Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Sloppy sloppy. But we won. And just like that, we're a game out of #8.
Boxscore
Stats: 35min 17pts (6-11, 2-5, 3-5) 13reb 3ast 6stl 1blk 5TO
Summary: Rudy Gay has gotten serious, and the smooth but soft scorer is suddenly transforming into our scrappy defensive wing stopper
Gay ( B+ ) -- what has gotten into Rudy Gay here? If you want one clear piece of evidence that this team may be turning the corner mentally and beginning to think of itself seriously as a playoff contender, its the play of Rudy Gay. The 6 steals were a career high btw. The 13 rebounds a Sacramento era high, and one of only 5 times he's ever done that. And that's why despite ballhandling misadventures almost all night long and only occasional one shot and done scoring pop ups, Rudy made a real impact for us tonight. There was a lot of giveth and taketh away to this one, and at no point did you know if he was going to do something real good or something real bad. In the late 4th he took a bad three...and hit it, then set up Curry for a layup, followed that with a wild fullcourt dribbling sequence resulting in a turnover, came up with the highlight play of the night with a huge +1 dunk with 2 minutes to go, and then followed that with an idiotic play getting picked in the backcourt. And it was headslapping like that most of the night. But this Rudy Gay, defensive menace, guy is kind of fun, and he was constantly getting his hands on balls and aside from being baited into a three point "foul" on Harden, significantly impeded the Rocekts star when he was on him.
Stats: 38min 19pts (8-11, 3-4, 0-0) 6reb 6ast 2stl 0blk 5TO
Summary: aside from trying to kill gophers all over the arena with his passes, another big contributing game from Casspi
Casspi ( B+ ) -- got our first two hoops right on the rim, then got less effective, and was blocekd twice blocked twice in the final minutes of the first quarter as the Rockets got back into it (and those two blocks would be his only misses of the first half). In the early 2nd got an offensive foul arm barring Montejunas right in the chest on the open court, which counted as one of his 5 turnovers on the night, and numerous just remarkably headscratching sort of plays. But he hit his threes and got out and ran the break and had a number of excellent sequences passing or being passed to and running sharp breaks. Then he would come along and pass the ball right to the popcorn vendor on some truly just random decisions. It was a teamwide fugly. But everything else was there. Omri was highly efficient with his shooting, he passed, did ok on the glass, fit right in as that extra weapon out there. He just decorated a strong evening with a serious of brain farts.
Stats: 33min 26pts (7-17, 2-4, 10-14) 12reb 0ast 2stl 1blk 4TO
Summary: was worried we were going to lose him early as he got chippy with Howard, but hung in and ho hummed another 26-12 night
Cousins ( B ) -- The big nights are just routine with Boogie at this point, but we almost didn't get this one going as in typical Cuz fashion he overreacted to Howard substituting pushing and shoving with actual playing, got himself a technical, and was plenty worked up and on edge enough to have picked up a second one before the quarter was over. He survived however, and a lot more than survived as he dropped in two threes, and really tried to force some contact and calls inside and went to the bench with a dozen points. He still wasn't settled however, returned to the game to start the 2nd, quickly picked up another foul playing over aggressive defense, and went right back to the bench. When he returned in the mid 2nd he immediately took a big chance of picking up his 3rd, but drew the charge. And his play from that point forward was if not brilliant, just extremely solid. He began to mix in little rumbles to the hoop, he completely dominated Howard on both ends, and he played very smart vertical defense to avoid having Howard or Harden draw fouls on him by jumping into him, which they both tried. In fact really the biggest problem we had with Cousins after half was that the Rockets gave up on the idea of having Howard guard him 1 on 1, and instead resorted to a series of gimmicks, including doubling him without the ball and even going supersmall and having Trevor Ariza guard him. And our guard line rater pathetically had no idea what to do, kept forcing it in to the doubles for turnovers, couldn't figure out how to feed him when he had Ariza pinned in there etc., and it was enough to make you sincerely appreciate the Rondo effect. Late in the game looked like he got victimized by a Harden call with 3min to go when Ciz set up to take a charge, Harden went right into his chest, and a foul was called on Boogie anyway. But he responded nicely with a great drive through traffic for his 25th point.
Stats: 24min 8pts (3-4, 0-0, 2-3) 0reb 2ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Summary: was playing pretty well and competing agains Harden...and then fell victim to Karl's mindless "must have 2 little guards no matter what" sub pattern late
McLemore ( B- ) -- the short minutes centered around a lack of trust and Karl's preference for two PGs late, even if one is a scrub, continued tonight. And in this case I don't think Curry did nearly enough to justify that treatment for Ben. Its not that Ben had one of those "on" games offensively -- 5 of of his 8 points actually came early on basically wide open red carpet drives through a snoring Rockets defense more concerned with our other players, and he wasn't able to pick up the ballhandling slack in the early going while the Rockets pressed DC into mistakes. But he later added a nice passing sequence with Cuz for a dunk, and most importantly he and Rudy were really making it hard on Harden. Or at least not giving him much free. At the point Ben left the game in the late 3rd, Harden had 14 points. He finished with 33. This appeared to be lost on Karl as he went to his tweener guard instead,and stuck with him on the basis of 1-4 shooting in 21 minutes, nearly as many as Ben got. Maybe it was the clumsy ass turnover Ben had where he just started running to the hoop with the ball, apparently forgetting that you had to dribble it at the same time. In any case, while Ben wasn't as disruptive defensively as Rudy, combined our two erstwhile offensively minded wings were focused enough on that end to make an impact until we went small again.
Stats: 41min 14pts (6-9, 1-1, 1-1) 7reb 13ast 1stl 0blk 8TO
Summary: The Good: threatened a triple double of his own. The Bad: Threatened a quadruple double throwing it all over the gym.
Collison ( B- ) -- It was a Dr. Jeckell and Mr. Hyde night for Collison. He had 13 assists on the night. Sounds impressive until you see that he also had 8 turnovers. He wasn't alone in that dept, but he was the PG. To some extent, it wasn't that he had that many turnovers, it was the nature of the turnovers. The majority of which, were his own personal creation. Some were stupid lazy passes, or they were passes that god himself couldn't have completed. Offensively, passes aside, he was very effective. He was trying to do his best imitation of Rondo, and certainly had a pass first mentality. And while I admire the intent, its works best when you stay within your limitations. He hit his only three point attempt, and overall went 6 for 9 from the floor. His worse moment came when he brought the ball up the floor, crossed half court, and then passed the ball back to Cousins who hadn't crossed halfcourt yet. Defensively, he was a mixed bag. He had some very good moments, and some very bad moments, and to be honest, that's a typical Collison game. There has only been a couple of games this year where I thought he impacted the game defensively. Too often he gets caught in screens, and while that can happen to any player, it's his reaction to it that I have a problem with. At times, he simply gives up on the play when he gets picked. Yet, other times he appears to be glued to his man. But overall, it was one of his better games and if not for the turnovers, he might have been on his way to an A. --Baja
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