Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
A little shaky on the dismount, but whatever the boxscore may look like, this was a very encouraging response out of the break. Changes in playstyle and focus were evident all over the court. Cuz pounded away inside, there was great hustle on defense, our SGs contributed absolutely nothing...oh wait, not such a big change there. But our Big Three Big Three'd, everybody scrapped, even the ones who sucked. Its about all you can ask for really. Too bad we gave up so much ground before the break.
Boxscore
Stats: 41min 24pts (7-16, 4-5, 6-8) 3reb 1ast 3stl 0blk 4TO
Summary:started raining threes to keep first half offense rolling, had to work hard for points after half
Gay ( B ) -- got off to a quiet start to this one as Cuz and Rondo and a refreshed defense were doing the lifting, but stepped up perfectly after being reinserted to pick up a punchless bench crew, and poured in 4 three pointers before half. After half began to scuffle, as did much of our offense. Cuz was drawing a lot of attention, and I think tiring, and we tried to break up the workload by going to Rudy, but it just wasn't efficient, and Rudy was doing a lot of begging to the refs. Defensively picked up some hustle steals, but Gallo hurt us all night (although a number of his points came vs.smaller Anderson/Ben size defenders), and late int he game Barton became a problem.
Stats: 15min 0pts (0-0, 0-0, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Summary: don't know if we tried to get cute starting Quincy or it was about Faried, but didn't accomplish much
Acy ( C ) -- I'm not sure exactly why Acy was starting, whether its going to be permanent, or just some more Karl tinkering to matchup with Faried. Whatever it was, he didn't get a whole lot done on offense, and the combined pressure of no points out of either the PF or SG spots was making it a grind for the main guys. Defensively, however, he provided hustle, made a nice stand at the hoop after Cuz was pulled out (as well as giving the Nuggets 2pts on a goaltend), Faried was never a factor (although some of that may have been Cuz stealing his soul in the post) and if Acy was inserted to be some sort of defensive tone setter/totem rather than an actual productive player, maybe it worked. Still not well enough to earn big minutes however.
Stats: 39min 37pts (12-20, 1-1, 12-15) 20reb 2ast 1stl 4blk 6TO
Summary: attacked almost strictly inside, and Nuggets threw their whole frontline at him with little success, tired late
Cousins ( A ) -- hmm...coincidence that we fired the dribble drive assistant and the first game without him we get back the Boogie Monster pounding away inside and fouling out the other team's entire frontline? Or maybe Cuz was just honoring Malone by returning to his old stomping grounds. Regardless, this was a big big man's game from the beginning, on both ends. as he was really moving around on the backline looking for blocks as well (including a spectacular recovery and block of what looked like a surefire Manimal dunk in the first half). The only flaw for 3/4 was some turnoveritis, and some of that might have been because we tweaked some things on offense and there were times when it didn't look like Cuz knew where guys were supposed to be and threw kickout passes to empty air. By the time he re-entered the game with 9 1/2 minutes to go he was already sitting on 33pts 15rebs and had a legit shot at a 40-20 night. But he seemed to tire at the end, missed a few bunnies, and for some reason seemed to finally lose his cool i the final minute of the game, and even missed 2 FTs on a Denver intentional foul. So didn't quite wrap up the epic night in epic fashion, and see, this is what happens when you score 48 and 56 on back to back nights -- you end up at a mere 37-20 (which btw is the 3rd time in his career he's hit those numbers, tying him with Ewing and Hakeem, and leaving him behind only Sir Charles, Moses and Shaq in the last 35 years), and you only get an A.
Stats: 24min 2pts (1-7, 0-3, 0-0) 2reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Summary:combined with Anderson to give us a whole lot of nothing at SG, scored his lone hoop at the final buzzer
McLemore ( D ) -- gave us next to nothing, and amusingly his only hoop of the night came at the very closing buzzer on a little padding score. But for most of the night was not hurting us beyond his invisibility. The only time he did try to do anything, during what I assume was a planned stretch of the third quarter when we tried to get him going, he was awful, missing shots and turning it over. But then he returned to mere invisibility, and played some notably aggressive defense down the stretch. On the anti-Cuz principle, when you barely produce most nights, a 0pt night is not necessarily an F as long as you hustle and seemed to contribute to overall scheme.
Stats: 39min 24pts (8-16, 4-6, 4-6) 10reb 9ast 5stl 0blk 4TO
Summary: was really on with his game from the start and nearly another triple double, this time with 5 hustle steals and 4 corner threes
Rondo ( A ) -- Rondo was not as dominant as Cuz, but its hard not to give him an A for his night's work too. Given his ridiculous 11.9 ast/gm pace, his passing actually was not exceptional by his standards, but he also contributed by bombing in 4 first half corner threes as we smoked the Nuggets, and all night long he showed far more defensive hustle than we've seen out of him. Several of those 5 steals were of the smart just sniff out the play/pass and run out like a cornerback for the pick sort of plays and along with Collison and the other guards, he was aggressively after guys up top. Doesn't deserve the only, or possibly even the main credit for Mudiay's bad night -- in fact half of that was on Mudiay hismelf. But he certainly won the matchup in blowout fashion. Pretty much nothing he didn't do well out there this time.
Bench
Stats: 14min 10pts (5-5, 0-0, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 3blk 1TO
Cauley-Stein ( A- ) -- back to the bench because...reasons I guess. So instead came in off the bench and in 14 minutes flew up and down the court taking alley oops on one end, and along with Cousins especially flying around for some true big men defensive plays, with both bigs going hard for blocks and making drives difficult.
Stats: 33min 17pts (7-15, 1-5, 2-2) 2reb 2ast 2stl 0blk 1TO
Collison ( B ) -- gave us an extra weapon off the bench, and while eventually it ended up a relatively mediocre 17pts on 15 shots, it was much less of the wild stuff we have sometimes seen. Had to pick up many of the SG duties with nobody else at the position contributing anything, but the Rondo/Collison combo worked better this time, a both little guys were up harassing Nuggets ballhandlers well above the arc.
Stats: 24min 0pts (0-2, 0-1, 0-0) 1reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Anderson ( F ) -- now Ben contributed very little, and for a stretch in the third was flat bad. But Anderson flat Keystone Copped it out there. He was flat bad from beginning to end, fumbled catches, made bad decision, including multiple poor fouls on defense. He had to play minutes, despite the badness he was hustling out there as guys were trying. But He just couldn't do anything right and actively hurt us at multiple points. The person who said we were playing 4 on 5 was pretty much right.
Stats: 10min 0pts (0-1, 0-0, 0-0) 0reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Koufos ( F ) -- maybe he didn't like hearing his name in trade rumors, maybe Acy's addition and his reduction to mostly just Cuz backup bothered him, or maybe it was jsut a bad matchup against a much more mobile opponent. But whatever it was, Kosta got his ass handed to him by Joffrey Lauvergne who ran past him and around him play after play for easy scores and boards, and who became the latest just another guy guy to have a career night against us.
Stats: 1min 2pts (1-1, 0-0, 0-0) 1reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Curry ( INC ) -- just came in for the one minute, and got a fun little o-reb and finish inside amongst the big boys as there was a pileup on Boogie alley. cuz seemed to get a kick out of it.
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