15-55, and the major showdown with fellow top pick contender Memphis on Friday. Let's hope they can accidentally win a game between then and now to give us some cushion.
As an aside, a certain former coach of the Kings notched his 854th win tonight as his team knocked off the Spurs and took control of the Southwest Division lead, which is nice, considering that all 10 other Kings coaches in Sacramento history have combined for 472 wins (an average of 47 wins a piece). It comes in the midst of his 15th winning season BTW, which is also nice given that all the other coaches in Sacramento history have combined for exactly zero winning seasons.
So last three games around here have been:
1) Pretty Girls theme (blowout)
2) Pretty Girls theme (close call blowout -- lost by 16, but it was closer for much of the game)
3) messed up by server crash
And so tonight I dunno. It was of course a horrendous blowout for most of the game. But at the end we came up with one of our faux hustle charges to make it a little less than a blowout, although I am not sure we ever even got it under double figures. So for the sake of balance I am thinking of not calling that a blowout just because if I did the last three completed themes would all be Pretty Girls themes. Which works for me, but is getting rather one note. Let me scrounge around in the attic and see what else I might be able to come up with.
Ok: theme = Places You Do Not Want to Buy Real Estate In the Upcoming Global Warming
Cisco ( A- ) -- knocked down back to back threes in the first in maybe our only sign of life in the quarter. Came back and continued the hot shooting in the second quarter -- was 4-5 from 3pt land at one point, and the only thing keeping the Kings down "only" 20. Kept it going in the 3rd, which was important because he was getting scorched even worse back the other way by Igooudala, who at one point was, get this, 10-10 from the field. Was getting worried he needed another one of those raps with a ruler on that bad finger in the 4th when it briefly looked like he was going to cap his hot shooting night with a clutch shooting spree that could have put us in danger of winning it. Who knows, maybe one of the coaches took up my idea however, since after hitting a big three to get us within 13 by the mid quarter, Cisco largely went quiet thereafter. The trick to this grade is the balancing act -- Cisco was clearly the best, and at times only, player on the floor for us for long stretches of this game. And yet his destruction on defense, especially in the early going, was a major factor in how we got into so much trouble in the first place. I would like to think I pay a little more attention to that "defense" stuff than does our team (it should be noted the Sixers are the worst three point shooting team in the league, but shot 54% from 3pt land against us). I'll shift the blame to Iggy and slip Cisco an A- on the grounds that Iggy was just unconscious out there.
Florida -- chances are that even the youngest members of this board will only see 3-5 feet of rising seas in their lifetimes, which is bad enough and will create a real mess displacing millions of people. But in order to make this theme more fun, let's go with the worst case long term scenario -- if it goes on long enough the Greenland ice sheet will eventually melt away, and if that happens, it not +3ft or +5ft, its +20ft. Take a century or two, but if it happens this is what South Florida looks like. There is no South Florida. Miami is an island. The tip of Florida is gone, let's not even talk about Key West. Over to the right you can see the sand bars formerly known as the Bahamas. And then of course with the entire region already underwater now you can add in the fun of dramatically increased hurricane activity brought on by the warmer seas. (as an aside, the actual worst case scenario is if we manage to melt Antartica away as well...if you would like to see th results of doing that, go rent the movie "Waterworld" from your local video store/Netflix/whatever).
