Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Two in a row. Now personally, winning a game on the backs of Chuck Hayes and Isaiah Thomas and John Salmons is as exciting as...well its not. But I do believe we have to win games to keep the home fans interested enough to send a mesage to the BOG -- I've seen this game before, and everytime the home fans have quit down the stretch of a season with a move looming, they lose their team. Perhaps deservedly. So at this point I'll take this victory or any other. We won. They lost. Keep showing up Sacto and make it hard for them to take the team.
Kingsflix Highlights:
Full Grading Consortium for tonight:
Bricklayer
Capt. Factorial
bajaden
Boxscore
Stats: 36min 23pts (6-14, 4-7, 7-7) 1reb 6ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Salmons ( B+ ) -- tough grades abound in this one. You had guys who were good for a half, or a quarter. Guys with minutes limited by fouls. Guys playing outside their roles. The how/what of which grading scale to choose is a challenge. Case in point: John Salmons. John notched 23pts with 6 assists tonight. That is easily one of his best statlines of the season, and miles from what he normally gives on a given night. And yet I think I have been more comfortable with games in which there has been less John. Aside from another one of our coach's bizarre I draw up a play for the worst player on the court out of timeout plays, John was offensively quiet in the early going and indeed the difficulty of grading this is that we were all Cousins all the time through the mid third. Missed several early jumpers, and had some trouble staying in front of Parsons on some early possessions, but Parsons didn't do much with those opportunties and was never a factor. Was the #2 defender on Harden when Reke had to sit with fouls, and got an early steal jumping a pick and roll Houston was trying to run for The Beard. Per usual Harden was doing a lot of his scoring in the open court or off of scrambled rotations, so hard to assess John's 1 on 1 work there. When he returned for the last 5 min of the half had lost the touch and missed shots out of rhythm before finally hitting another 3 in the last minute or so. Hit another three on a dangerous pass from Tyreke in the mid 3rd, and up until that time I had a decent handle on his game and grade. He was playing spot up Salmons, had started slow, but was hitting them as the game went on, which is as always the helpful roleplayer thing to do. The difficulty began around about the time we lost Cousins. The whole tone of the game shifted and we got in trouble, in part as John Salmons somehow decided he had the greenlight and started to play a very ball dominant and at times selfish role. Part of that may have been the bizarre sudden appearance of Jimmer, who didn't do well and needed all the help he could get. It was chciken and egg whether it was caused by or the cause of Tyreke's passivity, but for whatever reason, John took it upon himself to become The Man. And that's just tough, because that concept makes me ill, and yet he can point to the jumbotron and say "scoreboard!" to me on this one. To add an extra wrinkle, after fading back a bit in the 4th, when IT did the same thing and annointed himself The Man...and again succeeeded, John may have sealed the game for us with 5 FTs in the final 1min 10sec of the game. This grade flummuxes me. How about "Good job John! Don't do it again!" --Brick
Stats: 33min 12pts (6-10, 0-0, 0-0) 7reb 1ast 1stl 2blk 1TO
Thompson ( B ) -- JT had a hit-and-miss defensive night but played very good defense when it counted down the stretch. First he had a sequence where he made the right read to rotate over to Asik in the low post, forcing a kick-out, then ran out on the uncovered Delfino to bother him into missing the three. Then he got two hands on a big rebound with under a minute to go that was knocked out of bounds by Asik. Despite the fact that the ball was called Kings' ball originally and the replay clearly showed it going off of Asik's slap, the refs inexplicably reversed the call. But JT don't care. JT just blocks Harden's shot in the lane and subsequently gets a "real" rebound to basically seal the game. In the first quarter he also had a very nice sequence where he blocked Asik in the post then got down the floor and into the lane for a transition bucket. In the third he made a very smart foul to prevent a fast break and also forced Asik into a travel. But he had trouble both on fast break defense, giving up a layup to Lin and fouling Harden for an and-1, and outside of the last minute of the game generally didn't do a very good job of helping on the drive. Offensively, his jumper wasn't falling tonight, though he took two from about 21 feet which is probably just a bit outside of his range. He made up for that by scoring pretty effectively in the lane, capped by not one but two spectacular putback dunks - one on each of his offensive rebounds. His rebound total wasn't outstanding, but he was working out there. All-in-all, a nice game but not as nice as yesterday. --Capt.
