Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Ok, now to a certain degree I could accept people tuning out of the last few games. But if you weren't tuned into a game featuring DeMarcus Cousins vs. Anthony Davis, with old friend Tyreke Evans on the opposing team as well...which games exactly would you watch?
So this was eventful and entertaining. Oft times frustrating.
Good things:
-- Cousins blew up New Orleans again, stomped all over his matchup with Davis (through the medium of the Pelicans' 3-headed 18foul center).
-- Ray McCallum had himself a game. If he was awful for games 1 and 2 of his 4 starts, and split one awful/one strong half last time out, he was good almost the whole through this one, and really stepped up again in the 4th quarter for his easy career game.
-- Ben did much better against Tyreke his time. Actually at least some of that credit has to go to Cuz, who was very attentive in help defense cutting off those drives, but there is little doubt Ben's hopeless early season defense is now closer to mistake prone than just non-existent.
-- and oh yes...Kings Win!
Bad things:
-- our bench was just a sad sick joke in the first half
-- Reggie Evans, who was being a major factor as a physical board musher for us, got completely f'd over by the refs near the end of the third when not only did they call a flagrant on him on an offensive move where he clocked Davis, but when they reviewed it they upped it to a flagrant 2 and kicked him out of the game. Its unfortunate that so many of our demeaning words for the sort of gutless frilly underwear wearing mentality that would cause the refs to break down into tears and have a group hug over a common hard foul are un-PC to use anymore, because I would love to string together a few in colorful fashion here.
Boxscore
Stats: 40min 22pts (7-18, 1-3, 7-8) 5reb 5ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
Gay ( B- ) -- in the early going had two strong +1 finishes, one on a half hook in the post, the second on an out of bounds play following a timeout (we do well with those seemingly). But it was a little deceptive because aside from those highlights was struggling a bit, settling for long jumpers and not hitting. Had another loose ballhandling turnover too. Aminu got absolutely nothing going against him the whole night however, so still a one sided battle, and eventually things turned. Had a nice bounce pass along the baseline to DWill for a dunk and his only bucket of the game, and late in the half persistent, rather than brilliant, work in the post resulted in back to back scores inside. Some forceful attacks right into Davis's chest in the early 3rd as we still had a Big 2 at that point in the game, but Rudy first began to go quiet, then came up gimpy, and then got stupidly selfish on his next possession and just dribbled around until the Pelicans took it from him. Was back in the 4th, but maybe not right and struggling. Never did regain his earlier form, and we had to get Cousins back in the game to reseparate the two teams. certainly not Rudy's best game, but with the bench so ineffective we needed him to log big minutes one more time to get this win, and we did.
Stats: 23min 3pts (1-1, 0-0, 1-2) 12reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Evans ( B+ ) -- another big impact night on the boards, and for the most part did a good job on Davis, but had problems all night with the refs. Got called for a couple of cheapie fouls to close the first, the second one on an "illegal" open court screen in the final 5 seconds that was in fact legal. Got back for that one by stripping Davis trying to go up with his shot at the buzzer. Scored inside on an offensive board in the early 3rd for his only bucket of the night. Striped Davis in the post again late in the 3rd, and really began dominating the glass as he is wont to. Night ended early due to some serious ref B.S.. Went in to try a post move on Davis, went through Davis's body, and clocked him good and hard with his upper arm right on the chin. And that was what it was too. Upper arm. Not an elbow. Done in the middle of an offensive move. So grotesquely out of control has the "flagrant" foul rule grown at this point that they called Reggie for a flagrant. Hey, never mind it was in the middle of a move to score and he didn't even extend the arm. Somebody got owied, and it is an NBA golden boy too. That had me pissed. But what happened next would have seriously had me reducing those spineless whistlebearing insects to tears had I been around to unload on them, as they watch the video, see what happened, and UPPED the flagrant (1), which should not have even been, to a flagrant (2) and threw Reggie out of the game. Pathetic. And exactly the sort of referee meddling that can entirely turn the momentum of a game and lose it for you, especially when the guy taken out is leading you in dirty work. To our teams' credit though we held it together, and then got an unexpected burst from Ray to help close things out. I am choosing to ignore the referee nonsense for these grading purposes.