Thompson ( B ) -- in the early going it was basically he and Cisco playing 2 on 5 against the Sixers. Cisco was doing the scoring, Jason the rebounding, and both guys shared the load of letting their opponents score every single bleeping time down the floor. Jason had 4pts 8rebs after the first quarter as really about the only bright spot while we got squashed out there. My opinion of Jerry has moved from idiot to dishonest after he failed to note what a difference having a full sized PF out there rather than a SF masquerading as a PF (Thad Young is there only because of the Brand injury) made for us, before eventually launching into another one of his pathetic PFs shoot 3ptrs rants when Donte entered the game (and even tryign to annoint Pau Gasol a 3pt shooter in support of his point (Pau has taken two 3ptrs this year). JT did a decent job of challenging Dalembert in there as well. You can see him visibly struggle to get it over the bigger guys, but at least it did not devolve into a blockfest as it has sometimes this year. Didn't do much in the second quarter before the foul trouble came and eventually became the story once again. Slowed in the third, and along with Spencer through some of the worst passes you have ever seen, just 5 feet over the head of the intended recipeints. It was like, WHAT?? If you're going to tank, at least be subtle about it. Both production and minutes became limited as this went along, and Jason racked up 5 fouls again. Here Jerry's sudden SF at PF fetish actually bore some fruit -- Thaddeus Young was just too skilled and mobile for Jason to guard. Not that we have actually found anybody yet who Jason can in fact guard. Still finished with 12pts 13rebs in limited minutes, and the back to back strong games by both frontcourt players is the best sign we could hope for at the tail end of this lost season.
New York -- its not going to be a good day for the residents of the five boroughs either. But hey, at least Manhattan will still be mostly above water, and that's the only one anybody cares about anyway. However Coney Island is gone, JFK Airport is gone, so is LaGuardia, half of Queens and STaten Island (probably except the giant mountain of garbage at its center). Alas as it turns out I too am under water. But I could have guessed that given that I live on the water right above a boardwalk. Fortunately however I am 24 stories up, and even after the flooding will probably still be 21 stories up, so I can just have the ferry drop me off at the door. Or window as it may be.
Hawes ( B+ ) -- with no Knicks around it was right back to Charlotte level suck in the early going and you were thinking uhoh. But then a funny thing happened. Began to get mop up points off the offensive glass in the second quarter, and interspersed with some bizarrely bad passes for turnovers he began to rack up assists. Not one or two or even three, but by the end of the game no fewer than NINE. Had a significant impact after half as the offense and rebounding caught up to the passing and he seemed to be involved on every interior play. Well, on one side of the ball. On the other he had no luck at all shutting down the lane to penetration. Played nearly the entire way this time to get those numbers, but down the stretch we actually had several shots to give him his first career triple double. This is one of those grades where the numbers demand something rather higher than the game itself felt like when you were watching it. He was strong in the second half, but there was never a real "Spencer Hawes is taking over the game!" moment and the wild turnovers were a distraction. Obviously another strong game any way you cut it though, and he and Jason are clearly the only thing to be watching down the stretch here. This is the hope.
The Netherlands -- actually all of the Lowlands (so called for a reason). Holland, Belgium, parts of France and Germany. A ton of history up there and I have friends in the region, but if sea levels rise sorry to say they are toast. Back in the Renaissance years Holland more or less created itself with a series of huge (for the day) engineering projects building dikes to keep out the sea, using them new fangled windmill thingies to pump out water, and in general reclaiming hundreds of miles of marshy bogland and turning it the region into one of the most advanced region's of Europe. Well, in a 20ft sea rise scenario, all those gains would be lost and more. Every major city goes under water, and no amount of engineering can hold back the entire ocean.
Martin ( D ) -- seemed to get stripped nearly every time down the floor in the early going and just had nothing in the first half. Just sort of passively heaving something up every once in a while, but looking like he stayed out all night..and maybe most of the day too with the lack of energy. Got an open three and some FTs in the thrid to reach double figures but had nothing at all on his shot (4-14 on the night and a lovely 1-8 from 3pt land), so it was just the throw yourself around herky jerky stuff trying to bait the refs. Bad game, but enough points in the third to maybe help us just keep some distant distant contact, so elevated up out of the F region.
Bangladesh -- it comes as no surprise to anybody who knows the history of Bangladesh (the former East Pakistan over to the east of India) that if the seas rise it is screwed. Basically it is a one vast river delta filtering down inot the ocean, and everytimie they have a typhoon come through that part of the world half of Bangladesh goes under water anyway. Now raise the sea level 20ft and Bangladesh goes from the name of an impoverished country to the name of a large bay.
