[Grades] Grades v. Warriors 12/19/2012

Kings player of the Game?

  • Salmons

    Votes: 5 14.3%
  • Thompson

    Votes: 3 8.6%
  • Cousins

    Votes: 7 20.0%
  • Brooks

    Votes: 11 31.4%
  • Thornton

    Votes: 5 14.3%
  • Fredette

    Votes: 4 11.4%

  • Total voters
    35
  • Poll closed .

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
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Not too often your opponent can have three players combine for 89 points between them, and you still win, but you just never know with us and we'll take it any way we can get it. We even got enough all around contributions from enough people that I can run a real "Kings player of the game poll" without smoke and mirrors. Woot woot.

Best passing we've seen from these guys in a while, adn is often the case with us, its hard to explain given it was pretty much the same crew, with one notably selfish addition in MT, that was out there for the recent debacles. So...hey, whatever. Worked tonight.

P.S. Welcome back Marcus.

Boxscore


Stats: 35min 17pts (6-13, 0-1, 5-6) 6reb 5ast 1stl 1blk 1TO
Salmons ( B ) -- was once again setting people up in the early minutes, and then began to get going himself offensively as the first quarter went along and it became apparent this was going to be a shootout. Tought it was just going to be an aberrant burst when he disappeared therafter, but got a hoop on the break in the early third to break into double figures and was even consenting to grab a few rebounds this time. After doing nothing in the first half, Harrison Barnes came alive in the third the other way and was getting by John for a stretch, but all the Warriros' offensive fireworks were coming from elsewhere -- specifically from David Lee and hen anybody lucky enough to be matched up against our all mini-chucker backcourt tonight. down the stretch was returned to the game for defensive purposes I think, as he was alarmingly the only little player on the team capable of playing any defense at all by that point -- Reke was out, Cisco was out, Johnson...was deemed unplayable and isn't little, so Curry and Jack were going absolutley bananas against a backcourt of Aaron Brooks, Marcus Thornton, Jimmer Fredette, and Isaiah Thomas. Oy vey. Unfortunately while I thought the sub was the right call given that the Warriros were on pace to score about 150 if we didn't find some way to slow them down, offensively John was pissing me off, missing a wide open three at the 3:30 mark that we needed, and then forcing and forcing some more bad 1 on 1 dribble around shots...until suddenly he made what could well have been a game changing play with one of those shots as our veteran was very determinedly dribbling around and dribbling around and forcing his offense in an intentional effort to make Stephen Curry play defense on him. And as Stephen Curry is such a bad defender he should really come join our own mini-chucker crew, he ended up fouling John and fouling out in the process with 2:30 left ot go. Which was not an accident -- can't remember the last time we were smart and went after an opponent in foul trouble like that. And given that Curry had already poured in 32pts on none of our minis has showed any ability to contain him at all, who knows, maybe that one play sealed this victory.

Stats: 35min 10pts (5-14, 0-0, 0-0) 15reb 3ast 0stl 3blk 0TO
Thompson ( B+ ) -- very effective with his size early as he punished the Warriors again inside as he has seemed ot do so often in his career. Was the dominant rebounder in the game for his minutes out there, nearly doubling up any other player and singlehandedly keeping us in it on the glass with Boogie not rebounding at all until very late in this one. One of many guys not able to slow down Lee, but man was he really not able to slow him down, as in Lee had 20 by halftime on him. Came up with several help blocks and has been doing better at that lately, but the inability to contain Lee led directly to his having to watch the close of this from the bench as Chuck Hayes ran the PF late for defenseive purposes. Could really have cost us as all night long we were completly unable to rebound without JT out there, but fortunately Cuz woke up on the glass just in time to help seal it.

