A funny thing happened on the way to the woodshed...
Garcia ( A- ) -- heck of a way to lose your NBA virginity -- here rook, meet the San Antonio Spurs. But after a few shaky moments and one of his patented "duh" forced shots, settled down and played a solid first quarter for us. Made some all around contributions and gave us a guard-like presence out there. But the story of his night really has to be what he, KT, and Bonzi started in the early 4th. Three of the scrappiest Kings dug in, starting flying around, and with the Spurs seemingly in cruise control and just trying to close out the easy victory, those guys started to drag us back into it and swung momentum around in our favor. Bonzi was the main man, but Garcia was the wingman, making help defensive plays and handling the ball. Still made a number of mistakes, and the statistical contributions were modest. But an important game for him spiritwise and did better against the Spurs than many of our established players. We'll have to see how it goes next time with the Spurs no longer sleeping on him and knowing what he can do, but for a night his competitiveness alone gave us an important lift when we could have just checked out and accepted the beatdown.
Reef ( D ) -- outmatched tonight and got punked by Duncan in his first stint, and actually ended up getting taken out in favor of Skinner. Came back, but quickly picked up his third in the first half on a phantom call. Just engulfed in there for most of the night against the bigger Duncan in the post. Finally broke the ice with something of a desperation three pointer since nothing else was working, and it seemed to get him going in the third quarter for his best stretch of the night. Showed some pride and figured out that taking the game out to the perimeter for jumpers and drives was more effective than trying to post the bigger man and the all 7'0" frontline the Spurs run. Liked him coming over to try to save his OG from getting thrown out when Bonzi lost his cool -- but then disappointingly went and got a technical himself a minute later. Eventually took the perimeter stuff too far and continued to chuck up jumpers even after Duncan went to the bench, but did not have the touch. Night ended after he finally got frustrated and tried to force a power move through Nesterovic, in the process picking up an offensive foul. KT took over, and with us making a run with Kenny in the game and Shareef out of sorts, he was just never called upon again.
Miller ( D- ) -- ineffective and quiet early, didn't have much luck against Duncan on defense, but at least provided more resistance than our other options. Did deliver a few good hard fouls around the rim to stop the Spurs from just getting layups. May have gotten banged up in the third, and combined with ineffective play didn't see much of him after that. Finally hit his first shot on a wide open elbower in the 4th, but that was it. No rebounding yet again. Is he going to be a 6 rebound guy all season?
Says something when his big positive of the night might have been actually winning a "jump" ball against Horry in the waning seconds to keep us in it.
Bonzi ( A ) -- helped stem the early Spurs tide by really digging in on defense and the glass. Also made some mistakes -- his normal ones, random turnovers and missed shots. But thought he helped bring us back just by fighting. Caught him blatantly shoving Bowen on one rebound -- outphysicalling the Spurs, getting on the glass, slashing and finishing against the Spurs big front line. Along with Bibby really showed himself to be the King most ready to play in this sort of physical war in the earlygoing. In the third quarter really lost his head. Got a technical, got mad, made a stupid mad foul pushing Bowen, almost got thrown out. Took him a while to recover his focus, but when he did -- wow! Really tried to carry us down the stretch along with Garcia with fighting spirit and hustle, battling inside against Duncan and the Spurs frontline. Ignited an otherwise dead team and dead crowd, and while he took a back seat after the cavalry arrived, his fingerprints were all over our attempted comeback. For a night we found our warrior/leader. We'll see whether he can repeat.
Bibby ( A ) -- was doing much of both the good and the bad for us early, doing the bulk of our scoring, but also turning it over and seeing Tony Parker come back at him on the other end. Nonetheless completely carried us early on offense, scoring nearly half our first half points. Without him, this game is over before intermission. Started missing shots in the third quarter and got frustrated and out of rhythm, leading to a long stint on the bench while Hart and the scrappers ran the show. But came back in to try to play the hero and bookended his night with strong aggressive play down the stretch, once again carrying us to within one shot of victory (or in this case, of OT). For the second night in a row hit a huge clutch three to bing us close, and then followed a few seconds later with the last second miss to in this case tie it (last night it would have won it). Don't know if I should really "A" him or not, but clutch play is always a way to inflate your grade in my book.
