Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Well I sure stuck myself with an impossible job tonight. Jeesh.
Artest ( C- ) -- missed his first couple of shots, and never looked comfortable or terribly smart out there. turned it over repeatedly trying to force stuff that was not there. And yet sad to say was easily the best of our starters. Mixed up the inside and the outside, and had sporadic success at both. Was merely ok on defense as Prince had a good if not great night. Just a shrug. Not terrible, or at least as terrible as the other starters, but a long long way form an impact game.
Reef ( F ) -- did he play? Damn must have missed it. Almost didn't give him the F because wasn't sure he had done enough to earn it. For the sake of not inflaming tensions I will resist comparing the modest numbers of the one-legged man to our Reef/Kenny duo tonight.
Miller ( D+ ) -- missed his first four shots on the way to an ugly offensive night, and found a way to let an old guy that I have been assured is a walking corpse work him over in the post as the Pistons pulled away. On the other hand misses his own F, or at least close, by grabbing some rebounds and providing some of the very few offensive highlights for our team with a hndful of nice passes (as well as a few awful ones).
Martin ( F ) -- looked exhausted out there -- first time he went to the line it looked like he had already played a full 48 and triple OT. Minor point given the collapse but these are his minutes in the last 8 games as we have spiraled: 40, 42, 39, 39, 46, 45, 43, 41. Maybe it finally caught up to him. Missed everything and was no whiz on the other end of the court either. Thought we might come out and try to get him going after half, but there was just nothing there, and was benched early in both halves to be replaced by nobody in particular. In any case, 5pts 3rebs on 1-7 shooting and well, grade was inevitable.
Bibby ( D ) -- this effort may not look as good as the numbers, and the numbers weren't pretty. Scored his few buckets almost randomly. Just something here, somethng there. Always out of the blue, never as part of anything. And in between the hits were some really ugly airball type bricks and shaky decisions. Created little for others, and what he did cretae they normally blew. Gets the little grade he does simply because Billups was no more effective on the ooher side, and while there was little of that I think can be attributed to Mike's fearsome "D", its nonetheless true that his opposite number did not light him up tonight, and his defense was not a significant issue in this one. So merely a bad, flat, ineffective outing, rather than a completely disastrous embarrassing one. Yay.
Webb ( B ) -- had the dreaded dead legs on a back to back thing going, and certainly wasn't great. But was strong on the glass with those hands and led the game in rebounds. Was also kind of interesting in that when his team needed a spark in the mid-3rd, what they apparently drew up out of the timeout was to work through Webb in the post, and he responded with a couple of jump hooks, some FTs (shaky) and several nifty passes which his unprepared teammates often flubbed. A significant part of the little burst that finally finished the Kings. Solid night even when physically it was not there. Oh...what? This grade shouldn't be here? Call it habit. Call it just getting tired of the incessant Cs, Ds and Fs and needed something positive to say.
Garcia ( C ) -- in early in place of Kevin, and we may have been better just because Cisco had some energy. But only a little better if we were. Had one of those games where he just made dumb unnecessary foul after dumb unnecessary foul, and other than one or two isolated moments on defense, did little else. At least I got the feeling he WANTED to help.
Salmons ( C ) -- came in early for Bibby at PG and immediately missed a wide open three on the setup by Cisco. But came back a few minutes later in the 2nd and made a steal and open court move that broke Delfino's ankles and put him on the floor for a three point play. Best Kings moment of the night I think. Unfirtunately other than one late three that spalshed in, also just about his, and our, last one of the night.
Williams ( B- ) -- did nothing in the first quarter and I was worried about him having one of those bad games where the coaches lose confidence and the young guy gets relegated to the end of the bench. But fortunately fate interevened inthis one, as we were so godawful for most of the night that we actually finally got into a game with real and for true garbagetime. And there Justin was kind of a pain for the Pistons. Nothing fancy of course, and nothing dominant or "wow" worthy. Just a kid trying to stick thrashing around and going after every ball. Was out of position a lot -- made it hard on himself. But didn't quit on anything. Now unfortunately all of that active body stuff led to something truly embarrasing -- the sight of Justin Williams at the FT line. Oh my. I think Louis Admundson was so desperate to get back into the league that he possessed Justin. Airballed one, and an airball might have been closer than some of his other misses. UGLY. I think Justin should start a petition to just consider any foul committed against him as a TO and give the other team the ball. Will save some time, speed up the game, and save him some embarrassment.
Corliss ( B ) -- ah...the savior of these grades. Well...for a half. I was looking at D, F, D, F, and then along came good ole Corliss. Or returned good ole Corliss. After taking a few games off after the big 30 and 12 night, Corliss decided his old stomping grounds in Detroit were as good a place as any to reemerge. And actually that is part of what I have liked about some of the recent Corliss efforts -- he started this one off slowly like the rest of the team, but here was a timeout there when we were in the middle of getting embarrassed and were down by 22 or some such in the first half, and you could see Corliss over there fuming. And so he came out and tried to do somethig about it, and was the key figure in maybe the only good stretch we played in the entire game to close the 2nd quarter. Scored 11 in the quarter on the same basic meat and potatoes stuff he always does. And despite our awfulness by the end of the quarter we had crept back within shouting distance (Pistons were bad too). But obviously it was just a mirage, we immediately resumed our sucking, and when Corliss got back in in the mid 3rd, he wasn't able to do much to change things. Actually it got rather worse. Did score a couple of late hoops for us to make sure we at least broke 70. Whoopee!
Thomas ( INC ) --got in in the 2nd quarter after Williams wasn't effective, and it was a chance for the vet to reestablish his place in the rotation right? Er...not right. Call it lingering illness, call it lingering attitude over being benched, but he didn't look like he really wanted to be there, gave us 0pts 0rebs 2fls and 2TOs in his short stint, and never returned. Would have been another one of our Fs with another couple of minutes of that.
Douby ( C- ) -- inserted in a hopeless why not move in the early second, but was erratic at best and threw up a lot of ugly shots, a couple of which happened to go in. Displayed some solid moves, but there was no rhyme or reason to when he tried to use them. Came back late, and more or less repeated the pattern. Fortunately in the late going did not have to guard Rip, who is just as scrawny, but a lot taller and saavier.
Price ( INC ) -- serious garabagetime. Did little, but at least played solid in your face defense. Set a couple of people up.
Muss ( F ) -- wow, coming in I had no idea what to expect, but there were so many interesting storrylines in this one: Artest, Webb, mirror image matchups all over the floor, immobile smart passing centers (Webb, Brad), skinny OGs (Rip, Kevin), defensive specialist SFs (Prince, Ron) scoring PGs who hit clutch shots (Chauncey, Bibby), 2 teams on back to backs. And then...*thud*. And man did we really come out smoking looking to get this one for the mohawk guy back in front of his old nemesis...we opened up shooting 4-20. We got your back Ron. This was one of those ugly drubbings that was just so bad, its not really possible to point your finger at just one guy or thing...not even Muss.
You could talk endlessly about the substitutions, play chicken and egg with the quick hooks on the starters (although after we did not score for 6:00 or whatever it was there in the first quarter if you told me we had just signed Mateen Cleaves, Jim Les, Marty Conlon, Evers Burns and Dwayne Schintzius to 10 day contracts I would have been screaming "get them in the game!". Whatever. It defies anlaysis. We had absolultely zero energy, missed every open shot, looked like we had played back to back to back to back to back quintuple OT games. Even the only "run" we had all game was courtesy of the Pistons playing down to our awful level rather than anything spcial that we suddenly came up with. There were some interesting subs, such as inserting a Cisco/Salmons backcourt early for Bibby/Martin, Williams being the first big of the bench, and failing in that role only to come back late and play well, KTs cameo, Price's first action in forever. and yet....did not matter. Nothing mattered tonight except the good team beat the bad one. So I just threw Muss the team "F" and let it go at that. We were so far from being competiive, let alone winning this, tryign to grade Muss on how he contributed to our loss stand s halfway between impossible and irrelevant. And so home we go to face a couple of teams down at our level on our home floor. Should be exciting.
Artest ( C- ) -- missed his first couple of shots, and never looked comfortable or terribly smart out there. turned it over repeatedly trying to force stuff that was not there. And yet sad to say was easily the best of our starters. Mixed up the inside and the outside, and had sporadic success at both. Was merely ok on defense as Prince had a good if not great night. Just a shrug. Not terrible, or at least as terrible as the other starters, but a long long way form an impact game.
Reef ( F ) -- did he play? Damn must have missed it. Almost didn't give him the F because wasn't sure he had done enough to earn it. For the sake of not inflaming tensions I will resist comparing the modest numbers of the one-legged man to our Reef/Kenny duo tonight.
Miller ( D+ ) -- missed his first four shots on the way to an ugly offensive night, and found a way to let an old guy that I have been assured is a walking corpse work him over in the post as the Pistons pulled away. On the other hand misses his own F, or at least close, by grabbing some rebounds and providing some of the very few offensive highlights for our team with a hndful of nice passes (as well as a few awful ones).
Martin ( F ) -- looked exhausted out there -- first time he went to the line it looked like he had already played a full 48 and triple OT. Minor point given the collapse but these are his minutes in the last 8 games as we have spiraled: 40, 42, 39, 39, 46, 45, 43, 41. Maybe it finally caught up to him. Missed everything and was no whiz on the other end of the court either. Thought we might come out and try to get him going after half, but there was just nothing there, and was benched early in both halves to be replaced by nobody in particular. In any case, 5pts 3rebs on 1-7 shooting and well, grade was inevitable.
Bibby ( D ) -- this effort may not look as good as the numbers, and the numbers weren't pretty. Scored his few buckets almost randomly. Just something here, somethng there. Always out of the blue, never as part of anything. And in between the hits were some really ugly airball type bricks and shaky decisions. Created little for others, and what he did cretae they normally blew. Gets the little grade he does simply because Billups was no more effective on the ooher side, and while there was little of that I think can be attributed to Mike's fearsome "D", its nonetheless true that his opposite number did not light him up tonight, and his defense was not a significant issue in this one. So merely a bad, flat, ineffective outing, rather than a completely disastrous embarrassing one. Yay.
Webb ( B ) -- had the dreaded dead legs on a back to back thing going, and certainly wasn't great. But was strong on the glass with those hands and led the game in rebounds. Was also kind of interesting in that when his team needed a spark in the mid-3rd, what they apparently drew up out of the timeout was to work through Webb in the post, and he responded with a couple of jump hooks, some FTs (shaky) and several nifty passes which his unprepared teammates often flubbed. A significant part of the little burst that finally finished the Kings. Solid night even when physically it was not there. Oh...what? This grade shouldn't be here? Call it habit. Call it just getting tired of the incessant Cs, Ds and Fs and needed something positive to say.
Garcia ( C ) -- in early in place of Kevin, and we may have been better just because Cisco had some energy. But only a little better if we were. Had one of those games where he just made dumb unnecessary foul after dumb unnecessary foul, and other than one or two isolated moments on defense, did little else. At least I got the feeling he WANTED to help.
Salmons ( C ) -- came in early for Bibby at PG and immediately missed a wide open three on the setup by Cisco. But came back a few minutes later in the 2nd and made a steal and open court move that broke Delfino's ankles and put him on the floor for a three point play. Best Kings moment of the night I think. Unfirtunately other than one late three that spalshed in, also just about his, and our, last one of the night.
Williams ( B- ) -- did nothing in the first quarter and I was worried about him having one of those bad games where the coaches lose confidence and the young guy gets relegated to the end of the bench. But fortunately fate interevened inthis one, as we were so godawful for most of the night that we actually finally got into a game with real and for true garbagetime. And there Justin was kind of a pain for the Pistons. Nothing fancy of course, and nothing dominant or "wow" worthy. Just a kid trying to stick thrashing around and going after every ball. Was out of position a lot -- made it hard on himself. But didn't quit on anything. Now unfortunately all of that active body stuff led to something truly embarrasing -- the sight of Justin Williams at the FT line. Oh my. I think Louis Admundson was so desperate to get back into the league that he possessed Justin. Airballed one, and an airball might have been closer than some of his other misses. UGLY. I think Justin should start a petition to just consider any foul committed against him as a TO and give the other team the ball. Will save some time, speed up the game, and save him some embarrassment.
Corliss ( B ) -- ah...the savior of these grades. Well...for a half. I was looking at D, F, D, F, and then along came good ole Corliss. Or returned good ole Corliss. After taking a few games off after the big 30 and 12 night, Corliss decided his old stomping grounds in Detroit were as good a place as any to reemerge. And actually that is part of what I have liked about some of the recent Corliss efforts -- he started this one off slowly like the rest of the team, but here was a timeout there when we were in the middle of getting embarrassed and were down by 22 or some such in the first half, and you could see Corliss over there fuming. And so he came out and tried to do somethig about it, and was the key figure in maybe the only good stretch we played in the entire game to close the 2nd quarter. Scored 11 in the quarter on the same basic meat and potatoes stuff he always does. And despite our awfulness by the end of the quarter we had crept back within shouting distance (Pistons were bad too). But obviously it was just a mirage, we immediately resumed our sucking, and when Corliss got back in in the mid 3rd, he wasn't able to do much to change things. Actually it got rather worse. Did score a couple of late hoops for us to make sure we at least broke 70. Whoopee!
Thomas ( INC ) --got in in the 2nd quarter after Williams wasn't effective, and it was a chance for the vet to reestablish his place in the rotation right? Er...not right. Call it lingering illness, call it lingering attitude over being benched, but he didn't look like he really wanted to be there, gave us 0pts 0rebs 2fls and 2TOs in his short stint, and never returned. Would have been another one of our Fs with another couple of minutes of that.
Douby ( C- ) -- inserted in a hopeless why not move in the early second, but was erratic at best and threw up a lot of ugly shots, a couple of which happened to go in. Displayed some solid moves, but there was no rhyme or reason to when he tried to use them. Came back late, and more or less repeated the pattern. Fortunately in the late going did not have to guard Rip, who is just as scrawny, but a lot taller and saavier.
Price ( INC ) -- serious garabagetime. Did little, but at least played solid in your face defense. Set a couple of people up.
Muss ( F ) -- wow, coming in I had no idea what to expect, but there were so many interesting storrylines in this one: Artest, Webb, mirror image matchups all over the floor, immobile smart passing centers (Webb, Brad), skinny OGs (Rip, Kevin), defensive specialist SFs (Prince, Ron) scoring PGs who hit clutch shots (Chauncey, Bibby), 2 teams on back to backs. And then...*thud*. And man did we really come out smoking looking to get this one for the mohawk guy back in front of his old nemesis...we opened up shooting 4-20. We got your back Ron. This was one of those ugly drubbings that was just so bad, its not really possible to point your finger at just one guy or thing...not even Muss.
You could talk endlessly about the substitutions, play chicken and egg with the quick hooks on the starters (although after we did not score for 6:00 or whatever it was there in the first quarter if you told me we had just signed Mateen Cleaves, Jim Les, Marty Conlon, Evers Burns and Dwayne Schintzius to 10 day contracts I would have been screaming "get them in the game!". Whatever. It defies anlaysis. We had absolultely zero energy, missed every open shot, looked like we had played back to back to back to back to back quintuple OT games. Even the only "run" we had all game was courtesy of the Pistons playing down to our awful level rather than anything spcial that we suddenly came up with. There were some interesting subs, such as inserting a Cisco/Salmons backcourt early for Bibby/Martin, Williams being the first big of the bench, and failing in that role only to come back late and play well, KTs cameo, Price's first action in forever. and yet....did not matter. Nothing mattered tonight except the good team beat the bad one. So I just threw Muss the team "F" and let it go at that. We were so far from being competiive, let alone winning this, tryign to grade Muss on how he contributed to our loss stand s halfway between impossible and irrelevant. And so home we go to face a couple of teams down at our level on our home floor. Should be exciting.
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