Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Tee hee.
Tonight was...eventful. Lambs became wolves, wolves became...well bigger wolves. Cousins looked like fouls had killed his game before half, he was being stationed out near the three point line as a bleeping decoy for much of the night, then after half he wiped away any notion that Dwight Howard has anything on him, and basically just won the game for us down the stretch. Our SGs, yes those ugly smelly scrawny things the league irrationally forces you to put on the floor, came out of nowhere for some of their best offensive work of the season. Then they proceeded to get LIT UP by James Harden...despite really at times not playing terrible defense. Isaiah Thomas passed first, gunned stupidly, Jimmer Fredette was actually deemed the better point guard for us to run down the stretch until the very end of the game, when of course IT came back and hit two big shots...then got beat on D and took another dumb one. None of the standard comments worked tonight. Whenever you thought you had it figured out, something else happened. Oh, and we won again. We had a real shot to knock off the Heat, the Spurs in their building, and now the Rockets in their building. Interesting way to close 2013 no?
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Bajaden
Henkel
Uncia03
And for one night only, welcome Consortium Guest Grader: The Jamal!
Boxscore
Stats: 42min 25pts (9-19, 1-4, 6-6) 6reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Gay ( A ) -- Gay was excellent on both ends of the floor tonight. A key to beating Houston is you have to limit the shooting and playmaking ability of Chandler Parsons. And Gay did that and more tonight limiting Parsons to 1-7 on 3s, committed 3 Turnovers, 4 fouls, and only 1 assist. As far as the 11 points Parsons did score, I only counted 4 against Gay. The only miscues I saw all night was he lost track of Parsons cutting to the rim twice in a row that lead to an easy dunk and 2 missed FT's. Just an excellent defensive night, making one of the better SF’s in the league be a total non-factor. Offensively, it was sort of a tale of two-halves with a few great moments thrown in the 2nd half. He had fantastic scoring numbers in the 1st half with 17 points on 6/9 shooting and 4/4 FTA. Parsons simply could not contain him on any spot of the floor. He was our top guy and a big reason we held a lead at the break. He got frozen out a bit at the beginning of the third as Cuz and IT started looking for their own offense, but was also missing easy shots that he was getting. After a 6/9 start, he ended the 3rd being 7/14. A big key though was that he did not let up on the defensive end and let Parsons get going. A few big plays in the 4th helped us reclaim the lead. He hit a few tough jumpers over Parsons that weren’t really great shots, but he made them. One of the plays of the night for me was the baseline kick out to a wide-open Ben to pull us within 3. After that play, IT and Cousins proceeded to take over. Iced the game when he hit 2 FT’s at the end for us to go up 6 with 10 seconds to go. He was our 2nd best player next to Cuz tonight. He played great defense in limiting a tough assignment Parsons the whole game, carried the offense in the 1st half and made some crucial offensive plays and shots in the 2nd half when we needed him to. Add in a road win against a playoff team that was 13-4 at home before tonight, and there's no reason Rudy didn't deserve an A--Jamal
Stats: 28min 8pts (3-3, 0-0, 2-2) 3reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Thompson ( C+ ) -- I had probably the easiest grading job of anybody last night and I'm late. Apologies. So Jason...was Jason. Notice the shot attempts. Unfortunately notice the rebounding. His little 3-3 8pt scoring line wasn't just putbacks: he still has a little skill we like to use a little bit then ignore. Hit a little roleplaying faceup jumper in the early going, came out to start the third and pinned the undersized Jones inside and dropped a nice little half hook over him. Don't actually remember the third shot, but it likely was more of the same. Really his biggest job should have been to contain Terrence Jones, but he barely did that, as Jones clearly outplayed him . And while having to chase Jones around on the perimeter might be SOME excuse for the lack of baordwork, the fact of the matter is that our entire team except for Cousins was lazy on that end. Jones was out on the perimeter too, but he still manages to get back and help on the defensive glass. But this wasn't a bad performance by Jason so much as a largely invisible one. He stepped forward in the first half and gave us some solid minutes battling Howard when Cuz got himself in foul trouble (and during the second half helped on Howard with that big/big frontline effect where Dwight could never get a favorable matchup). Earned another technical with a snitfit after picking up his 4th in the mid third quarter, but was still back with 7 minutes to go to replace the wildly ineffective DWill. And he was just...there for from that point out. Never turned it over, never missed a shot, he wasn't awful. Just the invisible man. I could go lower for the rebounding. I could go higher for the excellent stay out of the way roleplayerness. But going to chink it a bit to reflect another dumb technical. I think Jason may know his Kings days are numbered, but even if he didn't showing that lack of composure is not a way to endear yourself to Malone.--Brick
Stats: 33min 17pts (7-13, 0-0, 3-4) 16reb 2ast 4stl 1blk 4TO
