a beatdown, we came out in the first, and Boogie came out in the first, like a championship team toying with some bottom feeder. We were playing games out there, having fun. The Nuggets tried to fight back, went superquick and began blasting by our guards, but that left Cuz to stomp around inside like King Kong, and finally in frustration they started acting like a hockey team and just thugging anything they could hit. They're in trouble. And we on the other hand are flying so high Malone was fighting to keep our feet on the ground. We haven't seen anything like this since Adelman left all those years ago. Its only 5 games, but what a 5 games. If you're watching now you might be able to say in a few years that you were there and saw how it all began again.

Boxscore
Stats: 35min 29pts (9-12, 3-3, 8-10) 3reb 2ast 1stl 1blk 3TO
Gay ( A ) -- if Cousins hadn't played maybe the most dominant laughably out of anybody's league game of his whole career, the guy we'd be talking about is Rudy Gay. All he did was score 29pts on 12 shots. That's a TS% of...a lot. If you're looking around for excuses how that doesn't get an A+ I guess you would say it took longer to rack up those points than Cuz, and in the early going of this one he was only guy getting scored over as Wilson Chandler was virtually the only Nugget not curled up in the fetal position by the end of our first quarter 40pt onslaught. But once Rudy started smoothly dropping in his shots there wasn't a single Nugget who could do anything about it. He wasn't throwing up junk -- I only remember one Toronto Rudy shot, and he did miss that one (and Cuz picked up a foul trying to chase the rebound), but all those nice smooth silky turnarounds and little pullups that he normally shoots at a 50-60% clip he was now hitting at basically a 100% clip. When Cousins left for the first time in the first, Rudy did exactly what he was supposed to and stepped up into the void and kept us rolling. The second quarter was our worst real quarter (the garbagetime became messy) and the shakiest by Rudy too. He was brought back in to try to stabilize that bench again, and actually missed a shot. Shocking. But the larger issue was that the Nuggets briefly hit upon a super smallball kill them with quickness counter to our bullyball, at one point having Nate Robinson and Ty Lawson out there together as a backcourt, and Rudy and the guards (even Collison) were having problems keeping all that quickness in front of them. But the Nuggets were also by this time into desperate frustrated thugging mode, and Rudy began to feast on the line. Just for kicks he started dropping in three pointers too, and he didn't mess any of them either. Everything worked and when Cousins and Gay were out there together it was comical watching the Nuggets just helplessly spin around like tops. So a big ole A for Rudy here, as through the first 5 games we have not 1, but 2 players carrying insane MVP level PERs (Rudy is at 27.2 so far this season, LeBron's career mark is 27.8).
Stats: 17min 0pts (0-5, 0-0, 0-2) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( D ) -- poor JT. There was a big ole party going on around him and he wanted so badly to join in but simply did not have the talent for it. This was bad Jason again, the same inconsistent suddenly can't do anything right and oh I'm going to get upset too guy who has popped up time and again over Jason's career and made him such an undependable force. And with the team already making a concerted effort to get McLemore going, even on a night like this there wasn't enough energy/focus to get spend trying to pick up JT too, and so he was left to struggle on his own. In a different game, you'd shake your head and point at his disappearance as one of the reasons why we lost. in this one...he was just wildly not in the spirit of things, but no harm no foul. Well, actually quite a few fouls as he picked up 4 in only 16 minutes, and being Jason wasn't able to just brush off the Nuggets thuggery the way everyone else was for the sake of the blowout. Did nothing in the first, but you said, hey, didn't need to. But in the third did less than nothing. Took a hard fall, got up, and promptly bricked both FTs. Cuz set him up on the baseline for a wide open jumper and he threw it terribly off the backboard. And more than anything else he just didn't get it and was out there being unhappy and complaining while we were blowing the other team out by 30 and having fun doing it. The good was that Faried in this one was busy making the Nuggets $13mil contract they just dropped on him like very scary, but evern there that performance didn't appear to be nearly as much the result of JT's work as it was last time. So...gentleman's D here. We won going away and absolutely did not need JT. Which was good, because we didn't have him.
