Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Artest ( B+ ) -- another B+ this time, but on a slightly different theory. Last time out gave him this grade based on the situation and then some nifty defense on Pierce, amongst others. This time defensively had no Pierce level player to guard, but was sticking his hands in there hustling around and helping. Helped us out with a solid night on the glass too. Did actually get beat a few times off the dribble by Rose and MoPete. Not remarkable for a Kings player except for who we are talking about here. But offensively looked better, and got stronger down the stretch as he settled in. Came right out and opened the game with an aggressive drive and finish, but then started to force and it was a bit of a mixed bag therafter. Out of rhythm and was forcing too many sloppy drives. But as mentioned, he came on strong down the stretch utilizing his postup and driving ability not only to score himself, but also to setup others, And Rick immediately showed a ton of confidence in him and got the ball in either his hands or Mike's on almost every possession. In the final minute drew a foul and hit two big FTs to put us up for the first time since the first quarter. Then we tried to go to him again in the post a few seconds later, but he drew Pape Sow, a PF, and was unable to get anything clean and a jump ball resulted. And then we drew up the final play of regulation for Ron, and he exploded to his left for the tying layup. Also hit a tough pullup jumper ion Rose's face in OT. But best moment may have been seeing him as an excited cheerleader at the scorers table as we clawed back into it in the late third. I have no idea how much of this losing it will take to draw out Evil Ron, but for the moment is playing the good teammate and showing more enthusiasm for his mates than any of the long term guys have shown for each other. Far from a perfect outing, and with some ugly forces scattered in. But got stronger as the game progressed and played big late to maybe give us the hint of a future organized late game for us with Ron and Bibby sharing the load. Solid second effort. Now just have to hope he and the team hang in there and can put something together before the playoffs slip from our grasp.
Thomas ( C+ ) -- grabbed some boards for us again and had an efficent offensive game, but one of those games that proves efficiency can sometimes mean impotency. Just scored the easy ones, but was really not a threat. Got off to a sloppy start to the second half and at one point had almost as many turnovers as rebounds. A major problem considering that turnovers just killed us in the second half. Fought Bosh on defense late in the game, but was having a hard time contending with him. And racked up a number of fouls and Bosh layups. Also rotated very poorly, or not at all. And when he did get there was too short to do anything. You look at these numbers he's putting up -- this time 16pts 11rebs 3ast (but 6 TOs) -- and it looks like better than a C+ effort by a Kenny Thomas. But if you watch the games...they are just not impact efforts. Decent efforts, but just nothing happening.
Miller ( B- ) -- scored well in the first half, and continues to show the nascient development of a post game. Unfortunately on the other end was finding new ways to get taken advantage of defensively as the Raptors bigs (who ain't that big) were taking him outside to knock in threes from all over the perimeter as opposed to the normal pummeling he takes down in the paint. Quieted down there for a long stretch, but suddenly came up with a big block, a couple of strong boards, and an inside hoop to help key our last big run to tie it up and send it to OT. Made some passing mistakes late though too, which hurt. And his rotations on defense were really terrible. Actuaally everybody's were. Overall, a decent effort. Nearly 20-10, and may have been the guy who keyed our last run to nearly steal the thing in regulation. But just making it so so easy on the other team to score back the other way. Desperately needs a shotblocker back there to rotate and cover up his weaknesses.
Martin ( B- ) -- a tale of two halves for Kevin. Or maybe I should say three halves, if you count OT. But overall actually a game I have been waiting for forever -- neither 20pt "I'm a star" Kevin, nor 5pt "I'm a passive little wallflower" Kevin, but somewhere in between: perhaps "my shot is off by I am still going to contribute" Kevin. Briefly looked to be a more aggressive start for him, but then fell back off and could not hit his shots, and really did little to nothing in the first half. But came out in the second half and made an impact just by outrunning people down the floor on the break and getting to the line. And at the end of the 3rd, after it looked like we were starting to collape mentally, after we had picked up several technicals, were down by 8-9, it was really Kevin who turned the tide with a series of hustle plays, steals, and hoop attacks. And contributed on the glass all night coming up with a nice 10 rebound effort. Continues to impress there given his skinny frame. Disappeared again in overtime unfortunately, and made a bad error with 30 seconds to go in OT when he picked up a loose ball foul, sending Mo Pete to the line to take the lead for the Raptors AND putting us in a position where even if we scored Toronto would get the ball back. Which they did to win it. So take all that...down, up, down, all in one game. But a contributor on a night when he really wasn't feeling it, and that is enough.
