So there we go. Worst case scenario 1-7 start: achieved. Because the Sacramento Kings are nothing if not goal oriented achievers.
We did our standard hang around and take a second half lead from a contender bit, but all night long we shot ourselves in the foot with a stupid offense and stupid turnovers, and when the collapse came this time it was a doozy.
Boxscore
Stats: 32min 10pts (5-15, 0-2, 0-0) 5reb 4ast 0stl 1blk 2TO
Summary: Rudy has now entered the land of full on suck. You know what? Malone's offense worked better for these guys.
Gay ( D ) -- At the beginning of the game I was intrigued to see if Rudy was in for improving some of the less than shining appearances from the last games. His shooting was not in place and his scoring had to wait for a short good period in the 3rd quarter. He struggled under the basket. However, he provided some flash with a great pass to Cousins and gave some hope for him being more involved than in the previous games. That didn't happen either. Despite his 4 assists, he was not focused in defense. You cannot guard Kawhi Leonard from 4-6 feet away! He'll be able to shoot at will, but more importantly, he'll be able to pass at ease in a team like SA. In turnovers, he stayed to try to recover the ball allowing easy fast breaks. The lack of effort was written all over his face. I can't remember when was last time that he didn't get to free-throw line even once (in 32 minutes). Not a great night for Rudy. --Kingston
Stats: 22min 4pts (2-3, 0-0, 0-0) 6reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Summary: was doing just alright, then Karl abruptly benched him, and Willie never did anything again.
Cauley Stein ( C ) -- in the first half of this one made some plays, provided a little low level oomph. There was no massive productivity, just individual plays. Did a nice job running the floor to take a dunk from Cuz. On another, he jumped Parker on the perimeter, and took the ball from him. Neither Duncan nor Aldridge were doing much back the other way either. then the 3rd quarter rolled around, and roughly one minute into it suddenly Karl yanked WCS to the bench and put in Koufos. I was scratching my head about that, but it has since been pointed out to me that he missed a blockout on a FT. So maybe that was it, but a complete benching that lasted basically a whole quarter seemed odd. And then when Willie did come back, with 40 seconds left in the 3rd to replace Cuz, it was the beginning of our end. We'd cut the lead down to 2 at that point, were right in the game. but by the point that Cuz took back over with 7+ min to go we were down 10, and WCS had down nothing with those minutes. he's add a little more nothing in the final 3 min of garbagetime, and while he's a rook vulnerable to performance fluxuations as is, I could not help but feel the sudden benching had ended his time as contributor and initiated a remainder of the game as chastized kid.--Brick
Stats: 32min 21pts (5-20, 0-4, 11-15) 12reb 3ast 2stl 1blk 4TO
Summary: sloppy, winded and disgruntled. Ridiculous offense now has him under 40%.
Cousins ( ) --
Stats: 7min 0pts (0-0, 0-0, 0-0) 0reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Summary: got the start and did so little with it he never returned, but we were better in those early minutes.
Anderson ( INC ) -- there is nothing to report here. I mean...nothing. Check the boxscore yourself if you don't believe me. He hung around his man on defense, that was it. After his nothing, we never bothered summoning him for the rest of the game for any more nothing, and Ben got the 2nd half start. --Brick
Stats: 48min 8pts (4-10, 0-1, 0-0) 6reb 12ast 3stl 0blk 9TO
Summary: had to go the whole 48, unfortunately spent most of it aiming for a different kind of triple double throwing the ball all over the gym
Rondo ( C ) -- he tried. But despite an overall game with some merits, a constant game long string of string of turnovers and mistakes made this something less than a positive performance. In the early going he was stepping into little midrange jumpers, but after hitting three of them in first quarter, he'd only hit one more shot for the whole game. the turnovers, unfortunately, were more consistent, and they were of nearly every type. Perhaps most relevant to the team meeting which followed were the numerous miscommunication TOs, with players cutting, or not cutting, one way, and rondo passing it the other. But there were other mistakes as well. Once he repeated the Belinelli mistake of driving and not passing to Cousins for the finish. He made a mental mistake closing the third, doing the take the shot too fast thing, which is about the last thing you'd expect from Rondo. On one play both he and WCS demonstrated their respective weaknesses together -- Rondo fed it in to WCS in the post, who of course doesn't have much of that, and who therefore kicked it right back out to Rondo at the three point line. And Rondo of course doesn't have much of that., and bricked the three. It was just way to sloppy to support as a good game.
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