Stats: 24min 20pts (9-14, 0-0, 2-3) 7reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Cousins ( A- ) -- another tough grade. Was playing a really strong game until his old friend foul trouble jumped up and stole the game from him. The Rockets, who have a hole in their frontcourt that jumps from giant lumbering centers straight to undersized PFs with nobody inbetween just very obviously had nobody who could contend with Boogie's combination of size and quickness. From the start he faked Asik off the ground and drove to the hoop, and then with the big guy giving ground, Cuz began to just flat pepper him with jumper after jumper. Then when the Rockets went to the slightly less lumbering Cole Aldrich, Boogie just started driving on him and killed him just as bad to the hoop as he had been beating Asik form the outside. But he began the third picking up his 3rd foul fighting for posiiton while waiitng for an entry pass from Reke, and he and we were into the danger zone. Came up with his play of the game when he missed a corner jumper then flew in for an atheltic offensve rebound tip to himself and hook to finish over Asik. But then our prospects for victory looked like they might take a fatal blow in th mid quarter as IT made a bad TO up trying to bring the ball up and getting it flat taken away by Parsons, and Boogie picked up his 4th foul trying to stop the resulting breakout. And all of a sudden we had lost the guy carrying us -- at the time Boogie had 20pts in 22 minnutes, and nobody else on the team was even in double figures. And with the team predictably floundering, when we tried to bring Cuz back in the early 4th before we fell too far behind, he almost instantly picked up his 5th foul and that was it. He was done, and it sure looked like we were as well. So tough to grade again. But damn 20pts 7rebs in 24 minutes = dominance. This was a 30pt night interrupted by the whistles. --Brick
Stats: 23min 6pts (3-7, 0-1, 0-0) 4reb 4ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Evans ( D+ ) -- Not sure what Tyreke's problem was tonight, but he was invisible for parts of the game. Maybe it was chasing Hardin all over the floor. Whatever the reason, Hardin got the better of it tonight. 23 minutes and 6 points just isn't going to cut it for our second best player. He started by missing a 20 foot jumper. He scored his first basket on a fast break layup. Almost immediately he fouled Hardin, and went to the bench for most of the 1st half, coming back at 5:15 of the 2nd quarter. He ended the 1st half with a nice baseline move and basket, and on the next possession he made a tough fingerroll in a crowd. Unfortunately, that was about it for the night as scoring was concerned. He started the 2nd half by missing an open three. A bit later, he missed a 17 footer. He appears to be falling away again on his jumpshots. He did penetrate the lane, and make a beautiful pass to Salmons to hit the three. Unfortunately he followed that by stealing the ball, going end to end and then getting called for a charge. He left the game with 1:53 left in the 3rd never to return. He did a few things well, like his 4 assists, and played hard defense on Hardin, and at times on Delfino. But other than that, not a good night.--Baja
Stats: 33min 23pts (4-10, 2-3, 13-13) 1reb 6ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Thomas ( B+ ) -- The grades here aren't getting any easier. This time you have IT, who was playing a perfectly drab little low C type of game, and who even screwed up and turned the ball over to cost us our dominant center for the game with foul troubles in the mid third...and who then comes on in the 4th, with no justification or earned right to the ball, takes it, dominates it, and completely dominates the Rockets PGs with one of "those quarters" he has had 3 or 4 times this year. This time he scores 17pts in the 4th quarter, many coming at the foul line as he fouled out the not quick enough Lin and out Hardened Harden. And we get a victory on the backs of an unlikely pairing of Isaiah Thomas and Chuck Hayes. He had brought as all the way back by the mid 4th, retying the game on a +1 on the break. He pulls up fpr a dumb, selfish, 1 on 1 3pt shot off his dribble at the 3min mark...and hits it to give us a lead we do not relinquish. And then he and Salmons seal the game hitting all their FTs down the stretch. So what does 3/4 of poor work and one quarter of game winning work get you for a grade? I think I may just shave my head so that this job won't make me pull out anymore of my hair. --Brick
