[Grades] Grades v. Warriors 12/22/2014

If George Karl took over this team tommorow, could he get us to the playoffs now?

  • Yes

    Votes: 13 17.3%
  • No

    Votes: 36 48.0%
  • Not unless we also make one of these major trades

    Votes: 26 34.7%

  • Total voters
    75
  • Poll closed .

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#1




Cuz had no legs. We played the game stupid tactically, and without heart or focus on the floor. We scored 108pts and got blown out. Makes me wonder why management ever let Keith Smart go if that's just what they wanted to force us to be again. A month ago this would have been a clash of powers and styles. Now it was just once again a beatdown of a lowly lottery team by an elite team yawning between dunks and layups. Welcome home Kings fans.

Boxscore

Stats: 37min 13pts (4-14, 1-2, 4-5) 9reb 3ast 1stl 1blk 2TO
Gay ( C- ) -- I did not get the chance to watch this game until after it was over, with full knowledge of the outcome and the box score. Rudy's play was better than his box score, but still not good. Offensively, Rudy was just off. He was missing his open shots, shots at the rim, and his usual contested jumpers from mid-range. Four for fourteen is not going to get you a good grade. He also had a few turnovers, but not because he was doing something stupid, just from good plays made by Warriors players. For instance, in the second, Rudy pulled down a strong defensive board (he was doing a great job crashing the boards all night against the Warriors' diminutive frontcourt) and Iguodala just made a great play on the ball to knock it loose from behind. Rudy himself made some great plays on defense, including absolutely crushing a lay-in attempt by Ezeli on one of the few good defensive sequences of the night for the Kings. This does not make up for a poor shooting night, but it does give me a reason to not give him a D for the game. --Hadlowe

Stats: 20min 6pts (3-3, 0-0, 0-0) 4reb 0ast 0stl 2blk 1TO
Thompson ( C- ) -- for about 30 seconds of this one you ever so briefly had some hope for one of JT's old work over the Warriors games as he immediately ran the floor and took a quick pass from Collison for a layup and the first basket of the game. He added a good block to save a hoop. And then...poof again. He was briefly spotted doing a good job vs. Lee down the stretch of the half and finally hit another shot with an open 17ft facer in the final 30 seconds of the half. Came up with 1 more shot and a little hustle boardwork in the early 4th. But my lord was he completely 100% and in all ways ineffective shutting down the rim to the Warriors. Was frequently the guy who took over at center when Cuz went out, and if nothing else Corbin's attempts to manipulate that rotation have been a good idea. Well, at least on paper. Because today what you got was a tired sloppy Cuz out there again playing the 23-3 Warriors just about even. He was a -2 in his 30 minutes on the court, meaning if we could have kept him out there for 18 more at that same pace we'd be in here now talking about buzzer beaters and game winning attempts. Meanwhile JT was a staggering -32 in his 20 minutes of action. -32, and half those minutes came with Cuz (-2 n the floor). Everytime Cuz left and JT took over it was a complete and rapid disaster. There's nothing exceptionally bad in JT's minor little numbers here, but holy layup drill. --Brick

Stats: 30min 22pts (9-19, 0-0, 4-6) 8reb 6ast 1stl 1blk 2TO
Cousins ( C- ) -- No Bogut tonight so DMC started against Festus Ezieli an athletic and young center who gave him quite a workout. Demarcus started off forcing up some shots in early minutes including one air ball. Then he begins to get position on Ezeli for rebounds on several possessions. Misses a layin when triple teamed but at 7 min mark finally hits a nice 19ft jumper and settles down a bit. When Maurice Speights replaces Ezeli DMC powers down lane thru him. Then hits an elbow jumper. JT replaces Cuz at 4:25;. DMC starts the 2nd w/Omri, Sessions, Gay and Nik. David Lee is on Cuz so he takes him deep for easy layin, then hits baseline jumper and draws charge from Barnes. Forgets to guard Speights on transisition defense a few times for easy buckets by the Warriors. Cuz doing average things, seems a bit tired. JT in for DMC at 4:10 mark. In the first possession of the 3rd quarter DMC passes out of double team to Ben for a 3. But Warriors, primarily Curry, are killing the Kings with Pick-and-Rolls which the Kings/DMC have yet to defeat yielding many easy 2’s by Warriors. Ezeli defending DMC pretty well and it goes back and forth between them at both ends. The good spacing and spread offense the Warriors use is difficult for DMC as he does not yet have his back-to-back legs. Speights comes in for Ezeli at 6:30 mark with Kings on a mini-run dropping deficit from 23 down to 12. Demarcus making good drives to basket but gets fouled most every time. Speights now has 4 fouls and Ezeli 3 trying to guard him but he picks up his own 4th foul at 2:10 mark of 3rd so JT replaces him. Again he seems tired. JT starts 4th with DMC coming in at about 8:30 mark. Warriors are up by 24. Does his patented spin down lane for finger roll for 2 but Ezeli beats him at other end. Landry in for Cuz about 5 min mark with DMC making no significant contribution or stopping the Warriors in the paint who had 66 points there with Kings only getting 46. In 30 min, DMC shoots 9/19+4/6 FT for 22 pts with 8 reb, 6 ast, and only 2 TO. A nice typical set of stats but nothing special and poor defense against the PNR. The minus is getting beat by Ezeli on both ends a few times and having a very average, for Demarcus, game against the best team in the NBA. --Cruz