Stats: 38min 24pts (5-12, 0-0, 14-18) 7reb 5ast 2stl 1blk 5TO
Cousins ( B ) -- more luck outside than in early in the game and was very quiet as our perimeter players and theirs engaged in an And1 tournament. But there was an unselfish tinge to his quiet, and he made a beautiful bounce pass on the move on the break to Thronton for the layup Started
getting going offensively late in the half after being largely stonewalled by Festus Ezili in the early going. Just resorted to slamming into Ezili untilt he refs called the poor guy for a foul for preventing a hoop -- an obvious no no in a game like this one. So DeMarcus began to get very aggressive, and the Warriors -- remember the same team that intentionally fouled Dwight Howrd to 30+ FTs last year -- seemed to have a strategy of hitting him hard andoften to see if they could get him to lose his cool. Or at least shoot FTs like Dwight. Boogie did neither. Funny thing was, or it would not have been so funny if we had lost, but still the odd thing was despite the very phsycial work inside, Boiogie was being checked off the galss all ngiht long. He only had 2 rebounds midways through the 4th quarter as JT was having to do all the glasswork on his own. On the other hand, as hinted above, Boogie was a very willing passer tonight, drawing attempt and finding open guys. That should be there every night for him, he has the skills. But was for a night at least. Still, between his not forcing the early action and nto getting ont he glass, this was goign to be a fairly mediocre gradeuntil the Warriros made the mistake of tryign to smallball on us. One of the reasons that the idea of DeMarcus as PF continues to intrigue is that when he gets a little guy on him, he jus goes to work and overwhlems them. Soit was in this game, when the Warriors went small and told Carl Landry to guard Cuz in the third. You remember Landry's defense from hsi tiem wiht us? Yeah, so good luck with that. The big guy immediately went to work and just started overpowering him, posting him, shooting over him etc. as he blew up on offense. Of course with our little chuckers all wnating to get up theri own stuff we were sometimes stupid and did not ride that matchup as hard as we could have, but Boogie still truned dominant. On one end -- on the other Landry began attacking him back the other way in the 4th, and Boogie was no more able to stop him than he was able to stop Boogie. With Jason out and Hayes in for dfense on Lee, the big guy picked a good time to finally come alive on the glass down the stretch of the game, inclduing a saving offensive rebound off a missed FT after he got fouled and missed both FTs. Got a chance at redemption and helped seal it wiht 2 FTs off the intetional foul at the 21 second mark.

Stats: 11min 5pts (1-1, 1-1, 2-2) 1reb 3ast 0stl 1blk 0TO
Garcia ( INC ) -- was playing pretty well in the early going. Got a three off of good ball movement. Made a nice pass inside to Brooks for a layup as Cisco helped estbalish an early passing focus iin this one that jsut has not been there. Klay Thompson was quiet the other way. But got upended flying on defense trying to keep it that way, and took a hard fall out of the air late in the half that finished his night. Dide not return after the break, and given that he landed on his wrist and back, and moves like he's 60 even during the best of tiems, we'll have to see about his availability for the next one.

Stats: 30min 23pts (9-12, 3-3, 2-2) 2reb 5ast 2stl 0blk 1TO
Brooks ( A- ) -- played maybe his best game as a King, getting silly hot and staying that way as he and Curry engaged in a game long playground pissing match contest. Aaron would drain a three, so Curry would race back the other way and drain a three over him in return. So Brooks would get the ball and race back the other way, blow by Curry to the hoop for himself or to set up a teammate. And then the Warrriors would quickly inbound it to Curry who would race the other way....and just etc. But managed to play like that with relatively few errors -- his only turnover of the game came early when the Warriors trapped him and he threw a wild wobbler out toward the top of the circle that just neded up getting picked off and triggering the Warriors' break. Came up with a tough little board in there to close a Warriors break late in the half, and stayed hot after half, engaging in a festy battle with Curry and Jack and using his quickness to blow by them. Came up huge in the final minutes, getting a good strip diving down to help on Lee at the 2:00 mark, draining a huge three a few seconds later, and then setting up Thornton for the backbreaking three at the 1:00 mark on a classic drive and dish. I cannot and will not give a guy a flat A who gets torched on defense like this, but offensively he was great and hsi big play was obviosuly critical to us pulling this one out.
 
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Bench

Stats: 31min 19pts (7-15, 5-10, 0-0) 3reb 0stl 1stl 0blk 0TO
Thornton ( B ) -- in the game near the end of the first and didn't take long for him to shoot a jumper. As in I think he chucked up a shot the very first time he felt leather. Didn't go in either. Nor did the second. Nor the third. And since he got welcomed back to the lineup as the SMALL forward in one of serveral tinyball lineups Smart threw out there tonight, wasn't much chance Marcus was going tobe effective at the other things in thos minutes. Finally got one to go on a long jumper in the early third, and then he woke up and was a major factor for us form that point onward. Sort of reminscient of that ugly Clippers game where he jsut started bombing fro logn range and did not stop. Scatterred them in throughout the second half, and included maybe the backbreaker at the 1:15 mark on the drive and kick from Brooks. Wasn't much else to his game, and its hard to tell off the one game if this represents a new start and maybe the mom thing was weighing on nhis mind and pullign down his performance earlier, or if it was jsut another blip. But in a game where your oppoennt scores 127 points you need every gun you can get your hands on to be firing.

