Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat


Mommy.
So hey? You didn't watch this one tonight? 1) Bad fan! Bad bad fan! Shame on you! 2) You saved yourself a lot of pain. Because pain was the theme of the night for the Kings. And again I suppose hey, we can hardly complain in a season when so many major players have been lost for big chunks of the season while we're been healthy. But really now. In the space of about 5 minutes we lost Rudy Gay...to an Achilles problem (you never like to hear that word unless you are discussing classical literature), and then DeMarcus to a pretty bad looking ankle sprain )x-rays were negative). Boom, not just two injuries, but two injuries consecutively to your two best players. So the rest was just academic. Mommy hold me.
Looking for a bright spot? Reports coming out indicate neither injury may be of the out for a month variety. Given our continuing brutal schedule that might still sink us for the next week or two, but maybe we dodged the bullet that's been taking down so many teams. And Derrick Williams stepped up and took advantage of the opportunity to remind everybody he still can play given the opportunities.
Oh, and in the 4th we got to see our scrubs out there who you thought should have been out there last night in New Orleans. Now getting a better look at where Landry is at physically, seeing McCallum try to run things etc., maybe you understand why we didn't go there in a game we were still trying to win.
This could be Girls of course. I like Girls. But those games have been starting to mount, so I thought I might bring back the non-Girl themes instead Of course now having gone down that path, and with our graders all turning in their grades super-quick so as not to have to deal with this game anymore, I need something just as quick for a theme. Here, perk up to some Fun 80's Tunes.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Henkel
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 6min 4pts (2-5, 0-0, 0-0) 0reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Gay ( INC ) -- Well this was certainly not the way that Rudy wanted to follow up matching his career high in a fabulous performance the previous night. Gay was playing pretty well and then had to leave the game with an Achilles injury which prevented him from returning. Hopefully he won’t be out too long. I will mention that he had a +3 in this game, so it shows that with the full starting compliment the Kings were beating the Rockets head-to-head. Once Rudy left things started to fall apart, and once Cousins left it was all over. --Uncia
Stats: 22min 12pts (6-8, 0-0, 0-0) 8reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( B ) -- Had another solid game despite a tough match up that became hopeless as he was the lone legit big for most of the night. Looks more comfortable and composed then he did early in the season. Was active in the early going. Fighting for rebounds while managing to hold his ground in the low post against Howard early. Typical good offensive game from JT, just running the floor hard and hitting the offensive glass. After Cousins went out he was forced into a tough spot on the defensive end. Without Cousins wasn't getting much help with Howard and with all the dribble penetration was forced to help off Howard with predictable results. Despite all that just kept doing what he does. Had a couple of nice follow ups after the half along with a much better looking jumper. Even worked his way to the basket against Howard on a decent drive and followup. Did what he could but this one was long over by the end of the third. Was on the bench for all of the fourth. On a really bad and potentially disastrous night it was at least nice to see Jason looking like the solid role player that he's been for most of his career. --Henkel
Stats: 9min 2pts (1-2, 0-0, 0-2) 4reb 3ast 1stl 2blk 0TO
Cousins ( INC ) -- so I was going along compiling my normal list of play by play notes, and then all of a sudden they just end, because, uh oh. In any case in the early going I was a bit frustrated with Malone actually, because 2nd night of a back to back or not, I am pretty sure that Cousins guarded Howard in the last two matchups, and gave him hell because he's just too big for Dwight to push around. And so instead Malone comes out, has Jason on Howard, and I think it may have actually gotten Cousins in MORE foul trouble because instead of just standing behind Dwight, now he was having to rotate to cover him when Jason got beat, and having to semi-follow his man on the perimeter too. Anyway, Cuz started off energetic, notably on both ends, got a big block, and was again passing more than shooting, which I think is cute and all, but I'm getting a little comfortable at the mix shifting away from Cousins inside. And then of course It happened, and the only good news about It is that maybe It wasn't as serious as It looked initially as he had to be half carried off the floor. We'll see here. In years past Cuz was not always the best at playing through fatigue, so if the ankle is bothering I'm hoping he's learned now not to let it seriously degrade his game. --Brick
Stats: 22min 4pts (2-8, 0-1, 0-0) 0reb 2ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Thornton ( ) -- --Capt.
Stats: 39min 20pts (6-16, 2-9, 6-10) 3reb 6ast 2stl 1blk 4TO
Thomas ( C ) -- Before Rudy Gay and DeMarcus Cousins got hurt I thought Isaiah Thomas was playing a very good facilitating point guard game. He didn’t even attempt a shot until about halfway through the 1st quarter. We all know what happened next. Gay hurt his Achilles, Cousins sprained his ankle, and Thomas was left out there without any reliable scoring options. He started gunning, and I was mostly ok with that strategy. Don’t get me wrong, there were bad shots taken that I hated, but if the Kings had any shot at making this one competitive it would have been the result of Thomas catching fire. As you could tell by taking one look at the final score, he never caught fire. There was a lot of standing around on offense after Gay and Cousins went down, and a lot of Thomas dribbling around trying to make something happen with limited success. It felt like he was losing the ball, or dribbling himself into trouble a lot. He only registered 4 turnovers on the night, but it felt like more. He definitely fell in love with the 3-pointer trying to get this team back within reach, and that really tanked his field goal percentage. He went to the line a lot and that was a huge contributor to his point total. His defense on either Beverly or Lin was decent as both guys shot well below their season average FG%. Thomas didn’t do anything spectacular on that end, but he stayed in front of them well enough and contested most shots as best as he could. I just don’t know what else he could have done on a night like tonight. He wasn’t great by any means, but I thought he started the night with the right mindset and did what he could the rest of the way (considering his running mates) to earn a C.--Mass
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