As an aside, a certain former coach of the Kings notched his 854th win tonight as his team knocked off the Spurs and took control of the Southwest Division lead, which is nice, considering that all 10 other Kings coaches in Sacramento history have combined for 472 wins (an average of 47 wins a piece). It comes in the midst of his 15th winning season BTW, which is also nice given that all the other coaches in Sacramento history have combined for exactly zero winning seasons.
So last three games around here have been:
1) Pretty Girls theme (blowout)
2) Pretty Girls theme (close call blowout -- lost by 16, but it was closer for much of the game)
3) messed up by server crash
And so tonight I dunno. It was of course a horrendous blowout for most of the game. But at the end we came up with one of our faux hustle charges to make it a little less than a blowout, although I am not sure we ever even got it under double figures. So for the sake of balance I am thinking of not calling that a blowout just because if I did the last three completed themes would all be Pretty Girls themes. Which works for me, but is getting rather one note. Let me scrounge around in the attic and see what else I might be able to come up with.
Ok: theme = Places You Do Not Want to Buy Real Estate In the Upcoming Global Warming
Cisco ( A- ) -- knocked down back to back threes in the first in maybe our only sign of life in the quarter. Came back and continued the hot shooting in the second quarter -- was 4-5 from 3pt land at one point, and the only thing keeping the Kings down "only" 20. Kept it going in the 3rd, which was important because he was getting scorched even worse back the other way by Igooudala, who at one point was, get this, 10-10 from the field. Was getting worried he needed another one of those raps with a ruler on that bad finger in the 4th when it briefly looked like he was going to cap his hot shooting night with a clutch shooting spree that could have put us in danger of winning it. Who knows, maybe one of the coaches took up my idea however, since after hitting a big three to get us within 13 by the mid quarter, Cisco largely went quiet thereafter. The trick to this grade is the balancing act -- Cisco was clearly the best, and at times only, player on the floor for us for long stretches of this game. And yet his destruction on defense, especially in the early going, was a major factor in how we got into so much trouble in the first place. I would like to think I pay a little more attention to that "defense" stuff than does our team (it should be noted the Sixers are the worst three point shooting team in the league, but shot 54% from 3pt land against us). I'll shift the blame to Iggy and slip Cisco an A- on the grounds that Iggy was just unconscious out there.
Florida -- chances are that even the youngest members of this board will only see 3-5 feet of rising seas in their lifetimes, which is bad enough and will create a real mess displacing millions of people. But in order to make this theme more fun, let's go with the worst case long term scenario -- if it goes on long enough the Greenland ice sheet will eventually melt away, and if that happens, it not +3ft or +5ft, its +20ft. Take a century or two, but if it happens this is what South Florida looks like. There is no South Florida. Miami is an island. The tip of Florida is gone, let's not even talk about Key West. Over to the right you can see the sand bars formerly known as the Bahamas. And then of course with the entire region already underwater now you can add in the fun of dramatically increased hurricane activity brought on by the warmer seas. (as an aside, the actual worst case scenario is if we manage to melt Antartica away as well...if you would like to see th results of doing that, go rent the movie "Waterworld" from your local video store/Netflix/whatever).