Skinner ( C- ) -- came in early for Shareef to try to contain Duncan in a rare mega Brad/Skinner lineup, but spent most of the first half getting roughed up by Nazr Mohammed. Finally scored on a putback and drew a foul, but for the most part kind of just served as a big punching bag out there. Nazr wasn't doing anything against him either but instead was just sort of playing the thug and somehow not getting called for it. Anyway, odd outing that will leave Brian sporting a few bruises. He was at least physical, or at least absorbed physicality, from a very rough team. But certainly did nothing to earn any second half minutes.
Thomas ( B+ ) -- not much early, forced shots, and tried to go one on one vs. Duncan. Which is just...duh. But in the second half began to get very aggressive, and while you still can't say much for his smarts, he was the PF and one of the guys still fighting in there as we mounted the comeback. Grabbed some nice swooping aggressive boards and drew fouls. Far too small to guard Duncan, but did slap at the ball and lean on him at least. Gets a "+" despite the crappy shooting/shaky decisionmaking just for not going gently into that good night and accepting the defeat.
Martin ( INC ) -- came in for a brief first half stint, did not show much, and did not return
Hart ( C ) -- in the first half made a few contributions -- broke up a fastbreak, hit a jumper. Ended up getting a bunch of second half minutes in place of Bibby and did very little except hustle. Missed almost everything again, and still not differentiating good shots from bad. Gets the grade he did for competing -- a common theme tonight.
Corliss ( B- ) -- gave us a decent little push from the bench in the first half, coming in and using his strength edge on Bowen to score inside (although on one notable play had overpowered Bowen to the hoop and suddenly was converged upon by two guys (Duncan and Nazr I think) tall enough that he could pick the lint out of their bellybutton wih his teeth -- did not end well for him). Didn't do much other than score though, and had trouble chasing his man on the perimeter. Decent stint bringing toughness against a tough team, but not good enough to get more minutes in the second half.
Adelman ( A- ) -- The game was going more or less as predicted -- the Spurs were just sort of casually dispatching us. Not really playing very hard, running through almost the whole bench (with one notable exception -- see below), just spotting in starters whenever they felt like they needed to break up any hope we might have, and in general doing their constrictor snake thing where they just squeeze you and squeeze you and run hordes of people at you until you just finally expire. But then a funny thing happened -- we didn't. Rick had been doing a respectable job of trying to find ways to compete for the game -- was trying all kinds of player combos, big frontlines, small frontlines, was NOT amused when we started to meltdown/collapse in the third and called a timeout to quite animatedly tell his players to quit bitching and get back to basketball. But we were still dying the slow Spurs death. And then things turned. And they turned for no bigger reason than that we finally found some guys who were going to dig in and fight while the Spurs slacked off and thought they were just going to walk away with it. And Rick showed a very nice feel tonight for who those players were, found them, and stuck with them to let us get back into position before reinserting Mike to try to win it for us down the stretch. In some ways I feel that the result was a little deceptive -- like a professional boxer who ties one arm behind his back and casually slaps you around for 8 rounds until you finally fight back. At which point he is compelled to untie the arm and actually get serious (I was amused when in the final three minutes of the game the Spurs finally became so alarmed they went to the end of the bench and took "Big Shot Rob" (Horry) off of ice after not deeming him necessary for the entire first 45 min). In other words if the Spurs had wanted to they probably could have been up by 25 by the time we tried to mount our comeback. But they weren't, they slept on us, and Bonzi, Garcia, Thomas etc. said not so fast and made a game of it. And that was enough for me for tonight. The loss was expected, but at least we competed and showed some pride.