Bibby ( A- ) -- started the game hot from the outside, and then started to mix in clever drives. But began to force a little,and one has to hope that it was him wanting to make up for last game and trying to carry us to a much needed victory here rather than any sort of competition with Ron for who's "the man". Came out firing again in the second half, although he was getting scored on on the other end by James in return. It was not only Mike -- whenever he got beat, the rotation by our interior people was about as bad as I've seen it tonight. Closed the third with back to back threes to bring us to punctuate the run started by Martin and bring right back into it. Went quiet for a long time in the 4th, but came up nails down the stretch and hit the huge tying three with 1:15 to go. Following a sloppy possession in which he saved a jump ball carom only to be unable to shake free and got his shot blocked, played decent defense on Mike James for the Raptors shot at the end of regulation, and secured the OT for us. And in OT twice seemed to maybe win it for us. First with a great drive at about the 2 minute mark where Mike not only got the layup, but also the extra FT for the 6th foul on Bosh, and then another FT as Bosh stupidly lost his cool and picked up a T. And then a couple of miniutes later with a huge shot that could have been the gamewinner with 11 seconds to go in OT. Unfortunately though we couldn't get the stop on the other end, and another 40pt effort keying a big offensive game for us was wasted by our pathetic defense. Sigh. I went with a minus to Mike's A despite another huge 40pt night simply because he seemed to force some things this time out. That may be an overreaction given what an enormous accomplishment scoring 40 is for anybody, let alone 3 times in a week. But it just didn't feel as smooth as some of the other efforts, and there were some mistakes made at unfortunate points in the game.
Garcia ( C+ ) -- made some all around contributions, but not many of them on offense. Did not force much, but mostly just a roleplayer who helped on the glass this time out. Had limited success against the Raptors' swingmen on defense, but was nonetheless brught in for defense on the final play of OT. Liked the call by Rick (he replaced Miller), and Cisco did in fact play good defense, but not good enough and got beat anyway by Rose for the winning shot.
Price ( INC ) -- came in in first half, did nothing, and never got a retunr call wiht Mike going nuts offensively once more.
Reef ( C ) -- first half did nothing, except get in foul trouble. Got a much longer run in the second half with KT shaky. Could not stop Bosh, lost his cool and got a T we did not need at the end of the 3rd. Poorly done, but actually that sequence (Rick got a T immediately afterward defending Reef) seemed to spark us as Kevin and Mike led a mini-charge to pull us tight going into the 4th. We got a little use of out Reef's inside game in the early 4th to help keep us close for a few more minutes. But overall his effectiveness was dubious once more, and his rebounding terrible again. Coming back early was a brave thing to do and he remains a skilled player. But I have to wonder if we wouldn't be better off just playing Corliss or Skinner for those minutes ratehr than a laboring player who was having trouble rebounding when healthy.
Adelman ( B- ) -- well...so we go 1-5 for the roadtrip against some of the East's worst. Our only victory is in OT against the terrible Knicks. We lose in every way fathomable -- bad offense one night, bad defense the next. Close games, blowouts. And a playoff push is further away than ever. And yet we return from the trip with hope. Maybe a fools hope, but if there is gong to be one last gasp this season, its going to have to come in the next month (March and April are brutal). #93 is here and settling in. Bonzi is due back in the next week or so. If there is going to be any push, it basically has to start now. This game...well, the good was Mike was huge for the 3rd time in 4 games, and Ron seemed to settle into our offense as a major cog and goto guy. We also took care of the glass with a major assist from our little guys -- if Ron grabs one more rebound we have FOUR 10 rebound guys in one game. The bad...well just about everything that happened on defense. Proof that one Ron is not enough when nobody else is getting it done. Our bigs were particularly poor, and they neither stopped the Raptors bigs from raining threes on our head, nor rotated on help defense to protect the rim. Brad remains slow, Kenny remains small, and Reef can't grab a board to save his (or our) life right now. We pretty much hung right around the 4-8pts behind mark for the whole game. Couldn't sustain many runs because we could never get any stops. We did show some heart to roar back and tie it down the stretch though. And I was happy with Rick tightening things up and making it the Mike and Ron show. With Ron in particular, showed a great deal of confidence that may help him feel like this really is his team and he's going to have his shot to lead us. Defensively...there seem to be very few answers. My only real suggestion...one more time, is PLEASE play Skinner. Its just Tag all over again. And while Skinner is incredibly overrated at times on this board, he is our only possible answer. Just somebody, anybody, who rotates with a purpose and can do anything after he arrives. There were a couple of plays down the stretch in particular where the Raptors beat us with Kenny right there, and simply too short to make a difference. Aside from the interior rotation problem, have to wonder about our defensive strategy in OT when we repeatedly switched everything on the perimeter and ended up giving James open looks against Miller and KT. Toronto made it back from 6 down to only 1 down in just two possessions. Was happy to see Rick make a defensive substitution on the final Raptors play to win it -- pulled Miller for Cisco and may have actually gotten a better shotblocker as well as a guy who has a chance out on the perimeter. Of course it did not work. But at least we tried something. Not sure what the answer is right now. Everytime we do something right, a new hole opens up somewhere else.
