Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Sigh. Sigh.
Mostly you gotta put this one on DeMarcus. With Reke and Thornton out, he had to be the man. He was the bug on Gortat's windshield instead.
On our nightly search for positives, various of our scrubs/draft picks etc. had good stretches off the bench, in particular during that second quarter, so there was something. Since it can't lead to more consistent playing time with this coach I have no idea what it means, but hey, good games > bad games. Mostly though Reke has to get over his knee, and hopefully Marcus's mom gets on the mend. Its hard to even see what we look like with both of them out and Boogie playing like its a sick day.
Not bad enough for even more girls. Saw something online about really bad santa cakes. Sounds like a theme to me!
Boxscore
Stats: 31min 6pts (2-7, 0-0, 2-4) 6reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Salmons ( D ) -- the 3 game totals have now reached 4-22 in three games. With our core gutted, hurt, home, foul trouble, whatever, there was a little bit of the same John Salmons to the rescue stuff going on as we have seen, with wildly mixed results, in previous games. In general that's a good trait, to have a starter underutilized who willingly steps back when your stars are in, and is able to step up when they're out. But is John underutilized? Or still just living in a not terribly glorious past? In any case pressed as we lost the last of our main scorers in Cousins. Dribbled into Scola's chest and turned it over. Was losing Brown off of screens on defense. Better luck defending Beasley, but of course everybody has that anymore. Got a terrible 5 seconds call on our last possesion of the half. I mean, I think he literally fell asleep. Might explain his, and our game. Walking somnulence, or whatever they call falling asleep sanding up. Did not even tso much as witch while at least 6 seconds ran off. Might still be standing there now tih the ball if those meddling refs hadn't finally decided to blow the whistle. Another forced contested midrange jumper to start the thrid and came up short. Might have been called, might have been the John Salmons tradition, not sure. Just a bad shot if it goes in or not. Reinserted into the game late in what seemed a smart defense for offense move...but a turnover off his thigh hurt us and led to his reremoval. Needs Reke back in the wildest way to rejustify his existence in the lineup.
Stats: 28min 8pts (4-10, 0-0, 0-0) 6reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( C ) -- started the game with an easy little turnaround. But did not have the same energy as the other night, and who knows, maybe was tired. On one play did not move at all going for (or not going for) the defensive rebound as Scola went right by him. Offensively aggressive after Cousins left in the early third, but not hitting the little flips and faded out and disappeared after a few minutes of elevated activity.
Stats: 26min 9pts (1-10, 0-0, 7-8) 10reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Cousins ( F ) -- should have been whistled for a foul for failure to bring a star player's gameface berfore this one even began. Would not have been any faster than he racked up fouls on his won. Came out extremly short on tow opne jupers, an dmaybe fatigue or whatever as we played tired. Did not look comfortable, and into quick foul trouble having gotten nothing accomplised. Came back in picked up his thrid foul. Went back out. Came back to start the third. Foolihsly picked up his 4th foul trying to take a charge (his behavior in foul trouble this time seemed to have swung all the way back around for his extreme hands in pockets play of recent games. Now he was reckless. Could almsot see someone criticizing the hands in pocket defense, and DeMarcus, being DeMarcus, overreacting the other way in "watch this" fashion). End result was our star, the guy who absolutley needed to be our rock wiht reke and thornton both out, took himself out fo the game wiht 4 fouls in his first 7 minutes of action. Oy vey. As the enitre lead evaporated, brought back in in the mid 3rd despite the foul trouble with us with us desperately needing him to produce. Seemed like a good coaching move, but he struggled in fugly fashion -- and we've seen this before when we want to 100% work through Cuz we start posting him on that left block, except his post game may be the weakest part of his repertore at this stage. In any case struggled mightily to post on Gortat and got his attempts blocked again and again. And in a related issue that makes the struggles aharder to absorb, simply was not/did not even think to pass when he was being muscled. Jermaine O'Neal came in, and he went in there, and same result. Mini chuckers and blackhole big men are destructive to any sort of organized offense, but will say that despite all of that his mere presence seemed to settle us in that at least we had an organized gameplan/attack, no matter how hirribly iuneffective, ratehr than running around like chickens wiht our heads cut off. On the more positive side after the 4 quick ones, mangaed to stay in the game from there on out, and struggled his way into a little productivity on the glass in the 4th, including grabbing a key offensive rebound off a missed free throw in the mid 4th that we converted as we tried to hang around. Still he, and we can't afford games like this out of him when our other main guys are out. Being a star means you don't have that luxury.