Stats: 33min 11pts (4-8, 3-6, 0-0) 2reb 3ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
McLemore ( C+ ) -- This was a tough one to grade, and a year ago Ben might have gotten a B -. But because of his recent play, more is expected of him. However, he went long periods of time without touching the ball on offense, which is a shame because he was efficient when he did. On the whole, he did a decent job of defending Thompson. He got off on a sour note when Thompson crossed him over and went baseline for a layup. But for the most part, when Ben was on Thompson, he made him work hard for everything he got. Ben also started by missing his first shot, a three pointer from the right elbow. But then made a nice pass to Collison on a fast break who stopped and popped a fourteen footer, giving Ben his first of three assists on the night. He finally hit a three pointer before going to the bench at around the 2:30 mark of the 1st quarter. He re-entered the game at the 8:33 mark of the 2nd quarter, and strangely, he literally didn't touch the ball on offense until there were 44 seconds left in the 1st half, when he drove the right baseline and scored on a reverse layup. Ben opened the 2nd half by hitting a three pointer on a pass from Cousins. A play that was repeated a bit later in the half. He ended with 11 points, but only 2 boards. I kept hearing from Jerry and Grant, that Cousins and Gay needed someone else to step up and help with the scoring, but that's hard to do if the ball never comes your way. Still too much isolation play, but its hard to fault Cousins who ended up with 6 assists. It's tough playing a back to back against the team with the best record in the NBA. --Baja

Stats: 32min 17pts (7-14, 2-4, 1-2) 2reb 5ast 2stl 0blk 4TO
Collison ( C ) -- this was a solid statistical outing that I think was actually less solid if you started to scratch the surface a bit. Started right off picking off a pass thrown right to him under the hoop and racing down the other way to deliver an assist to JT at the rim. But then got a little wild, missing a long three, getting involved in a turnover up top with JT, and in maybe the biggest story of the game for me -- our idiot coach, perhaps with strings attached to his arms and legs, was screaming "pick it up! pick it up!" every time down the floor, actually encouraging us to speed up the pace against the one team in the league that wants to play with pace. Which is moronic, but maybe Vivek wanted to impress the guys up in the Golden State box laughing at him. In any case, DC ended up being the vessel through which this ruinous strategy was inflicted on us, and while he's a very quick guard and got several hits out of it, in general we played right into their hands, the game was scrambled and open, DC was unusually wild with TOs and forced shots, and he was only 2-7 in the first half. He rattled a three in and out at the 2min mark of the half when we could have cut it to 6, illusory as that spread felt. He was better after half, or at least he hit more shots. Hit a three to cap a mini-run in the 3rd...to get the lead back down to only 14. When Cuz's shot was blocked right to him standing under the hoop, he caught it and laid it up to make it 12. But while Curry felt like he had his team doing exactly what they wanted in only half a night, it never felt like DC had any control at all (to be fair our own style was deemed illegal by our own front office, so not sure what DC could do but follow his coach's idiotic bleatings) --Brick
 
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Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#2
Bench

Stats: 17min 3pts (1-6, 0-1, 1-2) 0reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Williams ( F ) -- 3 points on 6 shots, no rebounds in 17 minutes of play? Yeah, that's an F for you buddy. Williams was a big part of defensive breakdowns in the late first that let the Warriors pull away (never got very close again after that point). He also insisted on passing up open jumpers to dribble into a contested mid-range shot several times. Just dumb, inefficient, poor play from the most overpaid man on the roster.--Hadlowe

Stats: 29min 16pts (7-10, 0-0, 2-4) 8reb 3ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Casspi ( B+ ) -- The best contributor from the bench tonight, despite a relatively productive night from Landry. Casspi returned from his injury with an injection of energy and effort that has been sorely missed in his absence. He was grabbing long rebounds and pushing the ball upcourt, scrambling for loose balls, hitting open teammates, and just putting a lot of pressure on the backups for Golden State by getting into the lane. Nobody gets an A tonight because we still lost and nobody was playing great defense, but Casspi came the closest to deserving one. He didn't get lit up by his man and he worked hard. More of this, please, Corbin.--Hadlowe