Stats: 15min 11pts (3-7, 1-3, 8-8) 2reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Fredette ( A- ) -- soemtimes when Jimmer puts up a statline like this I feel like it can be a bit of an illusion. They'll be garbagetime points, or gunning poiints he gets by freezing out other teammates to chase his own shot etc. But today, with a similar looking statline, I thought he played an excellent first half. Was not able to repeate it after half and got limited minutes as a result, except for 4 capping intentional foul FTs at the end. But during the first half he was really in a nice rhythm. made a nice pas to JT when he got doubled. Added one of his floaters to begin the seocnd quarter, able to score over and around Curry all night (as dangerous as Curry was the other way our offensive sceheme was frequently "throw the ball to whoever Currry is theoretically "guarding"). Got scored over a few times on defense, but frankly compared to the Vegas slot machine defense the other min chuckers were playing it wasn't that big of a problem. First half minutes, as well as relatively late entry after half were more about how well everybody else was playing/scoring than Jimmer himself -- not counting Cisco, all 5 of our guards/small forwards we played score in double fiures, and made it look easy. When Jimmer finally got back in in the early 4th after the strong Marcus play he missed his first wide open three, and his defense became an issue as "Smart" went back to a ridiculous all non-defense IT/Jimmer/Thornton little man combo, and watched the Warriors score everytime down the floor until he was forced to blow a timeout to stop the slaughter. Briefly, and again randomly, Smart tried to leave Jimmer out there as the PG rather than IT or Brooks, but that meant he had to check Curry, so that was a no go either and we went back to the starters + Thornton. As mentioned was back in for the final minute FT shooting contest, which of course Jimmer is likely to win most nights. So anyway, similar numbers that we have seen from Jimmer on his good nights before, but more solid play/iimpact bhind the numbers this time I thought.

Stats: 18min 3pts (1-1, 0-0, 1-2) 2reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Hayes ( C+ ) -- with Chuck there seems to be less and less to say about him every game, as he has almost entirely stopped producing anything tangible -- in his last 10gms he's averaging 2.1pts 3.6reb 1.0ast on 41% shooting. But what we got tonight -- and it seems like a while since we have -- was a return to some defensive stopper type effectiveness, as he was able to do a much better job on David Lee than JT was, and earned the stretch run minutes at PF beause of it, despite another empty statline. Made few spectacular plays, just impeded, although he did get a big full on defense > offense stop on Lee 1 on 1 at the 4:15 mark. Lack of boardwork has grown troubling and could have been a huge issue here, but fortunately Cuz woke up on the glass himself just in time to make their pairing viable.

Stats: 18min 11pts (5-7, 1-1, 0-0) 0reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Thomas ( B- ) -- in the second quarter was important offensively...to the Warriors. Got torched on defense by Jack. Came back in the second half and now Curry was going right around him. But scored on a clever little drive, and set up Thornton for a three to close the third and give us back an 11pt lead into the 4th. Turned the early 4th into a shootout. His own numebrs were impressive, but he was being selfish, bombing at every opportunity, and the other was was jsut getting scorched. Even when he did get close the Warriors were jsut bombing threes over his head. I dunno. Very efficient offensive night and showed the ways he can score. But felt like the other aspects of the game were being overlooked in the process.

Stats: 5min 4pts (1-3, 0-0, 2-4) 1reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Robinson ( INC ) -- short first half minutes. Lot of atheltic slop again. Atheltic near plays. Got to the line, including getting fouled hard by Ezeli and taken out of the air, but FTs were shaky.

Stats: 5min 0pts (0-1, 0-0, 0-0) 1reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Johnson ( INC ) -- coming off one of his best games as a King, only got short first half minutes, then dismissed to the bench for inability to keep uip wiht the wild scoring pce. Forced one jumpr against he clock and missed badly, that was it.
 
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I had to go with Salmons. It was a savvy veteran move of him to keep calling for the ball so he could draw the fouls from Curry.
 
a few points from this evenings game


1.Wow did all of our midget PGs just play good in the same game?

