Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Boogie goes for 39 and 24. First guy since Webber to put up those numbers in NBA. We lose.
A few weeks go by.
Boogie goes for 39 and 20 (3rd guy in modern era with 2 39 and 20s in same season). We lose.
Takes a night off.
Comes back and goes for 24pts 21reb 10ast 6blk 3stl. Becomes the first guy since Webber in 1999 to put up 20-20-10-5. We lose.
What's this man got to do?
*grumble* *grumble* something about not mattering if you score 111 if the other team scores 115 *grumble*...
Boxscore
Stats: 38min 18pts (8-17, 0-2, 2-2) 7reb 4ast 3stl 0blk 5TO
Summary: Hustled and made contributions running the floor, but defense and ballhandling were a mess.
Casspi ( B ) -- started the game in fugly fashion fumbling and bumbling the ball all over the court. This was his old team of course, so maybe he wanted to show well and was just pressing. Twice he seemed to lose track of Ariza as well as Trevor joined Harden in bombing us in the first half. But on this night the sloppy play was joined by big effort, and Omri was all over the court, for good and bad. Almost every shot he hit was a layup on the break or taking a pass backdoor. In the first half in particular he was helping Cuz control things on the glass. He notched steals, set Cuz up for a big dunk on the break. He made a lot of contributions, and missing Rudy on the night, Omri's 18pts 7reb 4ast 3stl line could easily have been a Rudy line. Unfortunately there were just too many mistakes, and then down the stretch we made the fateful decision to try to slow the Harden express by having Omri guard him for the stretch run. He tried to get up into him, and on one possession did get a poke steal and dunk down the other way. But mostly he just was not quick enough as Harden got around him repeatedly and scored most of his final 12-15 points against Omri.
Stats: 21min 10pts (5-10, 0-0, 0-0) 4reb 0ast 0stl 2blk 0TO
Summary: had one stretch of effective play running and taking passes for easy hoops but refused to pass himself.
Landry ( B- ) -- were it not for a couple of good interior defensive plays in the early going you would have to call this one of Carl's normal offensively one dimensional games (even 2 of his 4 rebs came on one embarrassing sequence where he got blocked 3 times on the possession by Terrence Jones). Carl's no speedster, but he knows how to make himself available, and his 10 points all came on relatively easy looks, slipping screens, running the floor, and either knocking down open midrange jumpers or hitting layups. Had that been the extent of what he did it would have been a very efficient night, but unfortunately Carl also took bimself right into the teeth of the defense on several occasions, and to put it delicately, got the crap blocked out of him. Repeatedly. The worst sequence involved him getting blocked not once, not twice, but THREE times on a single possession by Terrence Jones, and Carl just has never had any kind of vision to kick the ball out when being swarmed. He got blocked again just before half, and only played about half a quarter in the third before being replaced by the more effective JT. Given his recent complete non-use, you have to call this something better however. There was a little defense early, and while he would be about the only King not taking part in the passing game, he did finish off a number of those passes to get the passers assists.
Stats: 39min 24pts (11-25, 0-0, 2-6) 21reb 10ast 3stl 6blk 5TO
Summary: everytime he takes the floor anymore it sends people racing to the recordbooks. Webber was the last with a 20-20-10-5 game.
Cousins ( A ) -- actually started this game off slow offensively, and as the Rockets threatened to blow us out you were thinking we don't have a chance unless the big guy gets going. But the funny thing was if you were watching closely he WAS going. He looked almost tired out there, almost unwilling to just go muscle on muscle with Dorsey, and yet from the beginning he was creating all our early offense with little passes, and while not scoring, also making our best defensive plays -- a blocked shot, a steal to start a break, took a charge. And while waiting for the offense to finally come online late in the half, instead he was racking up assists, steals, blocks (5 of them in the first half) -- this is how you fill up a statsheet. Out of a Rockets time out in the mid 2nd, stepped in front for a steal, and started the break. Got out on another one and took the pass from Omri for a running dunk. A basic jumper in the early 3rd actually got us the lead after being down 19 in the 2nd. There were some physical hijinks inside with Dorsey and Jones, and after a big muscle finish +1 Cuz kissed his bicep in thanks. Well...I say +1, but not on this night. Despite scoring 24, his offense was just off somehow. He didn't get lot of finishes, the jumper did not look comfortable, and even his FTs were fugly. Whatever the brilliance of the overall game, assists aside (and you don't set 10 assists aside as a center) this really was not a brilliant offensive game. Really began thumping the boards after half, and notched his 10th assist on a backcut play with Omri in the final 2 minutes -- an effective play, but one we had just tried with JT the last time, and it made me wonder if Coach Karl did not know where Boogie was standing assistwise. And if he did, good on him. So anyway, 24pts 21reb 10ast 6blk 3stl....ho hum. Ho hum enough that the 11-25 shooting and 5 TOs keep the "+" off I guess. But if history is any kind, and barring a repeat by Boogie himself, we will all be significantly older and greyer before we see a statline like that put up again.
Stats: 31min 14pts (6-10, 2-3, 0-0) 4reb 2ast 1stl 1blk 2TO
Summary: when your man scores 51, obviously not great. But speed helped on the break, hit some threes, had flashes of D.
McLemore ( C ) -- okay, Ben had 14pts. His man had 51. Ben also has bad hands and is probably never going to be able to dribble in traffic. But crazy as it may seem Ben did some good things out there at times, and of Harden's 51, probably "only" about 20 or so were directly on Ben. This game was played at a breakneck pace, and of course for Ben that means he's going to get some raceouts. He had a tough up and under n the early going, a straight runout in the 2nd. Anemic production in the face of Harden's onslaught, but Harden didn't really get going himself until Nik and DWill came in and started covering him. In the late 2nd Ben came up with some big athletic defensive plays including a block on Harden, scooping up a steal and getting it ahead to Casspi for his own breakout etc. In the early 3rd he briefly was smothering Harden, and got a couple of threes on kickouts. But defensive mistakes mounted. Just dumb ones wandering off of Harden or going under screens on him, and once Harden started pouring it on again Karl decided to try a switchup, and went to Omri instead down the stretch on Harden. That's didn't really slow Harden, but I'm not sure I remember Ariza or Terry scoring on Ben late. In any case, looked at in a vacuum and ignoring that the 37pt beatdown we received at this position was absolutely what killed us, Ben did some things tonight. I just don't know how you can truly look at it in that sort of vaccum, especially not when we're off hiding Ben from the opposing SG late in the game, and that's got to be reflected in the grades somewhere.
Stats: 35min 14pts (5-6, 2-3, 2-4) 3reb 6ast 1stl 0blk 4TO
Summary: early on could not run the team, but could take passes for scores. Began to take advantage of Terry after half.
McCallum ( B- ) -- in the early going as Houston came out opening a big lead Ray wasn't really able to run the team at all the other way as we threw the ball all over the gym, but he was providing many of our early points letting Cuz set him up outside and in. And everytime he ended up on a switch on Harden or Ariza things were going bad (on the other hand old man Terry was just chucking up old legs garbage). There continued to be headslapping ballhandling errors, but he settled as we came back (the first of several), started to notch some assists, and was very efficient with his scoring chances through the 2nd and 3rd. Down the stretch, which Ray ran rather than an ineffective Miller, he was scrappy, unfortunately back to sporadically dumb and forcing, and choked a pair of FTs at a bad time in the final 2 min. There was a nice efficient little scoring line here, he definitely outperformed what the Rockets have left post-Beverley. But the assists were paired with an almost equal number of headslapping TOs, and that pair of missed FTs right when you can't miss FTs can't help a grade.
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