Stats: 6min 0pts (0-1, 0-0, 0-0) 1reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Sessions ( INC ) -- well the good news is that Ramon Sessions didn;t cost us this game. The bad news is that he came in, managed to notch 2 TO by the end of the first quarter, missed a three to start the 2nd, and even in NBA 3.0 wasn't deemed worthy of any further run. --Brick

Stats: 7min 12pts (5-6, 0-0, 2-2) 3reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Landry ( INC ) -- I wasn't sure how to reconcile what went on with Carl this time and so I just Incompleted the grade. Pretty much he came in in the first quarter and hit a long contested jumper over Lee. Missed a short gimme jumper to close the quarter. And then did not return to the game until it was garbagetime. Meanwhile was that NBA 3.0? Casspi/DWill/ SFs? if so does that mean that our owner's NAB 3.0 would actually disqualify Carl Landry as too "big", even thought Landry played precisely for those same Warriors before we so wisely dropped a big longterm contract on him? Bizarre. Anyway, amongst the bizarreness, once he returned in the final minute he proceeded to knock down shot after shot and finished with 12 points in only 7 min, and made the final score look closer than it was. So...just bizarre. the whole situation is, but his especially tonight. --Brick

Stats: 10min 3pts (1-3, 1-2, 0-0) 1reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Stauskas ( D ) -- Another tough score. Nik really didn't play that badly, and although, he ended up playing 10 minutes, five of those minutes came at the end of the 4th quarter when the game was out of reach. Even then, in garbage time, he went over 3 minutes without touching the ball on offense. When he finally got the ball, he drove, pulled up and left a 14 footer short. He missed one more shot, the last shot of the game from about 40 feet. He did manage to set up Landry twice by driving and kicking the ball back to Landry who hit both shots, giving Nik two assists on the night. The first half was a mirror image of the second half. After entering the game he went 3 minutes and 41 seconds without touching the ball on offense. When he finally did touch the ball, he hit a three pointer from the left elbow, his only basket on the night. Defensively it was a mixed bag. At first he was glued to Holiday, but then started playing off of him a little too far, and it came back to bite him. On two of Holiday's drives to the basket, Nik contested his shot well, but Holiday scored anyway. He's still struggling through screens, and learning that screeners grab as you go by. --Baja

Stats: 20min 5pts (2-6, 1-2, 0-0) 1reb 7ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
McCallum ( ) -- --Brick




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#3
Are we gonna get a picture of the stewardess in the Carls Jr commercial?
#likeaG6

PS I voted "yes" but I really mean get us to a nail biting chase for #8 that keeps the heart pumping... not quite making it
 
#8
Its really looking like this "NBA 3.0" bul*sh** is really going to backfire. Boogie looks really frazzled and I'm seeing the arguing making its reappearance.
I can't tell you guys how angry I am with vivek. It's not passion vivek!!! It's anger!!! Until you show me otherwise you are now Daniel Schneider to me.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#15
The isolation basketball of Rudy and Cuz is fools gold, the difference in shot selection between them and the Warriors is night and day. Cuz and Rudy need to learn how to move off the ball and we need our big men to actually set screens and move to the rim. Festus took a giant crap on us just by rolling to the rim, Green/Speights/Lee all roll to the rim which causes the defense to collapse. Our big men just set a screen and stand there which does nothing to help Darren Collison, they refuse to create a passing angle or do anything but just stand there.

We need to do something to get Cousins and Rudy just catching and finishing every now and than, against good teams they just force up to many bad shots cause they literally have to work for every single shot. Our player movement off the ball aside from Ben Mclemore and Darren Collison is just garbage.

The last 3 games are basically back to Keith Smart basketball or just crap on both ends. The defensive effort is pathetic as well, until we starting moving the ball we will be racking up those lottery balls.
 
#17
The isolation basketball of Rudy and Cuz is fools gold, the difference in shot selection between them and the Warriors is night and day. Cuz and Rudy need to learn how to move off the ball and we need our big men to actually set screens and move to the rim. Festus took a giant crap on us just by rolling to the rim, Green/Speights/Lee all roll to the rim which causes the defense to collapse. Our big men just set a screen and stand there which does nothing to help Darren Collison, they refuse to create a passing angle or do anything but just stand there.

We need to do something to get Cousins and Rudy just catching and finishing every now and than, against good teams they just force up to many bad shots cause they literally have to work for every single shot. Our player movement off the ball aside from Ben Mclemore and Darren Collison is just garbage.