2.Jimmer looked great in the first half, probably the best ive ever seen him play.

3.Welcome back Marcus, we definitely missed you

4. Rotations actually looked pretty good tonight.

5. im just wondering why did we bring Honeycutt back from the D-League (where he was getting valueable experience and progressing nicely) if he is not going to play?

6. i feel like we could have gotten David Lee, GS got him for nothing. woulda been nice.
 
Hope Reke gets over his knee thing soon. Alot of would be know-it-alls are trashing him on twitter saying this team is better without him. He was playing so well before his knee started to bother him. Feel like we could have won a few more games had he been healthy the whole time.
 
Hope Reke gets over his knee thing soon. Alot of would be know-it-alls are trashing him on twitter saying this team is better without him. He was playing so well before his knee started to bother him. Feel like we could have won a few more games had he been healthy the whole time.


Um...what? The twitterverse is strange anyway and I would have to see that to believe that, but are we or are we not a team coming off a 5 game losing streak? Who would make a comment like that after one game we barely won? Have they just been lurking out for weeks waiting until we finally won a game so they could unleash their stupidity?
 
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Interesting how misleading +/- can be some games. Jimmer had 15 pts in 14 minutes and a -14, most of that - came in the second half stint where we had a IT, Jimmer, MT, Salmons backcour(?).

BTW, harabalob ripping Kings and smart again. Said he rags on VDN too much, Keith Smart is way worse.
 
Um...what? The twitterverse is strange anyway and I would have to see that to beleive that, but are we or are we not a team coming off a 5 game losing streak? Who would make a comment like that after one game we barely won? If they jsut been lurking out for weeks waiting until we finally won a game so they could unlesash their stupidity?

Some of the same geniuses who made those same comments when Webber was serving his suspension would be my guess.
 
Interesting how misleading +/- can be some games. Jimmer had 15 pts in 14 minutes and a -14, most of that - came in the second half stint where we had a IT, Jimmer, MT, Salmons backcour(?).

BTW, harabalob ripping Kings and smart again. Said he rags on VDN too much, Keith Smart is way worse.

Yep. It's pretty much worthless on a game to game basis and really only has value as it applies to full 5 man units
 
Re: Poll

Salmons - Very solid performance and valuable vet presence after Cisco went down.
Thompson - 15 big boards was incredibly huge.
SantaCuz - Very strong game overall but sloopy 5 TOs, forcing some things kept him from top dominate performance.
Thornton - Nice to have MT back - looked really into the game from the start and kept it going, hot throughout.
Fredette - Seems to be more confident, poised with every game this season - solid again. Shooting something like 96% FTs this season.
Brooks - Player of the game for Kings. Did it BIG early, often, and to the end - ran the team as his team against relentless pressure from GSW guards Curry, Jack, etc.
 
Yep. It's pretty much worthless on a game to game basis and really only has value as it applies to full 5 man units

It is also valuable over multiple games. If a guy has a positive +/- for 15 games then there is a really good chance he is helping the team win.
 
I voted for Cousins for the player of the game. Let's trade him now while his stock is high!
 
I give the game ball to Thompson. He's done exactly what we all though he could to this year. He's our most steady player. It's one of our role players I would not want to trade.
 
Tyreke is a really good player, but you guys have to admit his style of play conduces us to a lot of isolation plays in the half court. This team is so much more fun to watch when they are moving the ball around. I have liked how Tyreke has looked lately when healthy but if he is the focal point of the offense our offense turns stagnant and we start running iso's for random players. At this point i have not seen enough to really take a stance on this (mainly because this team is so inconistent effort wise). It's hard to tell why we look decent on some nights and garbage the next night.
 
Jimmer is starting to look like an NBA player. He's playing with a lot of confidence. I think he needs a bigger role on the team. He a nice weapon to have out there and opens things up for other guys.
 
Tyreke is a really good player, but you guys have to admit his style of play conduces us to a lot of isolation plays in the half court. This team is so much more fun to watch when they are moving the ball around. I have liked how Tyreke has looked lately when healthy but if he is the focal point of the offense our offense turns stagnant and we start running iso's for random players. At this point i have not seen enough to really take a stance on this (mainly because this team is so inconistent effort wise). It's hard to tell why we look decent on some nights and garbage the next night.