Garcia ( A- ) -- heck of a way to lose your NBA virginity -- here rook, meet the San Antonio Spurs. But after a few shaky moments and one of his patented "duh" forced shots, settled down and played a solid first quarter for us. Made some all around contributions and gave us a guard-like presence out there. But the story of his night really has to be what he, KT, and Bonzi started in the early 4th. Three of the scrappiest Kings dug in, starting flying around, and with the Spurs seemingly in cruise control and just trying to close out the easy victory, those guys started to drag us back into it and swung momentum around in our favor. Bonzi was the main man, but Garcia was the wingman, making help defensive plays and handling the ball. Still made a number of mistakes, and the statistical contributions were modest. But an important game for him spiritwise and did better against the Spurs than many of our established players. We'll have to see how it goes next time with the Spurs no longer sleeping on him and knowing what he can do, but for a night his competitiveness alone gave us an important lift when we could have just checked out and accepted the beatdown.
Reef ( D ) -- outmatched tonight and got punked by Duncan in his first stint, and actually ended up getting taken out in favor of Skinner. Came back, but quickly picked up his third in the first half on a phantom call. Just engulfed in there for most of the night against the bigger Duncan in the post. Finally broke the ice with something of a desperation three pointer since nothing else was working, and it seemed to get him going in the third quarter for his best stretch of the night. Showed some pride and figured out that taking the game out to the perimeter for jumpers and drives was more effective than trying to post the bigger man and the all 7'0" frontline the Spurs run. Liked him coming over to try to save his OG from getting thrown out when Bonzi lost his cool -- but then disappointingly went and got a technical himself a minute later. Eventually took the perimeter stuff too far and continued to chuck up jumpers even after Duncan went to the bench, but did not have the touch. Night ended after he finally got frustrated and tried to force a power move through Nesterovic, in the process picking up an offensive foul. KT took over, and with us making a run with Kenny in the game and Shareef out of sorts, he was just never called upon again.
Miller ( D- ) -- ineffective and quiet early, didn't have much luck against Duncan on defense, but at least provided more resistance than our other options. Did deliver a few good hard fouls around the rim to stop the Spurs from just getting layups. May have gotten banged up in the third, and combined with ineffective play didn't see much of him after that. Finally hit his first shot on a wide open elbower in the 4th, but that was it. No rebounding yet again. Is he going to be a 6 rebound guy all season?
Says something when his big positive of the night might have been actually winning a "jump" ball against Horry in the waning seconds to keep us in it.Bonzi ( A ) -- helped stem the early Spurs tide by really digging in on defense and the glass. Also made some mistakes -- his normal ones, random turnovers and missed shots. But thought he helped bring us back just by fighting. Caught him blatantly shoving Bowen on one rebound -- outphysicalling the Spurs, getting on the glass, slashing and finishing against the Spurs big front line. Along with Bibby really showed himself to be the King most ready to play in this sort of physical war in the earlygoing. In the third quarter really lost his head. Got a technical, got mad, made a stupid mad foul pushing Bowen, almost got thrown out. Took him a while to recover his focus, but when he did -- wow! Really tried to carry us down the stretch along with Garcia with fighting spirit and hustle, battling inside against Duncan and the Spurs frontline. Ignited an otherwise dead team and dead crowd, and while he took a back seat after the cavalry arrived, his fingerprints were all over our attempted comeback. For a night we found our warrior/leader. We'll see whether he can repeat.
Bibby ( A ) -- was doing much of both the good and the bad for us early, doing the bulk of our scoring, but also turning it over and seeing Tony Parker come back at him on the other end. Nonetheless completely carried us early on offense, scoring nearly half our first half points. Without him, this game is over before intermission. Started missing shots in the third quarter and got frustrated and out of rhythm, leading to a long stint on the bench while Hart and the scrappers ran the show. But came back in to try to play the hero and bookended his night with strong aggressive play down the stretch, once again carrying us to within one shot of victory (or in this case, of OT). For the second night in a row hit a huge clutch three to bing us close, and then followed a few seconds later with the last second miss to in this case tie it (last night it would have won it). Don't know if I should really "A" him or not, but clutch play is always a way to inflate your grade in my book.