Kingsflix Highlights:
Full Grading Consortium for tonight:
Bricklayer
Capt. Factorial
bajaden
Boxscore
Stats: 36min 23pts (6-14, 4-7, 7-7) 1reb 6ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Salmons ( B+ ) -- tough grades abound in this one. You had guys who were good for a half, or a quarter. Guys with minutes limited by fouls. Guys playing outside their roles. The how/what of which grading scale to choose is a challenge. Case in point: John Salmons. John notched 23pts with 6 assists tonight. That is easily one of his best statlines of the season, and miles from what he normally gives on a given night. And yet I think I have been more comfortable with games in which there has been less John. Aside from another one of our coach's bizarre I draw up a play for the worst player on the court out of timeout plays, John was offensively quiet in the early going and indeed the difficulty of grading this is that we were all Cousins all the time through the mid third. Missed several early jumpers, and had some trouble staying in front of Parsons on some early possessions, but Parsons didn't do much with those opportunties and was never a factor. Was the #2 defender on Harden when Reke had to sit with fouls, and got an early steal jumping a pick and roll Houston was trying to run for The Beard. Per usual Harden was doing a lot of his scoring in the open court or off of scrambled rotations, so hard to assess John's 1 on 1 work there. When he returned for the last 5 min of the half had lost the touch and missed shots out of rhythm before finally hitting another 3 in the last minute or so. Hit another three on a dangerous pass from Tyreke in the mid 3rd, and up until that time I had a decent handle on his game and grade. He was playing spot up Salmons, had started slow, but was hitting them as the game went on, which is as always the helpful roleplayer thing to do. The difficulty began around about the time we lost Cousins. The whole tone of the game shifted and we got in trouble, in part as John Salmons somehow decided he had the greenlight and started to play a very ball dominant and at times selfish role. Part of that may have been the bizarre sudden appearance of Jimmer, who didn't do well and needed all the help he could get. It was chciken and egg whether it was caused by or the cause of Tyreke's passivity, but for whatever reason, John took it upon himself to become The Man. And that's just tough, because that concept makes me ill, and yet he can point to the jumbotron and say "scoreboard!" to me on this one. To add an extra wrinkle, after fading back a bit in the 4th, when IT did the same thing and annointed himself The Man...and again succeeeded, John may have sealed the game for us with 5 FTs in the final 1min 10sec of the game. This grade flummuxes me. How about "Good job John! Don't do it again!" --Brick
Stats: 33min 12pts (6-10, 0-0, 0-0) 7reb 1ast 1stl 2blk 1TO
Thompson ( B ) -- JT had a hit-and-miss defensive night but played very good defense when it counted down the stretch. First he had a sequence where he made the right read to rotate over to Asik in the low post, forcing a kick-out, then ran out on the uncovered Delfino to bother him into missing the three. Then he got two hands on a big rebound with under a minute to go that was knocked out of bounds by Asik. Despite the fact that the ball was called Kings' ball originally and the replay clearly showed it going off of Asik's slap, the refs inexplicably reversed the call. But JT don't care. JT just blocks Harden's shot in the lane and subsequently gets a "real" rebound to basically seal the game. In the first quarter he also had a very nice sequence where he blocked Asik in the post then got down the floor and into the lane for a transition bucket. In the third he made a very smart foul to prevent a fast break and also forced Asik into a travel. But he had trouble both on fast break defense, giving up a layup to Lin and fouling Harden for an and-1, and outside of the last minute of the game generally didn't do a very good job of helping on the drive. Offensively, his jumper wasn't falling tonight, though he took two from about 21 feet which is probably just a bit outside of his range. He made up for that by scoring pretty effectively in the lane, capped by not one but two spectacular putback dunks - one on each of his offensive rebounds. His rebound total wasn't outstanding, but he was working out there. All-in-all, a nice game but not as nice as yesterday. --Capt.