Thompson ( B ) -- in the early going it was basically he and Cisco playing 2 on 5 against the Sixers. Cisco was doing the scoring, Jason the rebounding, and both guys shared the load of letting their opponents score every single bleeping time down the floor. Jason had 4pts 8rebs after the first quarter as really about the only bright spot while we got squashed out there. My opinion of Jerry has moved from idiot to dishonest after he failed to note what a difference having a full sized PF out there rather than a SF masquerading as a PF (Thad Young is there only because of the Brand injury) made for us, before eventually launching into another one of his pathetic PFs shoot 3ptrs rants when Donte entered the game (and even tryign to annoint Pau Gasol a 3pt shooter in support of his point (Pau has taken two 3ptrs this year). JT did a decent job of challenging Dalembert in there as well. You can see him visibly struggle to get it over the bigger guys, but at least it did not devolve into a blockfest as it has sometimes this year. Didn't do much in the second quarter before the foul trouble came and eventually became the story once again. Slowed in the third, and along with Spencer through some of the worst passes you have ever seen, just 5 feet over the head of the intended recipeints. It was like, WHAT?? If you're going to tank, at least be subtle about it. Both production and minutes became limited as this went along, and Jason racked up 5 fouls again. Here Jerry's sudden SF at PF fetish actually bore some fruit -- Thaddeus Young was just too skilled and mobile for Jason to guard. Not that we have actually found anybody yet who Jason can in fact guard. Still finished with 12pts 13rebs in limited minutes, and the back to back strong games by both frontcourt players is the best sign we could hope for at the tail end of this lost season.
New York -- its not going to be a good day for the residents of the five boroughs either. But hey, at least Manhattan will still be mostly above water, and that's the only one anybody cares about anyway. However Coney Island is gone, JFK Airport is gone, so is LaGuardia, half of Queens and STaten Island (probably except the giant mountain of garbage at its center). Alas as it turns out I too am under water. But I could have guessed that given that I live on the water right above a boardwalk. Fortunately however I am 24 stories up, and even after the flooding will probably still be 21 stories up, so I can just have the ferry drop me off at the door. Or window as it may be.
Hawes ( B+ ) -- with no Knicks around it was right back to Charlotte level suck in the early going and you were thinking uhoh. But then a funny thing happened. Began to get mop up points off the offensive glass in the second quarter, and interspersed with some bizarrely bad passes for turnovers he began to rack up assists. Not one or two or even three, but by the end of the game no fewer than NINE. Had a significant impact after half as the offense and rebounding caught up to the passing and he seemed to be involved on every interior play. Well, on one side of the ball. On the other he had no luck at all shutting down the lane to penetration. Played nearly the entire way this time to get those numbers, but down the stretch we actually had several shots to give him his first career triple double. This is one of those grades where the numbers demand something rather higher than the game itself felt like when you were watching it. He was strong in the second half, but there was never a real "Spencer Hawes is taking over the game!" moment and the wild turnovers were a distraction. Obviously another strong game any way you cut it though, and he and Jason are clearly the only thing to be watching down the stretch here. This is the hope.
The Netherlands -- actually all of the Lowlands (so called for a reason). Holland, Belgium, parts of France and Germany. A ton of history up there and I have friends in the region, but if sea levels rise sorry to say they are toast. Back in the Renaissance years Holland more or less created itself with a series of huge (for the day) engineering projects building dikes to keep out the sea, using them new fangled windmill thingies to pump out water, and in general reclaiming hundreds of miles of marshy bogland and turning it the region into one of the most advanced region's of Europe. Well, in a 20ft sea rise scenario, all those gains would be lost and more. Every major city goes under water, and no amount of engineering can hold back the entire ocean.
Martin ( D ) -- seemed to get stripped nearly every time down the floor in the early going and just had nothing in the first half. Just sort of passively heaving something up every once in a while, but looking like he stayed out all night..and maybe most of the day too with the lack of energy. Got an open three and some FTs in the thrid to reach double figures but had nothing at all on his shot (4-14 on the night and a lovely 1-8 from 3pt land), so it was just the throw yourself around herky jerky stuff trying to bait the refs. Bad game, but enough points in the third to maybe help us just keep some distant distant contact, so elevated up out of the F region.
Bangladesh -- it comes as no surprise to anybody who knows the history of Bangladesh (the former East Pakistan over to the east of India) that if the seas rise it is screwed. Basically it is a one vast river delta filtering down inot the ocean, and everytimie they have a typhoon come through that part of the world half of Bangladesh goes under water anyway. Now raise the sea level 20ft and Bangladesh goes from the name of an impoverished country to the name of a large bay.
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