The last 3 games are basically back to Keith Smart basketball or just poopoo on both ends. The defensive effort is pathetic as well, until we starting moving the ball we will be racking up those lottery balls.
You ever realize how long we take to get our offense moving in the half court? I mean we waste a good 5-8 seconds just standing their waiting for cuz to get into position
 
#20
Oh remember earlier this year when the team was struggling offensively, shooting under 40% but still finding ways to win games or at least compete?

Now with our new "style of play" we are finding ways to lose games where we shoot great.

58% against the Bucks and we lose at home. to a Bucks team missing half it's starters
Tonight we shoot 48%, have 31 assists and just 13 turnovers. And we lose by freakin 20.

NBA 3.0 Defense baby!
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#21
JT gives us a -32 plus minus in 20 minutes. How is that even possible?

DMC with a -2. in a 20 point loss
+/- Has to be the worst stat in basketball it doesn't take into account any variable what so ever, JT was bad, but Rudy Gay was much worse and so were a number of the bench players, no one aside from our backcourt did anything to help us win that game or stay competitive. Sometimes as a player your just unlucky since basketball is a game of runs and if your in the game at the wrong time or with the wrong people your +/- can go to crap. The whole team to me was a -32.

Mclemore getting 8 shots while he's shooting 50% is just a true reflection of how bad our ball movement is and why not when a good shooter has it going you don't try run something for him other than Cousins getting doubled is beyond me.
 
#22
Two coaches that had the Kings playing well.

Adelman who was eventually fired because he did not coach defense (supposedly).

Malone who was fired due to philosophical differences with the FO.

Different owners, different era but the same result.

They snatched defeat from victory:(
 
#24
Corbin: Never purposely have a smaller player guard a much taller player while he scores over and over. See Ray trying to check Livingston and Holiday.
 
#27
I understand the FO wants a faster more uptempo offense, but we can't do that with our current players.

I think the only players that fit the uptempo offense are Collison, McLemore, and Casspi. I think Cousins and Gay can eventually get the hang of it, but the rest of the guys? I doubt it.

JT? Nope. Sessions? Nope. Stauskas? Nope. Landry? Nope. Evans? Nope. Hollins? Nope. Williams? Inconsistent.

We just don't have the roster for that uptempo offense. I will be very displeased with our GM if this is the way the current roster will look in January.

I think we should trade for Kyle Singler of the Pistons. Good 3pt shooter.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#28
We are into year 5 of having Cousins and I actually don't know if we are any closer to making the playoffs than we were in year 1 or 2, while we slightly improved the rest of the West is better than ever, the top 8 is ridiculous and teams like Denver/NO/Suns are right now all playing better than us. We still have no identity (we did till we fired Malone), we still don't have enough shooting, still don't have a shot blocker and still don't have form of ball movement or pick n roll game.
 
#29
We are into year 5 of having Cousins and I actually don't know if we are any closer to making the playoffs than we were in year 1 or 2, while we slightly improved the rest of the West is better than ever, the top 8 is ridiculous and teams like Denver/NO/Suns are right now all playing better than us. We still have no identity (we did till we fired Malone), we still don't have enough shooting, still don't have a shot blocker and still don't have form of ball movement or pick n roll game.
Landry is quickly becoming a terrible contract for us. He does not fit this uptempo offense we want to run, plus he doesn't offer a whole lot aside from scoring.

I think the Kings should continue to push for Deron Williams. I think he will make the team overall better.

I feel like our PG situation is similar to IND's of last season. They had George Hill, who didn't do very much. Hill did not have to be a playmaker or shot creator for his teammates. All he really did was bring the ball up and hand it off to the main guys. The reason why it did work for Indiana is because they had 2 very good ball handlers and creators in Paul George and Lance Stephenson.
We're utilizing Collison in the same exact way because the coaches know that's his ceiling. That's all he does. However, we do not have anyone else in our starting lineup that create shots for everyone else and run plays. That's why we'll continue to struggle with ball movement and assists.
Rudy Gay is someone we can go to every once in a while, but he's not very effective as a point forward. Cousins can only do so much.

I think if we traded for a good PG, they would fix 3/5 problems you've listed. Shooting, ball movement, and PnR. Identity would be a Q mark.

Collison is very good in his 17ft jumpers. He's also good in attacking the rim, but his main struggles come from 3pt shooting. It seems like almost every 3 he attempts, he has to take 2-3s to adjust his feet before he shoots the ball. He hasn't been a very good 3pt shooter this season despite a nice sum of it being wide open.

Our roster needs a complete overhaul if the FO really wants to have an uptemo offense. The only players I'd keep would be Cousins, Gay, McLemore, and Casspi.