Stats: 24min 20pts (9-14, 0-0, 2-3) 7reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Cousins ( A- ) -- another tough grade. Was playing a really strong game until his old friend foul trouble jumped up and stole the game from him. The Rockets, who have a hole in their frontcourt that jumps from giant lumbering centers straight to undersized PFs with nobody inbetween just very obviously had nobody who could contend with Boogie's combination of size and quickness. From the start he faked Asik off the ground and drove to the hoop, and then with the big guy giving ground, Cuz began to just flat pepper him with jumper after jumper. Then when the Rockets went to the slightly less lumbering Cole Aldrich, Boogie just started driving on him and killed him just as bad to the hoop as he had been beating Asik form the outside. But he began the third picking up his 3rd foul fighting for posiiton while waiitng for an entry pass from Reke, and he and we were into the danger zone. Came up with his play of the game when he missed a corner jumper then flew in for an atheltic offensve rebound tip to himself and hook to finish over Asik. But then our prospects for victory looked like they might take a fatal blow in th mid quarter as IT made a bad TO up trying to bring the ball up and getting it flat taken away by Parsons, and Boogie picked up his 4th foul trying to stop the resulting breakout. And all of a sudden we had lost the guy carrying us -- at the time Boogie had 20pts in 22 minnutes, and nobody else on the team was even in double figures. And with the team predictably floundering, when we tried to bring Cuz back in the early 4th before we fell too far behind, he almost instantly picked up his 5th foul and that was it. He was done, and it sure looked like we were as well. So tough to grade again. But damn 20pts 7rebs in 24 minutes = dominance. This was a 30pt night interrupted by the whistles. --Brick
Stats: 23min 6pts (3-7, 0-1, 0-0) 4reb 4ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Evans ( D+ ) -- Not sure what Tyreke's problem was tonight, but he was invisible for parts of the game. Maybe it was chasing Hardin all over the floor. Whatever the reason, Hardin got the better of it tonight. 23 minutes and 6 points just isn't going to cut it for our second best player. He started by missing a 20 foot jumper. He scored his first basket on a fast break layup. Almost immediately he fouled Hardin, and went to the bench for most of the 1st half, coming back at 5:15 of the 2nd quarter. He ended the 1st half with a nice baseline move and basket, and on the next possession he made a tough fingerroll in a crowd. Unfortunately, that was about it for the night as scoring was concerned. He started the 2nd half by missing an open three. A bit later, he missed a 17 footer. He appears to be falling away again on his jumpshots. He did penetrate the lane, and make a beautiful pass to Salmons to hit the three. Unfortunately he followed that by stealing the ball, going end to end and then getting called for a charge. He left the game with 1:53 left in the 3rd never to return. He did a few things well, like his 4 assists, and played hard defense on Hardin, and at times on Delfino. But other than that, not a good night.--Baja
Stats: 33min 23pts (4-10, 2-3, 13-13) 1reb 6ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Thomas ( B+ ) -- The grades here aren't getting any easier. This time you have IT, who was playing a perfectly drab little low C type of game, and who even screwed up and turned the ball over to cost us our dominant center for the game with foul troubles in the mid third...and who then comes on in the 4th, with no justification or earned right to the ball, takes it, dominates it, and completely dominates the Rockets PGs with one of "those quarters" he has had 3 or 4 times this year. This time he scores 17pts in the 4th quarter, many coming at the foul line as he fouled out the not quick enough Lin and out Hardened Harden. And we get a victory on the backs of an unlikely pairing of Isaiah Thomas and Chuck Hayes. He had brought as all the way back by the mid 4th, retying the game on a +1 on the break. He pulls up fpr a dumb, selfish, 1 on 1 3pt shot off his dribble at the 3min mark...and hits it to give us a lead we do not relinquish. And then he and Salmons seal the game hitting all their FTs down the stretch. So what does 3/4 of poor work and one quarter of game winning work get you for a grade? I think I may just shave my head so that this job won't make me pull out anymore of my hair. --Brick
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