Skinner ( C- ) -- came in early for Shareef to try to contain Duncan in a rare mega Brad/Skinner lineup, but spent most of the first half getting roughed up by Nazr Mohammed. Finally scored on a putback and drew a foul, but for the most part kind of just served as a big punching bag out there. Nazr wasn't doing anything against him either but instead was just sort of playing the thug and somehow not getting called for it. Anyway, odd outing that will leave Brian sporting a few bruises. He was at least physical, or at least absorbed physicality, from a very rough team. But certainly did nothing to earn any second half minutes.
Thomas ( B+ ) -- not much early, forced shots, and tried to go one on one vs. Duncan. Which is just...duh. But in the second half began to get very aggressive, and while you still can't say much for his smarts, he was the PF and one of the guys still fighting in there as we mounted the comeback. Grabbed some nice swooping aggressive boards and drew fouls. Far too small to guard Duncan, but did slap at the ball and lean on him at least. Gets a "+" despite the crappy shooting/shaky decisionmaking just for not going gently into that good night and accepting the defeat.
Martin ( INC ) -- came in for a brief first half stint, did not show much, and did not return
Hart ( C ) -- in the first half made a few contributions -- broke up a fastbreak, hit a jumper. Ended up getting a bunch of second half minutes in place of Bibby and did very little except hustle. Missed almost everything again, and still not differentiating good shots from bad. Gets the grade he did for competing -- a common theme tonight.
Corliss ( B- ) -- gave us a decent little push from the bench in the first half, coming in and using his strength edge on Bowen to score inside (although on one notable play had overpowered Bowen to the hoop and suddenly was converged upon by two guys (Duncan and Nazr I think) tall enough that he could pick the lint out of their bellybutton wih his teeth -- did not end well for him). Didn't do much other than score though, and had trouble chasing his man on the perimeter. Decent stint bringing toughness against a tough team, but not good enough to get more minutes in the second half.
Adelman ( A- ) -- The game was going more or less as predicted -- the Spurs were just sort of casually dispatching us. Not really playing very hard, running through almost the whole bench (with one notable exception -- see below), just spotting in starters whenever they felt like they needed to break up any hope we might have, and in general doing their constrictor snake thing where they just squeeze you and squeeze you and run hordes of people at you until you just finally expire. But then a funny thing happened -- we didn't. Rick had been doing a respectable job of trying to find ways to compete for the game -- was trying all kinds of player combos, big frontlines, small frontlines, was NOT amused when we started to meltdown/collapse in the third and called a timeout to quite animatedly tell his players to quit bitching and get back to basketball. But we were still dying the slow Spurs death. And then things turned. And they turned for no bigger reason than that we finally found some guys who were going to dig in and fight while the Spurs slacked off and thought they were just going to walk away with it. And Rick showed a very nice feel tonight for who those players were, found them, and stuck with them to let us get back into position before reinserting Mike to try to win it for us down the stretch. In some ways I feel that the result was a little deceptive -- like a professional boxer who ties one arm behind his back and casually slaps you around for 8 rounds until you finally fight back. At which point he is compelled to untie the arm and actually get serious (I was amused when in the final three minutes of the game the Spurs finally became so alarmed they went to the end of the bench and took "Big Shot Rob" (Horry) off of ice after not deeming him necessary for the entire first 45 min). In other words if the Spurs had wanted to they probably could have been up by 25 by the time we tried to mount our comeback. But they weren't, they slept on us, and Bonzi, Garcia, Thomas etc. said not so fast and made a game of it. And that was enough for me for tonight. The loss was expected, but at least we competed and showed some pride.
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