Cousins ( A- ) -- At first I was going to give Cuz a B+, but then I decided that it was New Years, and without his performance in the 4th quarter, we certainly wouldn't have won the game. Its hard to sit here and write that this wasn't one of Cousins best games, especially when you look at the stats. But that in itself shows the level he's risen to, and with that, our expectations. He grabbed the first rebound of the game on Houston's first possession. He followed that by bringing the ball up and as he crossed halfcourt, he made a bad pass that resulted in a turnover. On Houston's next possession, Howard posted up, and as he made his move across the key, Cousins knocked the ball out of his hands causing a turnover. A bit later he got called for a questional foul while fighting for a rebound with Howard. Cousins finally scored a layup on a nice pass from McLemore, who had just saved the ball from going out of bounds off a miss from Cousins. In general, Cousins played pretty good defense tonight. He took a couple of charges from Harden, and stole the ball twice from Howard, and once from Harden, which he followed with a beautiful outlet pass to McLemore who laid it in. His biggest mistake came when the defense broke down, and Cousins was standing to the left side of the basket as Parsons just stroled down the lane and scored. Very poor effort there. My other big complaint was that for most of the game, he settled for Jumpshots instead of aggressively attacking the basket. In the 4th quarter, he just took over the game. Not just scoring the ball, but with steals, defense. His biggest steal coming with 41 seconds left in the game, that for the most part sealed the deal. His most exciting play came when he stole the ball, went the length of the court and dunked the ball and was fouled. It wasn't a perfect game, but it was the kind of game an all star puts up on his bad night. Happy New Year Boogie! --Baja
Stats: 25min 13pts (5-12, 2-7, 1-2) 4reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
McLemore ( C ) -- It’s nice not having to kill Ben in this grade. After a couple of absolutely dreadful performances by Ben over the last few games it looked as if Coach Malone wanted to get him involved early in the game to see if he could jump-start Ben’s play. And today, it worked. The very first possession Ben came curling hard off a screen and IT found him and instead of the ‘Clank’ we’ve been getting Ben’s 3pt shot hit nothing but net. He then tried to drive into the lane (uh oh) and he slipped, but managed to find JT who was open for the easy 15ft shot. A bit later he dove the baseline hard, and IT put up a pass which wasn’t great but Ben was able to finish with two hands through Harden’s contest for the alley-oop slam. On defense he was playing Harden really well and actually doing one of the best jobs I’ve seen of staying down and keeping himself in front of his man. Ben started this game with a ton of energy and for a brief stretch he was the best player out there on the floor. And then…it got derailed. After 4 minutes of perhaps his best basketball, and certainly his best basketball in weeks, he picked up two quick fouls in 30 seconds and the energy just seemed to leave him. Malone kept him in the game for another 4 minutes and he didn’t pick up his 3rd foul, but he wasn’t as aggressive and energetic as he had been previously. However, when he left the game in the 1st he’d held Harden to 4 points and thoroughly outplayed Harden to that point. He didn’t get back in the game till mid-way through the 2nd quarter, but he only played a single minute till picking up his 3rd foul, at which point he went back to the bench again. In the second half Ben wasn’t nearly as dynamic but he made some crucial plays including hitting a wide open corner 3 after a designed play coming from a time-out and finishing with a lay-up to pretty much seal the game after Cousins stole the ball and got it to him for the easy fast-break lay-up. On defense, even though Harden had a season high in points in this one Ben didn’t play horrible defense. By-and-large he did a good job keeping in front of Harden and as mentioned earlier held Harden to just 4 points in his first outing. Harden just had a really good shooting night and I think that it was the game-plan defensively against him. Harden is shooting a career low from the 3pt line and both Ben and Thornton were going under almost all of the screens and Harden was using that space to knock down a lot of long 3pt attempts. Once those 3pt shots started falling Harden got on a shooting roll and a majority of his scoring was done with a hand in his face. So Ben looked great early, until he picked up the two quick fouls. He played great initial defense, and overall pretty solid, though ineffective defense, and didn’t really hurt us this time out. All in all a much better outing than we’ve seen in quite a while.
--Uncia
Stats: 35min 17pts (6-17, 1-4, 4-6) 1reb 10ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Thomas ( C ) -- Got off to a slow start with his outside shot off and Houston doing a good job clogging the lane on his drives. Had his shot blocked twice in the first quarter. Can't remember the last time that happened. Lin deserves some credit as well. Was physical with IT all night and managed to get under his skin. Was doing a nice job running the offense and with Lin not looking to score early things weren't as bad as the ugly shooting numbers would lead you to believe. Rough third quarter for Isaiah as Lins defensive style was clearly frustrating him. Still wasn't able to find his shot and unlike in the first half wasn't creating much offense either. Sat for a long time, too long if you ask me, and came back in well into the fourth. Had a nice drive then a big three with the game very much in doubt. On the other end Lin was being more aggressive and getting into the lane for a couple baskets inside. Still overall it was a nice finish in a game we really had to win. Nice to see us get some production outside of the big three and manage a quality win in spite of a mediocre game from IT.--Henkel
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