Stats: 19min 6pts (2-6, 0-2, 2-3) 2reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Garcia ( C- ) -- rolepayers be handy if you have stars. Absolu8tel necessities if you want to win. Take away the stars...and you get this. There was alittle somethign early. Kind of. At least he was running the floor hard trying to get easy ones. And the Suns foolishly swarmed him on a broken play and fouled him beyond the 3pt line to give him 3 FTs. But that was about it. And the longer he played the more fugly came out. Was missing everything that was not a gimme, took a really foolish chicken with his head cut off three in transition as the Suns made their run at us int he third. Reminded one of the young and dumb constantly panicked and out of cotnrol Cisco. Hre iut was just a sign of our losing our focus and heads and everyboy trying to singlehandedly stop it, even our version of a grizzled vet. Cherry on topped the ngiht with an offensive foul with his old Reggie Miller kick the defender move that used to mysteriously get called on the defensive guy for so many years in the NBA. They change the rule sevral years ago, and we haven't seen Cisco do much of it since then. Until now.
Stats: 30min 12pts (6-11, 0-3, 0-0) 3reb 3ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Brooks ( C+ ) -- got nothing accomplished in the early going, and neither did we. the Suns doubled him to try to take the ball out of his hands, which seemed odd. Seemed to do better in ridicuball lineups paired with the other mini chuckers than he did tryign to direct the dead or missing starters. Good blow by drive past Dragic to score the final hoop of the first and put us up 22-16. Really swarmed by Telfair at times, as had a surprising amoutn of toruble bringin it up cleanly depsite his quickness, and the Suns maybe knowing this from his time there, were up on him a lot. Nothing in the early third again trying to direct things, but after Thomas entered the game, lit a fire under Brooks and he made several good plays including a spectacular pass in the open court to Salmons for a layup. Best of our starting crew, whihc is saying absolutely nothing on a night like tonight.
Mostly you gotta put this one on DeMarcus. With Reke and Thornton out, he had to be the man. He was the bug on Gortat's windshield instead.
On our nightly search for positives, various of our scrubs/draft picks etc. had good stretches off the bench, in particular during that second quarter, so there was something. Since it can't lead to more consistent playing time with this coach I have no idea what it means, but hey, good games > bad games. Mostly though Reke has to get over his knee, and hopefully Marcus's mom gets on the mend. Its hard to even see what we look like with both of them out and Boogie playing like its a sick day.
Not bad enough for even more girls. Saw something online about really bad santa cakes. Sounds like a theme to me!
Boxscore
Stats: 31min 6pts (2-7, 0-0, 2-4) 6reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Salmons ( D ) -- the 3 game totals have now reached 4-22 in three games. With our core gutted, hurt, home, foul trouble, whatever, there was a little bit of the same John Salmons to the rescue stuff going on as we have seen, with wildly mixed results, in previous games. In general that's a good trait, to have a starter underutilized who willingly steps back when your stars are in, and is able to step up when they're out. But is John underutilized? Or still just living in a not terribly glorious past? In any case pressed as we lost the last of our main scorers in Cousins. Dribbled into Scola's chest and turned it over. Was losing Brown off of screens on defense. Better luck defending Beasley, but of course everybody has that anymore. Got a terrible 5 seconds call on our last possesion of the half. I mean, I think he literally fell asleep. Might explain his, and our game. Walking somnulence, or whatever they call falling asleep sanding up. Did not even tso much as witch while at least 6 seconds ran off. Might still be standing there now tih the ball if those meddling refs hadn't finally decided to blow the whistle. Another forced contested midrange jumper to start the thrid and came up short. Might have been called, might have been the John Salmons tradition, not sure. Just a bad shot if it goes in or not. Reinserted into the game late in what seemed a smart defense for offense move...but a turnover off his thigh hurt us and led to his reremoval. Needs Reke back in the wildest way to rejustify his existence in the lineup.