Stats: 37min 35pts (13-18, 0-0, 9-12) 14reb 3ast 1stl 2blk 3TO
Cousins ( A+ ) -- this has been some up and down ride now for Cuz. I avoid giving out A+'s whenever I can make an excuse, because of course once you do you box yourself in. But now in a 5 game span Cuz has earned two of them, along with an F in a third game. All season long has gotten up for showdown games against hyped opponents, this game was no exception. Was in top form from the beginning of this one, pummeling both Stiemsma and Ajinca on offense -- in fact beginning the game with a pair of baseline turnaround fallaways straight out of the dominant center book -- putting them in foul trouble, and blanking them the other way. Added power moves tbanging through the skinny Pelicans frontline to draw fouls and finish with dunks, and had all of his assists early as he played a major role in getting the rookie guards going, assisting on both of their opening three point shots. Had five first quarter boards, and just for the cherry was once again really on his toes on defense. Got back to back impressive blocks, and was probably the key reason Reke wasn't able to dominate us this time as he was constantly aware of him and helping cut off those drives. Second quarter wasn't as strong as the first. returned to the game and went right to work on Withey now, but for some reason Withey has been able to compete better than the other Pelicans centers, and he scored back at Cuz, and notched several blocks as well. With Davis coming on a bit before half, it was maybe the only stretch of the game where Cuz wasn't clearly dominating the matchup. But Cuz ate some spinach at halftime apparently, because when he resumed his assault in the third he just went nuts inside, powering through the Pelicans frontline again and again, beating their doubles with nimble feet, or just knocking the skinny guys out of his way. He shot 7-7 during the quarter, scored 16 points and had 30 by the end of three quarters. Somewhere in there BTW he scored the 5000th point of his career. He had sucha strength advantage that he would just rumble inot the post, and bang the opposing centers out of the way with his backside to get perfect offensive reb position. Once he did that and somehow saw/caught a McCallum airball as if it were a pass for a layin +1. As he reached his peak, missed a FT, raced in, grabbed his own miss, and laid it back in. Just complete dominance. About the worst you could say was that once or twice during the game he gambled on his opposing center up top, and left them with a free run down the lane to the rim. But the Pelcians centers only actually scored once on those, with Ajinca embarrassingly missing his own dunk attempt on that paly, followed by Cuz racing out and slamming it home the other way. When he returned to the game int eh 4th for his victory lap was quieter, and "only" notched 5pts 5rebs in the final half of the 4th as it was Ray's turn to go lights out. but by that point the only thing that could have threatened his "+" was if we had stumbled badly enough to lose this.
Stats: 38min 14pts (5-11, 1-4, 3-4) 5reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 4TO
McLemore ( C+ ) -- interesting game early as he got off to a good offensive start...well, a good shooting start. He took a handoff from Cuz and drained the long shot. Had another catch and shoot three. And got out on the break and got an early foul on Davis along with the finish. But on the other hand that problem handle was just a disaster and Reke was stripping him everytime he tried to put the ball on the floor. he traveled up top trying to get around him, lost a dribble and just had it taken away by Davis, and got just flat stripped by Reke who then went the other way. Now the key keeping this respectable was that Reke wasn't able to light him up the way he di the last two times. That's not because Ben was able to stay in front of him per se, but because of a vastly improved effort/scheme after Reek did get an angle on him. Was riding one hip, and seemed to maybe be guiding Reke down lanes. And the huge key was that Cuz was back there and determined to not let Reke get off against us again. So it was very much a team effort, but a team effort that does not work earlier in the year when Ben was constantly getting beat and then just standing around at the three point line with a clueless look on his face as his guy blew by into the paint. I also think Malone had a lot to do with it. When Ben returned in the second with Morrow already heating up, he didn't anything to cool him down. I think the good defensive scheme against Reke was just that, execution of a scheme designed by the guys in the suits. Added a good finish off a long rebound before the half, but made a mistake near the end of the quarter foolishly bailing out A.D. as the shot clock was about to run out and he was going to have to take a tough tough shot. Offense was not prominent after half. Added one open court dunk off an Outlaw steal late in the third, but also got stripped again by Reke for another open court hoop. So on the night his hits were two catch and shoots, and three open court runouts. But the key to holding this grade up was...let's call it his participation in the stop Reke scheme. There was himself, there was Cuz, there was Malone...and there was a bit of Monty Williams who only played Reke 25 min. But Ben was the point man, and we kept Reke from beating us this time, and that's definite progress.
Stats: 44min 22pts (9-19, 1-2, 3-5) 2reb 10ast 2stl 0blk 1TO
McCallum ( A ) -- on by far and away the career night for a kid like this (although apparently not as career nighty as Jerry Reynolds was gushing over? I've heard disturbing tales), the only question is whether to go with an A or an A+. And the funny thing is at the start here it wasn't entirely clear which way this was going to go. Was the second half last game going to be just an aberration? Or was he going to build on it. Actually got flat beat twice back to back early by Brett Roberts, the second of which ended up putting a foul on Gay trying to clean up his mess. But Cuz set him up for his only three of the game (he would later try to pull up for one off his own dribble and miss badly), and he settled in. And when he returned in the second he got back to back layups, the second one on the break off his own steal, and got the refs to call a foul on a 3pt shot with 1sec left in the half as he raced down and got bumped on the desperation heave. In the third was in the background offensively, but notching assists to Cuz and Ben and staying out of the way. Did not feel the need to get his won at any point while things were going well. Notably a lot of his assist total tonight was out on the break, not in the halfcourt. That's both good and bad, I note it just because it was obvious. In the mid 4th after Cuz returned, stepped forward with three quick aggressive hoops in the pace of about 2 minutes that helped us maintain an 8pt lead and left the game in position for Cousins to seal it. The timing with Cuz's return was not entirely accidental, as he continues to show ability to work with Cuz on pick series up top. Meanwhile while all this was going on, Roberts lost all effectiveness and while Austin Rivers notched a big assist total, he never damages us with his scoring either. These aren't exactly all stars, but then again neither is Ray, and they were a combined 6-17 on the night. So be interesting to see if Ray is able to maintain this. Not that he's going to notch 22-10 on many nights, but just the confidence/competence. Beginning to be some patterns in his play, what he can do, what he can't. Tonight he was relatively hot with his shot. That hasn't been the case often this year, so it will be interesting to see if its coming into own, or if it falls back off, especially if IT returns and Ray is back to the bench.
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