Stats: 22min 30pts (10-14, 0-0, 10-11) 11reb 1ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Cousins ( A++ and oh...+ ) -- ok, words aren't really going to work here. Gushing like a teenage girl with her first big crush might work, but I have my pride. I would like to point you to the minutes section of that statline above. That was immediately looked up and it turns out no player in the NBA has put up 30+10+ in 22 or fewer minutes in 28 years, since Moses Malone in 1986. So hop in your hot tub time machines because this was a complete blast to watch unless you were a Nuggets fan. In fact reports are that Boogie was even joining in the tradition of Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, and MJ and talking to the Nuggets bench as he killed the guys on court, at one point apparently asking Brian Shaw "are you kidding me?" at how they were trying to guard him. Love it. (He was also smart enough to go over after the game and give no hard feelings hugs/handshakes to the Nuggets coaching staff -- those guys will be voting on who gets to be an All Star (well maybe, because if this keeps up they may be fired). Anyway, to the game, and what are you going to say? There was no ebb and flow to Cuz's game tonight except for when Malone or the refs took him out of the game. From the instant it started everything worked. The legs were alive, he dropped a great spin move, the jumper was draining, and he was incredibly aggressive (actually while the refs ended his night early with several terrible second half calls, I was glad they swallowed them on the physical play early or they could have ruined a fun night). And he did so much in so few minutes. We actually rested him the first time only 6min into the game as part of Malone's new, and wise, strategy of trying to keep either Cuz or Gay out there at all times. He came back for the end of the quarter and without even playing the whole quarter already had 16 points. And during the second quarter the Nuggets desperate mini-ball strategy had one critical flaw: it left DeMarcus Cousins having an epic night alone in there to stomp on a bunch of SFs and PGs. And stomp he did. They had no chance at all. Once they quite literally triple teamed him. Not just in the area, 3 guys actually ran up on all sides and tried to stop Kong from scoring. So he stepped one way, stepped the other, stepped right thought them, and scored anyway. And then the thuggery began, with frustrated Nuggets just blatantly smacking people (and maybe Cuz's chatter to the bench helping) and he was sent to the line again and again on hard fouls. But this is new Cuz. This is Cuz as, for the moment, legitimate MVP candidate, and he took them with little complaint, and even laughed as he baited Mozgov into complete thugging in the 3rd. DeMarcus Cousins winning the mental battles? Wow. In fact the most dangerous moments were also good ones a Boogie raced over to step in and have words with Nuggets after they were thugging his teammates. That can get you a T, but having your big man and star come over to protect his guys..that's a great sign for the team, even if I still hope we get an Oakley at some point to do it for him. So he did anything he wanted, he did it under control. He was patient, he set guys up, he made smart passes, and he probably turned water into wine. About the worst you can say is that McGee in the two games has shown the occasional ability to score over him with postups. Anyway, this was one of the best games we've seen a Sacramento King play, period. It was a completely dominant toying with you display, and the whole game took on the feel of an early season coronation because of it. A+. and +. and ++++.
Stats: 36min 10pts (3-7, 2-5, 2-2) 7reb 3ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
McLemore ( B+ ) -- if you didn't get to see the game, lost amongst the boxscore fireworks is going to be what looks like an ok game from Ben, probably joining in the fun late, maybe tossing in a few garbagetime dunks/threes etc. A good for you kid little pat on the head effort. That's what the boxscore suggests, but that's not what happened. In fact what REALLY happened was maybe almost as promising as Boogie's utter dominance. Two things were very clear: 1) somebody, probably the staff, maybe the players came out in this one with the absolute idea of making Ben have a good game. Not just letting him. But we were going to force it. and 2) Ben, and this is more important because he has been given a lot he hasn't earned to this point, but Ben came out 100% focused on making it happen himself. He wasn't just waiting around for his betters to make him look good. He was going to attack and make it happen. This was by far the most aggressive and confident we've seen Ben McLemore, maybe ever. And no, he didn't dominate, he didn't even shoot that well overall. But he came out and absolutely was an athletic factor from the opening tip, which he darted in to steal. Now he immediately started struggling offensively as we, meaning Cuz, Collison and the rest quite obviously fed him. He missed a long contested jumper, then got a stumbling drive blocked, but it was obvious he knew the gameplan and just kept on attacking without hesitation, got to the line on his next shot, and then in a burst of real confidence just flat attacked a defender like a real NBA guard and hit a tough spinning move from the left side. He got up and blocked a shot to trigger a fastbreak to Collison. And while we started out spoonfeeding him, he tore off his bib and absolutely was an athletic contributor to our dominance in the early going. Now defensively it was a mixed bag. Afflalo never did a thing, ben got that block, but he also seemed late to close on several threes, and in the second quarter when the Nuggets went quick/quick in the backcourt Ben was one of the guards who just was having a hell of a time keeping the darts in front of them. But his demeanor was just different. He didn't look scared, passive or like a whipped puppy. He was part of the team, and he came back out in the third flying again, and being an athletic presence on the glass. In maybe the best sequence of the game he got thugged by Mozgov on one end, had Boogie race over to defend him, and then next possession down Rudy finds him darting over to the corner and with no hesitation he pulls up and splashes in a f u buddy! three. That had something approaching moxie to it. As did a shot near the end of the quarter that actually was a bad shot as he drove hard to his right, pulled up, and hit a long three off his dribble. There's only a few players in the NBA you want taking that shot, Ben's not one of them. But he hit it, we were crushing them, and Ben was a legit roleplaying part of that. So, its only 10pts on 3-7 shooting. But if you got to watch the game this might have been better than any of his 18 or 20pt little oops I got hot games last year. This was confident. Aggressive. This had moxie, and on the night we had ourselves an actual SG joining in the fun. Excellent sign.