Evans does play in the running game as well. Last year when we had that gimmick offense for the last half of the season he was doing better than I thought he would do, but I don't want him playing SF and I want him to learn to pass when he doesn't have a shot rather than driving into traffic.
 
I give the game ball to Thompson. He's done exactly what we all though he could to this year. He's our most steady player. It's one of our role players I would not want to trade.

But this is also why JT probably has good trade value. Reliable, decent to good big men will always draw interest and the team needs sweeping roster changes.
 
But this is also why JT probably has good trade value. Reliable, decent to good big men will always draw interest and the team needs sweeping roster changes.
Sure, take the only consistent player on the team, the only one who's actually comfortable in his role, and trade him. That makes perfect sense. [/sarcasm]
 
Re: Poll

Salmons - Very solid performance and valuable vet presence after Cisco went down.
Thompson - 15 big boards was incredibly huge.
SantaCuz - Very strong game overall but sloopy 5 TOs, forcing some things kept him from top dominate performance.
Thornton - Nice to have MT back - looked really into the game from the start and kept it going, hot throughout.
Fredette - Seems to be more confident, poised with every game this season - solid again. Shooting something like 96% FTs this season.
Brooks - Player of the game for Kings. Did it BIG early, often, and to the end - ran the team as his team against relentless pressure from GSW guards Curry, Jack, etc.

Agree with all of the above.

One thing regarding Fredette's free throws. People who only knew him from the youtube clips of 30 foot bombs didn't see that most of his college scoring came off penetration and fakes inside, leading either to an open shot at the rim or free throws. Last year, his production sucked because his penetration game didn't translate (no floater), and the refs were giving him the rookie treatment and not calling fouls unless somebody clotheslined him. This year, he is getting to the stripe much more often and the efficiency is going up along with it. He is aiming right at that Jason Terry type point per minute role right now.

He may just play his way to tradeable asset status.
 
But this is also why JT probably has good trade value. Reliable, decent to good big men will always draw interest and the team needs sweeping roster changes.



Got three guys that we really cannot trade if we are trying to build up, not tear down. Cousins, Evans, and JT. Those are the three that either have been, or should in the future, work. The relatively dependable guys. Anything else, in any combination? Sure. It can all be upgraded. But JT's very steadiness is why he's the guy we need to keep. Especially as the steadiness comes attached to a good guy. Use anything and everything else to get me 2-3 more dependable vets who fit smoothly and work, and we'll start to have something (not a suggestion evrything else needs to be cleared, just that everything else can be cleared for the right people).

P.S. Alternately we could just never have gotten rid of Beno and Dalembert in the first place and then only needed to add a single extra steadying vet, like say a Kirilenko....but silly concepts and all that.
 
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I would like to see Jimmer ahead of Isaiah Thomas on the rotation. Jimmer has improved quite a bit, and provides the deep shooting this team desperately needs. Isaiah has unfortunately regressed into somewhat of a chucker.
 
Sure, take the only consistent player on the team, the only one who's actually comfortable in his role, and trade him. That makes perfect sense. [/sarcasm]

It sucks, but it's one thing you may have to do to fix the overall situation. I'd like to keep JT and fix the roster with more vets and a leader-type, but you may have to give up a JT to do that. Losing JT and fixing the problem is better than keeping JT and keeping the problematic roster.
 
Im starting to come around to Jimmer slowly, Brook and IT were terrific, Salmons played well and epicly fouled out Curry, the defense did a goo job on Klay Thompson which in the end proved the difference.

SantaCuz when hes in the post needs to watch videos of Zach Randolph and make quick effect moves and USE that half hook (i've mentioned it after the last game) much like Z-Bo does no one is ever going to block his half hook without goaltending since hes got a massive reach and its a quick shot he gets himself in trouble when trying to power through because thats not his game due to his lack of explosion of two feet.

Normally shots we never hit went in and winning without Tyreke makes the winner even sweeter, Marcus Thornton went back into Bomberman mode and he was going off.

Overall I'm just happy with the effort everyone made, thats the kind of effort we need EVERY GAME, hopefully we can bring effort against the Clippers since they have been trashing us the last couple years.
 
I also say the game ball should go to JT. Stat line of 15 boards, 10 points, 3 assists and 3 blocked shots in 35 minutes. All while playing one on one defense against David Lee who has been tearing it up.

KB
 
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