Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
And because its a new day, the grades will be up here, tonight.
This is one of those games we might very well have lost last year. Cuz was distracted by saavy play from Dudley, who he had to guard, and physical double teams, got into early foul trouble, and in any year in recent memory but this one, that might have been that as our bench would have come in and we would have been down 14 by the time Cuz returned. But its a new dawn, and this time instead of being down 14 by the time Cuz returned, we were up by at least that much. And as player after player filed in off the bench amazingly you dreaded seeing none of them. They all were helping, being pros, making their contributions. The bench did wobble in the late 3rd/early 4th after Cuz left a 2nd time, but again, we were the pros our there. We stabilized the kiddie run the Suns had made, hit a few backbreaking shots, and just worked and worked the lead back over 20 again. We've all seen this for years and years. Just for all those years we were the kiddie team having this done to them. Tonight it was finally our turn to take the youngbloods out behind the woodshed and learn them a lesson.
Link to Boxscore
Starters
Gay ( B ) -- started this one off in fugly invisible fashion again, forcing shots, breaking the offense, and again not looking comfortable. But worked his way into things, kept making defensive plays, and played an important role in helping us reestablish order after our lone wobble in the late 3rd/early 4th. Ended up with a nice statline and as a positive factor.
Cousins ( B+ ) -- got off to a ragged start looking uncomfortable vs. Dudley's saavy, and got himself into foul trouble to boot. Difference this year is our bench came in and actually opened the lead, and when Cuz did snap into domination gear in the third, it was all over. Grumpy, objected to Suns physical play, and still dropped a cool 24pts in 25min.
Koufos ( C- ) -- missed all those fugly little flips and hooks of his this time, but the larger problem was that his presence forced Cousins to guard Jared Dudley, which was an early issue for us before bearing fruit after half. Made some stands inside around the rim.
Featured Grade
Afflalo ( B ) -- Wow! What a team game and on the road as well. Everyone played defense all the time except for some lapses in 3rd quarter. And on offense, coach mostly went “small ball” with everyone sharing the ball and scoring with the bench contributing 42 pts. Afflalo’s play is beautiful to watch, in the first half getting in the chest of Booker on the perimeter and preventing him from driving holding him to only one FG for first quarter and a half. On offense, smart play, picking nice open shots, hitting both his 3’s. Four "A" grades for starters in first half including Afflalo (but not Koufos) who was on Kevin Booker, and vice versa all the game. Team defense relaxed a bit too much in 3rd quarter allowing the Suns to score 29 points. Booker began driving with better Suns passing finally scoring a bit more despite Aflalo’s defense. Throughout he always seemed to be in the right spot at the right time and rarely ever losing his man. Fought through every screen to get “over” most times to stay with Booker. Only took 7 shots in 26 min. A solid performance and big step up from 3 years of Ben. -- Cruz
Lawson ( B ) -- started the game off hurting the Suns with his quickness, and sticking his nose in there on defense and the glass. Maybe tired a bit, and certainly later in the game found himself surprisingly challenged by some gradeschooler the Suns called up named Ulis. But still an important guy steadying the PG position on the night.
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Bench
Tolliver ( C+ ) -- part of an early bench explosion, as well as a later bench struggle. Fairly productive but missed his threes from all over and never had the impact he sometimes did in preseason.
Barnes ( A ) -- just a flat "+" out there. Came in defended, got physical, was on the glass, got a ridiculous flagrant called on him, held back Cuz on one play where Cuz could have gotten a T, and took advantage of the Suns defense leaking out on the break, and draining big threes to help bury them. Great debut.
Cauley-Stein ( C- ) -- opened the game with two big open court dunks from Ben, but never showed that chemistry with anybody else, and while not disastrous, still looked uncomfortable out there, feeling his way.
Temple ( B+ ) -- nice performance in his backup PG debut, as we suffered little form his creativity issues, and got a major boost as he repeatedly dribbled to spots and smoothly knocked down midrange Js to break Suns runs.
McLemore ( B- ) -- grade exceeds production here because for the first few minutes after entering, Baby Ben had grown up and came in with an impact pop, confidently pulling up for Js and dishing assists to Willie. Then disappeared and became Ben again for the remainder.
Casspi ( C+ ) -- and so a question was preliminarily answered as to who might lose out in the minutes crunch from suddenly having so many solid vets on team. And made a couple of those lose TOs that Joerger hates. but recovered and delivered a few good minutes of first half play.
Richardson ( INC ) -- in the final two minutes we finally countered their kids with our kid. Missed one makeable pullup J for his debut.
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