Stats: 32min 10pts (4-9, 1-4, 1-3) 0reb 8ast 1stl 1blk 0TO
Collison ( B- ) -- after being such a big part of what happened in the first 4 games, in this one Darren largely just laid back in the background, which was fine and even appropriate given how well the main guys were going. In the early going he hit his only three and added a layup out of a timeout, but I thought his greatest contribution might have been making an obvious move to look for Ben and look for Ben some more to get him going. Near the end of the quarter got to the line and bricked both FTs, which actually doubly hurt us because Cuz picked up an offensive foul going for the board on the second miss. But in this game those sorts of little sequences were hardly going to matter. In the second quarter actually had a bit of a defensive issue for maybe the first time this year, as little Nate Robinson proved too quick for even Collison and was wreaking havoc blowing by our guards, all our guards, during that quarter. With Sessions still stubbornly refusing to join the team this season DC probably had to extend his minutes longer than he normally would have, and for the most part he just calmly laid back and directed the blowout, giving everybody their turn, never forcing himself into the equation. We blew them out elsewhere, but again just having that steady and unselfish player at PG moving the ball where it needed to be moved was an asset.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bench
Stats: 19min 6pts (2-4, 0-0, 2-5) 5reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Evans ( B- ) -- in early for Cuz and immediately grabbed a strong d-board to end a denver possession, and then got good position and forced Mcgee to get an over the back foul. Actually seemed to be playing the best of any of our benchers in the early going, but was removed for Gay as Malone wanted to go small. Maybe it was having to watch him shoot FTs and being worried about small children in the front row. There was a possession or two where Mcgee was able to post and drop a shot in over him, which will probably just be a thing all year long if we keep on using a 6'8" guy as a C, but Reggie was part of the fun the whole team was having, and in the .gif I attached (found by Chicken Chaser below) he even hit a jumper to the crowd and bench's delight, and ran back down court and holstered his guns, inspiring Omri to imitate the gesture on the bench. Everybody having fun.
Stats: 22min 11pts (4-7, 0-2, 3-3) 6reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Casspi ( B ) -- you know Omri's return is becoming a real feel good story not just in the human interest way, but also in just how well he's fit in with the spirit of this team on and off court. I mentioned a week or two ago that somebody, whether it be Malone, PDA, or whoever seemed to be loading us up on scrappy vets from Reggie, to Hollins to Casspi. And Omri came into this one again in place of Rudy and just helped keep us going, and took a pass from Reggie to get our 40th pt of the first quarter in the final seconds with a flip on the break. For the remainder of the game he split time backing Rudy up and playing alongside him, but was on court for many of our less effective benchcentric moments. But that wasn't really on Omri, he was doing his thing again with 11pts 6reb in 22min and badly outplaying Gallinari, who just looks like he may be ruined. But there were stretches when he was almost the only guy going as the Nuggets took advantage of Sessions, Stauskas, DWill etc. Of course probably earns an extra + here just for joining in the bench fun on that Reggie shot.
Stats: 11min 2pts (0-2, 0-1, 2-2) 0reb 1ast 2stl 0blk 1TO
Sessions ( D ) -- not sure what to say here. I thought Malone's bench gambit from last game paid dividends today for other players, but despite getting to the line I didn't give Sessiosn a very good grade last time, because he just looked shaky. The boxscore was kind of deceptive. And sure enough, in this game you saw a guy like Landry much steadier and coming online, but Sessions remains mysteriously awol. He notched a couple of steals, but really had a hard time staying in front of Nate/Lawson, and it just seems like he's having a hard time running the offense, getting us into sets and finding the right people. No idea why. I again raise the JJ Hickson situation where an experienced player in the middle of his breakout came in and looked like a scrub (where was he BTW, is he hurt? because the Nuggets needed him, or something). Right now Ramon still isn't terribly playable, and next up we play in Point Guard, Arizona. Time for him to strap it on.
Stats: 16min 5pts (2-5, 1-3, 0-0) 0reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Stauskas ( C- ) -- a few good plays here for Nik, but maybe he's a little shellshocked early in the season as he seemed to be struggling to match the rest of the team's spirited pay, and apparently earned an admonishment from Malone to keep playing hard/right even in the huge blowout. Was getting attacked on defense again, and only occasionally coming up with answers this time. Did get a three to go early in the 4th, and got a nifty up and under to go in the final minute, but definitely one of a handful of guys who woke up this morning maybe not feeling as good about their games as everybody else.
Stats: 16min 18pts (4-6, 0-0, 10-10) 4reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Landry ( B+ ) -- and here is where that extended bench work in Denver may have really paid dividends. This summer as the team was forming up there was one name that jumped out as an obvious 6th man candidate: Carl Landry. Done it for much of his career. Just pure bench points. And while it wasn't pretty, in Denver we kept going to him and going to him and he began to look more like Carl Landry. And tonight maybe that coaching decision paid off, as Landry went back to back as our designated Cuz bench scoring replacement, and racked up 18pts in only 16 minutes of work. It was a complete offensive game as he got drives, jumpers, and most of all to the line again and again as the Nuggets were just fouling anything that moved. There was a shaky stretch in the early 2nd where he forced some shots, and we were starting to flounder until Cuz returned, but otherwise he just worked his game and we are keeping it simple with him, and most of the bench. Casspi is coming on and playing the full floor game, Reggie rebounds, Landry scores. And the guards...the guards dribble around not looking like they know what the heck they are doing.

SEE BELOW (exceeded character limit)
Last edited: