Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Big Three
Cousins 21pts 20rebs 1ast 2blk
Thornton 28pts 2reb 3ast 1stl
Tyreke 26pts 4reb 9ast 3stl
Big Two roleplayers
Dalembert: 15pts 16reb 1blk
Kirilenko: 14pts 3reb 6ast 5stl
Let's party like its 1999! (let's just not talk about the bench)
Some stats:
Tyreke since Smart took over: 18.8pts 5.8reb 6.1ast 1.9stl
Cousins since Smart took over: 15.4pts 11.9reb 1.0ast 1.3blk
JT since becoming a starter: 10.9pts 9.1reb 0.8ast 0.8blk (.520FG)
Last 2 weeks:
Thornton 44.0min 24.0pts (.405 .857) 1.5reb 3.0ast 1.5stl 0.5blk 2.0TO
T.Evans 40.6min 19.7pts (.415 .862) 5.0reb 7.3ast 2.0stl 0.5blk 3.2TO
Cousins 33.5min 16.5pts (.476 .700) 12.8reb 1.5ast 1.0stl 1.0blk 2.8TO
Thompson: 31.2min 12.0pts (.577 .857) 9.3reb 0.8ast 0.3stl 0.9blk 1.7TO
Those guys representing our 1st round picks in 2008, 2009 and 2010, and the guy Petrie stole from New Orelands for Landry.
Boxscore
Sorry for delay...weekend + some other sporting event going on today etc. etc. So here we go:
Salmons ( A ) -- really played a very good roleplayer game for the second game in a row. Hit a three to start, and playing good defense -- funnyhow it tracks with the early offense for him. Not only was he combining with Reke and Thronton to create some real havoc up top knocking balls away and collecting steals, but he was doing a great job getting back in transition and stopping Golden State breaks. Made a nifty from the top of the key to JT underneath for the dunk, one of six assists for the selfish one as Smart even has him moving the ball somehow. There were still occasional selfish moments(a terrible selfish drive to start the 3rd was particularly headshaking) -- along with no bench play and our guys' refusal to guard the three point line it is the half a dozen flat out selfish plays a young team makes holding us back right now...except Salmons ain't young. But he never strung them together. Hit several big threes down the stretch and ito start us off in the OT, but also had a critical turnover at the 2:30 mark that put us in danger of losing this one. Saved the game bing in the right place and right time to grab a tipped out ball at the 20 second mark and getting fouled. Only hit 1 of 2 to break the tie, but we grabbed that board too, got fouled again, and had a three point lead after the play was over.
Thompson ( A ) -- almost all of the great centers over the years have had strong wingmen at PF next to them. Charles Oakley or AC Green or Horace Grant or Udonis Haslem or PJ Brown etc. etc. Not stars in their own right, but strong roleplayers cleaning up all the dirty work the big centers were not able to do alone. Not saying DeMarcus is a great center...yet. Not saying JT is a great wingman...yet. But he's certainly doing a good imiation of one right now, and tonight you saw the true power of those pairings (long thought Orlando's biggest foulup regarding Dwight Howard was going 3pt shooting junkball rather than geting him a wingman thug PF). JT and Cousins simply overwhelmed the Warriors on the galss tonight -- final reboudning count: Warriors team: 36; JT+Cuz: 36. Every one that Cousins did not get, Jason did, and he was doing a great job as the weakside rebounder, cleaning things up behind Cousins whenever the big guy went to challenge a shot. Offense was per the roleplayer norm -- keep your hands up for pases, run the floor, pound the offensive glass. But also has been dropping in a couple of high percentage 1 on 1 post shots (mostly hooks) a game. Came up big down the stretch, grabbing some big boards in the final minutes after Cousins briefly had to sit with 5 fouls, and making a huge tipout play on Salmons missed FT at the 17 second mark, tipping it out to Reke, who was foulded, hit both FT, and gave us the cushion we needed to reach OT even after the Warriors drained a three the other way. This BTW was the Dalembert contribution so many of us not named the Kings' front office wanted next to Cousins. Big board basher #2. Its the perfect compliment next to a great center, and I have no complaints aobut JT's game here at all.
Cousins ( A ) -- the tone of this game was determined as much as anythign by the referees, who were flat out letting them play out there, to the point of not calling some fairly obvious fouls. And you know what? I will take that EVERY time over the pathetic zebras stopping play every 20 seconds with a whistle. The end result was that interior play in this one was very physical, and just barely officiated, and while Cousins got frustrated at times with the no calls, as it turned into a physical battling war in there, only one guy was going to win. He hit a few jumpers, had a nice drive early in the game, but the image of this game is going to be of DeMarcus wading into a pack of Warriors, somehow getting the ball, and muscling up a shot as bodies went flying in every direction. Added a couple of nice first half blocks too. His huge +1 play falling down in the mid 4th bailed us out after the lead was all the way down to 2, and he had a big muscle tip at the 1:00 mark to tie the game back up. Added the lucky catapult jumper off the glass to give us a 7 point lead in the mid OT, and finally got that 20-20 game he has been threatening throughout his young career. I doubt it will be his last.
Thornton ( B ) -- I'm not accustomed to handing out so many A's, but our top five guys all played their roles nearly perfectly. Going to draw some line here though, and give our SG, who merely put up 28pts worth of shooting, the B. it was actually an interestingly up and down game for Marcus, who couldn't hit a three to save his life in the first half (going 0-5), and with Marcus you are always going to have some forced jumpers mixed in along the way. The bigger issue I had that allowed me to call a 28pt game a B was with Marcus's defense. Now first it must be said that the things he did well on defense were underreported by that boxscore. He had at least 3 steals I can remember, and was doing a great job of jumping passing lanes at the last sec and surprising the Warriros to break up frastbreaks. But his gambling hyperaggressive style was ill-suited to the sort of defensive covers he had tonight, as he was repeatedly given the relatively simple duties of guarding rangy spotup shooters like Dorell Wright and Klay Thompson, and was just too undisciplined, not to mention too short, to stay with them and keep them from draining wide open three after wide open three against us. Particulary egregious was his mistake on the Warriors three to tie the game with 10 seconds to go, as Thronton got caught by the backpick, let Thompson get to the corner for the uncontested three, and boom, into OT we went. Now for the good stuff: the third quarter. Marcus simply EXPLODED in a way no King has done all season, completely dominating play and pouring in 18 points in the quarter, from the 3pt line, on the drive, on the break. It was he who largely gave us our 11pt lead going into the 4th. But he could not sustain. Began the 4th forcing up a couple of tough shots that felt like he knew he had been hot and was getting a little full of himself, and then largely disappeared. Stripped by Nate at the 2:00 mark for a breakaway as the Warriors took the lead, and then the mistake leaving Thompson open for the tying three in the corner. Came up with a hustle steal in the OT though and this was in no way a bad performance. Its just that the good -- the classic scoring explosion -- was much more concentrated than the mistakes were. You can win a lot of games with your shooting guard scoring 28 though.
Evans ( A- ) --there was a whole bunch of nice in this one, mixed with a dose of not so nice. The not so nice, just to get it out of the way, were occasional forced jumpers for no apparent reason, and then looking like he caught a case of the heroes during the final minutes of regulation. The nice was virtually everything else. Got of to a fairly quiet start to this one that again saw him lurking back letting other guys get going. Could be gameplan, could be maturity, but its a useful thing when your stars/ballhandlers are willing to do that and get the team involved before they come on themselves. Was working inside along the baseline looking for rebounds while the bigs shot jumpers. Came up with some great steals showing both hands and anticpation. Just took in away from Curry at the end of the first to trigger a break that got us the lead back, and had essentially a one man 5pt play late in the half when he hit a long jumper, then jumped in the passing lane on the inbounds pass, stole it, slammed inside and hit the layup +1. In the third arguably played one of his best quarters as a PG, assisting on the majority fo Thronton's baskets as he recognized the hot hand and found him again and again. Was really making good decisions on the break too as we were very efficient there and getting good shots nearly every time. His big three at the end of the third gave us an 11pt lead going into the 4th that we unfortunately squandered. Returned as we were falling apart in mid-quarter, had two beautiful drives, but did not finsh either. Played some great defense on Nate Robinson in the final minutes taking away the little guy who had been killing us, but offensive play in the final minute could kindly be called shaky. Hit the two cltuch FTs at the 15 second mark that allowed us to survive the Thompson three and reach OT, but took multiple bad lookign jumpers trying to win it himself I guess, and nearly turned it over at the 30 second mark trying to force the break and dump it down to Cousins before it got deflected. Settled in the OT, and made the sealing plays, slashing to the hoop to make it a 9pt game at the 1:30 mark, and then ending all Warriors hope draining a three against the clock at the 50 second mark to make it a 10pt lead and game over. Another big game on both sides of the ball, another strong assist night. But too many forced jumpers and selfish/dumb moments in the late game to go with a straight A.
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Bench
Hickson ( D ) -- brief minutes where he was inferior in every way to JT. We basically had no bench once again.
Thomas ( C ) -- only bench guy who did anything at all, and it was minor. Had problems on defense due to his size, with the Warriors immediately posting Monta Ellis on him and scoring over him, and then got caught on a pick as fellow mighty mite Nate clearly won this round. Gave us a little something with a three and a nice dumpoff pass to Cousins. But didn't do as well once the starters returned, and his lack of threat from the perimeter and tendency to overdribble hurt us until Marcus returned. After returning in the 4th took a dumb selfish forced drive with momentum headed against us, got smushed, and he Warriors went back the other way and cut it to 6.
Hayes ( C ) -- nice interior pass over to Hickson who got fouled. Some tough work around the glass, but offensively fugly again. Ineffective in his 2nd half stint, leading to an early return for Demarcus
Garcia ( INC ) -- did nothign in a brief first half stint that was apparently so offensive he got replaced by Outlaw for the second half minutes. Now that's insulting.
Outlaw ( INC ) -- randomly inserted at the 9 minute mark of the 4th for the first time, with us clinging on, and somehow designated goto post scorer?? Immediately posted up his man and scored, but then so encouraged he kept on trying it, looked awful screwing up, and was gone along wiht our lead a few mintues later.
Cousins 21pts 20rebs 1ast 2blk
Thornton 28pts 2reb 3ast 1stl
Tyreke 26pts 4reb 9ast 3stl
Big Two roleplayers
Dalembert: 15pts 16reb 1blk
Kirilenko: 14pts 3reb 6ast 5stl
Let's party like its 1999! (let's just not talk about the bench)
Some stats:
Tyreke since Smart took over: 18.8pts 5.8reb 6.1ast 1.9stl
Cousins since Smart took over: 15.4pts 11.9reb 1.0ast 1.3blk
JT since becoming a starter: 10.9pts 9.1reb 0.8ast 0.8blk (.520FG)
Last 2 weeks:
Thornton 44.0min 24.0pts (.405 .857) 1.5reb 3.0ast 1.5stl 0.5blk 2.0TO
T.Evans 40.6min 19.7pts (.415 .862) 5.0reb 7.3ast 2.0stl 0.5blk 3.2TO
Cousins 33.5min 16.5pts (.476 .700) 12.8reb 1.5ast 1.0stl 1.0blk 2.8TO
Thompson: 31.2min 12.0pts (.577 .857) 9.3reb 0.8ast 0.3stl 0.9blk 1.7TO
Those guys representing our 1st round picks in 2008, 2009 and 2010, and the guy Petrie stole from New Orelands for Landry.
Boxscore
Sorry for delay...weekend + some other sporting event going on today etc. etc. So here we go:
Salmons ( A ) -- really played a very good roleplayer game for the second game in a row. Hit a three to start, and playing good defense -- funnyhow it tracks with the early offense for him. Not only was he combining with Reke and Thronton to create some real havoc up top knocking balls away and collecting steals, but he was doing a great job getting back in transition and stopping Golden State breaks. Made a nifty from the top of the key to JT underneath for the dunk, one of six assists for the selfish one as Smart even has him moving the ball somehow. There were still occasional selfish moments(a terrible selfish drive to start the 3rd was particularly headshaking) -- along with no bench play and our guys' refusal to guard the three point line it is the half a dozen flat out selfish plays a young team makes holding us back right now...except Salmons ain't young. But he never strung them together. Hit several big threes down the stretch and ito start us off in the OT, but also had a critical turnover at the 2:30 mark that put us in danger of losing this one. Saved the game bing in the right place and right time to grab a tipped out ball at the 20 second mark and getting fouled. Only hit 1 of 2 to break the tie, but we grabbed that board too, got fouled again, and had a three point lead after the play was over.