Thomas ( C+ ) -- grabbed some boards for us again and had an efficent offensive game, but one of those games that proves efficiency can sometimes mean impotency. Just scored the easy ones, but was really not a threat. Got off to a sloppy start to the second half and at one point had almost as many turnovers as rebounds. A major problem considering that turnovers just killed us in the second half. Fought Bosh on defense late in the game, but was having a hard time contending with him. And racked up a number of fouls and Bosh layups. Also rotated very poorly, or not at all. And when he did get there was too short to do anything. You look at these numbers he's putting up -- this time 16pts 11rebs 3ast (but 6 TOs) -- and it looks like better than a C+ effort by a Kenny Thomas. But if you watch the games...they are just not impact efforts. Decent efforts, but just nothing happening.
Miller ( B- ) -- scored well in the first half, and continues to show the nascient development of a post game. Unfortunately on the other end was finding new ways to get taken advantage of defensively as the Raptors bigs (who ain't that big) were taking him outside to knock in threes from all over the perimeter as opposed to the normal pummeling he takes down in the paint. Quieted down there for a long stretch, but suddenly came up with a big block, a couple of strong boards, and an inside hoop to help key our last big run to tie it up and send it to OT. Made some passing mistakes late though too, which hurt. And his rotations on defense were really terrible. Actuaally everybody's were. Overall, a decent effort. Nearly 20-10, and may have been the guy who keyed our last run to nearly steal the thing in regulation. But just making it so so easy on the other team to score back the other way. Desperately needs a shotblocker back there to rotate and cover up his weaknesses.
Martin ( B- ) -- a tale of two halves for Kevin. Or maybe I should say three halves, if you count OT. But overall actually a game I have been waiting for forever -- neither 20pt "I'm a star" Kevin, nor 5pt "I'm a passive little wallflower" Kevin, but somewhere in between: perhaps "my shot is off by I am still going to contribute" Kevin. Briefly looked to be a more aggressive start for him, but then fell back off and could not hit his shots, and really did little to nothing in the first half. But came out in the second half and made an impact just by outrunning people down the floor on the break and getting to the line. And at the end of the 3rd, after it looked like we were starting to collape mentally, after we had picked up several technicals, were down by 8-9, it was really Kevin who turned the tide with a series of hustle plays, steals, and hoop attacks. And contributed on the glass all night coming up with a nice 10 rebound effort. Continues to impress there given his skinny frame. Disappeared again in overtime unfortunately, and made a bad error with 30 seconds to go in OT when he picked up a loose ball foul, sending Mo Pete to the line to take the lead for the Raptors AND putting us in a position where even if we scored Toronto would get the ball back. Which they did to win it. So take all that...down, up, down, all in one game. But a contributor on a night when he really wasn't feeling it, and that is enough.
Bibby ( A- ) -- started the game hot from the outside, and then started to mix in clever drives. But began to force a little,and one has to hope that it was him wanting to make up for last game and trying to carry us to a much needed victory here rather than any sort of competition with Ron for who's "the man". Came out firing again in the second half, although he was getting scored on on the other end by James in return. It was not only Mike -- whenever he got beat, the rotation by our interior people was about as bad as I've seen it tonight. Closed the third with back to back threes to bring us to punctuate the run started by Martin and bring right back into it. Went quiet for a long time in the 4th, but came up nails down the stretch and hit the huge tying three with 1:15 to go. Following a sloppy possession in which he saved a jump ball carom only to be unable to shake free and got his shot blocked, played decent defense on Mike James for the Raptors shot at the end of regulation, and secured the OT for us. And in OT twice seemed to maybe win it for us. First with a great drive at about the 2 minute mark where Mike not only got the layup, but also the extra FT for the 6th foul on Bosh, and then another FT as Bosh stupidly lost his cool and picked up a T. And then a couple of miniutes later with a huge shot that could have been the gamewinner with 11 seconds to go in OT. Unfortunately though we couldn't get the stop on the other end, and another 40pt effort keying a big offensive game for us was wasted by our pathetic defense. Sigh. I went with a minus to Mike's A despite another huge 40pt night simply because he seemed to force some things this time out. That may be an overreaction given what an enormous accomplishment scoring 40 is for anybody, let alone 3 times in a week. But it just didn't feel as smooth as some of the other efforts, and there were some mistakes made at unfortunate points in the game.
Garcia ( C+ ) -- made some all around contributions, but not many of them on offense. Did not force much, but mostly just a roleplayer who helped on the glass this time out. Had limited success against the Raptors' swingmen on defense, but was nonetheless brught in for defense on the final play of OT. Liked the call by Rick (he replaced Miller), and Cisco did in fact play good defense, but not good enough and got beat anyway by Rose for the winning shot.
Price ( INC ) -- came in in first half, did nothing, and never got a retunr call wiht Mike going nuts offensively once more.
Reef ( C ) -- first half did nothing, except get in foul trouble. Got a much longer run in the second half with KT shaky. Could not stop Bosh, lost his cool and got a T we did not need at the end of the 3rd. Poorly done, but actually that sequence (Rick got a T immediately afterward defending Reef) seemed to spark us as Kevin and Mike led a mini-charge to pull us tight going into the 4th. We got a little use of out Reef's inside game in the early 4th to help keep us close for a few more minutes. But overall his effectiveness was dubious once more, and his rebounding terrible again. Coming back early was a brave thing to do and he remains a skilled player. But I have to wonder if we wouldn't be better off just playing Corliss or Skinner for those minutes ratehr than a laboring player who was having trouble rebounding when healthy.
Adelman ( B- ) -- well...so we go 1-5 for the roadtrip against some of the East's worst. Our only victory is in OT against the terrible Knicks. We lose in every way fathomable -- bad offense one night, bad defense the next. Close games, blowouts. And a playoff push is further away than ever. And yet we return from the trip with hope. Maybe a fools hope, but if there is gong to be one last gasp this season, its going to have to come in the next month (March and April are brutal). #93 is here and settling in. Bonzi is due back in the next week or so. If there is going to be any push, it basically has to start now. This game...well, the good was Mike was huge for the 3rd time in 4 games, and Ron seemed to settle into our offense as a major cog and goto guy. We also took care of the glass with a major assist from our little guys -- if Ron grabs one more rebound we have FOUR 10 rebound guys in one game. The bad...well just about everything that happened on defense. Proof that one Ron is not enough when nobody else is getting it done. Our bigs were particularly poor, and they neither stopped the Raptors bigs from raining threes on our head, nor rotated on help defense to protect the rim. Brad remains slow, Kenny remains small, and Reef can't grab a board to save his (or our) life right now. We pretty much hung right around the 4-8pts behind mark for the whole game. Couldn't sustain many runs because we could never get any stops. We did show some heart to roar back and tie it down the stretch though. And I was happy with Rick tightening things up and making it the Mike and Ron show. With Ron in particular, showed a great deal of confidence that may help him feel like this really is his team and he's going to have his shot to lead us. Defensively...there seem to be very few answers. My only real suggestion...one more time, is PLEASE play Skinner. Its just Tag all over again. And while Skinner is incredibly overrated at times on this board, he is our only possible answer. Just somebody, anybody, who rotates with a purpose and can do anything after he arrives. There were a couple of plays down the stretch in particular where the Raptors beat us with Kenny right there, and simply too short to make a difference. Aside from the interior rotation problem, have to wonder about our defensive strategy in OT when we repeatedly switched everything on the perimeter and ended up giving James open looks against Miller and KT. Toronto made it back from 6 down to only 1 down in just two possessions. Was happy to see Rick make a defensive substitution on the final Raptors play to win it -- pulled Miller for Cisco and may have actually gotten a better shotblocker as well as a guy who has a chance out on the perimeter. Of course it did not work. But at least we tried something. Not sure what the answer is right now. Everytime we do something right, a new hole opens up somewhere else.
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