Stats: 28min 8pts (4-10, 0-0, 0-0) 6reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Thompson ( C ) -- started the game with an easy little turnaround. But did not have the same energy as the other night, and who knows, maybe was tired. On one play did not move at all going for (or not going for) the defensive rebound as Scola went right by him. Offensively aggressive after Cousins left in the early third, but not hitting the little flips and faded out and disappeared after a few minutes of elevated activity.
Stats: 26min 9pts (1-10, 0-0, 7-8) 10reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Cousins ( F ) -- should have been whistled for a foul for failure to bring a star player's gameface berfore this one even began. Would not have been any faster than he racked up fouls on his won. Came out extremly short on tow opne jupers, an dmaybe fatigue or whatever as we played tired. Did not look comfortable, and into quick foul trouble having gotten nothing accomplised. Came back in picked up his thrid foul. Went back out. Came back to start the third. Foolihsly picked up his 4th foul trying to take a charge (his behavior in foul trouble this time seemed to have swung all the way back around for his extreme hands in pockets play of recent games. Now he was reckless. Could almsot see someone criticizing the hands in pocket defense, and DeMarcus, being DeMarcus, overreacting the other way in "watch this" fashion). End result was our star, the guy who absolutley needed to be our rock wiht reke and thornton both out, took himself out fo the game wiht 4 fouls in his first 7 minutes of action. Oy vey. As the enitre lead evaporated, brought back in in the mid 3rd despite the foul trouble with us with us desperately needing him to produce. Seemed like a good coaching move, but he struggled in fugly fashion -- and we've seen this before when we want to 100% work through Cuz we start posting him on that left block, except his post game may be the weakest part of his repertore at this stage. In any case struggled mightily to post on Gortat and got his attempts blocked again and again. And in a related issue that makes the struggles aharder to absorb, simply was not/did not even think to pass when he was being muscled. Jermaine O'Neal came in, and he went in there, and same result. Mini chuckers and blackhole big men are destructive to any sort of organized offense, but will say that despite all of that his mere presence seemed to settle us in that at least we had an organized gameplan/attack, no matter how hirribly iuneffective, ratehr than running around like chickens wiht our heads cut off. On the more positive side after the 4 quick ones, mangaed to stay in the game from there on out, and struggled his way into a little productivity on the glass in the 4th, including grabbing a key offensive rebound off a missed free throw in the mid 4th that we converted as we tried to hang around. Still he, and we can't afford games like this out of him when our other main guys are out. Being a star means you don't have that luxury.
Stats: 19min 6pts (2-6, 0-2, 2-3) 2reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Garcia ( C- ) -- rolepayers be handy if you have stars. Absolu8tel necessities if you want to win. Take away the stars...and you get this. There was alittle somethign early. Kind of. At least he was running the floor hard trying to get easy ones. And the Suns foolishly swarmed him on a broken play and fouled him beyond the 3pt line to give him 3 FTs. But that was about it. And the longer he played the more fugly came out. Was missing everything that was not a gimme, took a really foolish chicken with his head cut off three in transition as the Suns made their run at us int he third. Reminded one of the young and dumb constantly panicked and out of cotnrol Cisco. Hre iut was just a sign of our losing our focus and heads and everyboy trying to singlehandedly stop it, even our version of a grizzled vet. Cherry on topped the ngiht with an offensive foul with his old Reggie Miller kick the defender move that used to mysteriously get called on the defensive guy for so many years in the NBA. They change the rule sevral years ago, and we haven't seen Cisco do much of it since then. Until now.
Stats: 30min 12pts (6-11, 0-3, 0-0) 3reb 3ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Brooks ( C+ ) -- got nothing accomplished in the early going, and neither did we. the Suns doubled him to try to take the ball out of his hands, which seemed odd. Seemed to do better in ridicuball lineups paired with the other mini chuckers than he did tryign to direct the dead or missing starters. Good blow by drive past Dragic to score the final hoop of the first and put us up 22-16. Really swarmed by Telfair at times, as had a surprising amoutn of toruble bringin it up cleanly depsite his quickness, and the Suns maybe knowing this from his time there, were up on him a lot. Nothing in the early third again trying to direct things, but after Thomas entered the game, lit a fire under Brooks and he made several good plays including a spectacular pass in the open court to Salmons for a layup. Best of our starting crew, whihc is saying absolutely nothing on a night like tonight.
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