Thompson ( A ) -- almost all of the great centers over the years have had strong wingmen at PF next to them. Charles Oakley or AC Green or Horace Grant or Udonis Haslem or PJ Brown etc. etc. Not stars in their own right, but strong roleplayers cleaning up all the dirty work the big centers were not able to do alone. Not saying DeMarcus is a great center...yet. Not saying JT is a great wingman...yet. But he's certainly doing a good imiation of one right now, and tonight you saw the true power of those pairings (long thought Orlando's biggest foulup regarding Dwight Howard was going 3pt shooting junkball rather than geting him a wingman thug PF). JT and Cousins simply overwhelmed the Warriors on the galss tonight -- final reboudning count: Warriors team: 36; JT+Cuz: 36. Every one that Cousins did not get, Jason did, and he was doing a great job as the weakside rebounder, cleaning things up behind Cousins whenever the big guy went to challenge a shot. Offense was per the roleplayer norm -- keep your hands up for pases, run the floor, pound the offensive glass. But also has been dropping in a couple of high percentage 1 on 1 post shots (mostly hooks) a game. Came up big down the stretch, grabbing some big boards in the final minutes after Cousins briefly had to sit with 5 fouls, and making a huge tipout play on Salmons missed FT at the 17 second mark, tipping it out to Reke, who was foulded, hit both FT, and gave us the cushion we needed to reach OT even after the Warriors drained a three the other way. This BTW was the Dalembert contribution so many of us not named the Kings' front office wanted next to Cousins. Big board basher #2. Its the perfect compliment next to a great center, and I have no complaints aobut JT's game here at all.
Cousins ( A ) -- the tone of this game was determined as much as anythign by the referees, who were flat out letting them play out there, to the point of not calling some fairly obvious fouls. And you know what? I will take that EVERY time over the pathetic zebras stopping play every 20 seconds with a whistle. The end result was that interior play in this one was very physical, and just barely officiated, and while Cousins got frustrated at times with the no calls, as it turned into a physical battling war in there, only one guy was going to win. He hit a few jumpers, had a nice drive early in the game, but the image of this game is going to be of DeMarcus wading into a pack of Warriors, somehow getting the ball, and muscling up a shot as bodies went flying in every direction. Added a couple of nice first half blocks too. His huge +1 play falling down in the mid 4th bailed us out after the lead was all the way down to 2, and he had a big muscle tip at the 1:00 mark to tie the game back up. Added the lucky catapult jumper off the glass to give us a 7 point lead in the mid OT, and finally got that 20-20 game he has been threatening throughout his young career. I doubt it will be his last.
Thornton ( B ) -- I'm not accustomed to handing out so many A's, but our top five guys all played their roles nearly perfectly. Going to draw some line here though, and give our SG, who merely put up 28pts worth of shooting, the B. it was actually an interestingly up and down game for Marcus, who couldn't hit a three to save his life in the first half (going 0-5), and with Marcus you are always going to have some forced jumpers mixed in along the way. The bigger issue I had that allowed me to call a 28pt game a B was with Marcus's defense. Now first it must be said that the things he did well on defense were underreported by that boxscore. He had at least 3 steals I can remember, and was doing a great job of jumping passing lanes at the last sec and surprising the Warriros to break up frastbreaks. But his gambling hyperaggressive style was ill-suited to the sort of defensive covers he had tonight, as he was repeatedly given the relatively simple duties of guarding rangy spotup shooters like Dorell Wright and Klay Thompson, and was just too undisciplined, not to mention too short, to stay with them and keep them from draining wide open three after wide open three against us. Particulary egregious was his mistake on the Warriors three to tie the game with 10 seconds to go, as Thronton got caught by the backpick, let Thompson get to the corner for the uncontested three, and boom, into OT we went. Now for the good stuff: the third quarter. Marcus simply EXPLODED in a way no King has done all season, completely dominating play and pouring in 18 points in the quarter, from the 3pt line, on the drive, on the break. It was he who largely gave us our 11pt lead going into the 4th. But he could not sustain. Began the 4th forcing up a couple of tough shots that felt like he knew he had been hot and was getting a little full of himself, and then largely disappeared. Stripped by Nate at the 2:00 mark for a breakaway as the Warriors took the lead, and then the mistake leaving Thompson open for the tying three in the corner. Came up with a hustle steal in the OT though and this was in no way a bad performance. Its just that the good -- the classic scoring explosion -- was much more concentrated than the mistakes were. You can win a lot of games with your shooting guard scoring 28 though.
Evans ( A- ) --there was a whole bunch of nice in this one, mixed with a dose of not so nice. The not so nice, just to get it out of the way, were occasional forced jumpers for no apparent reason, and then looking like he caught a case of the heroes during the final minutes of regulation. The nice was virtually everything else. Got of to a fairly quiet start to this one that again saw him lurking back letting other guys get going. Could be gameplan, could be maturity, but its a useful thing when your stars/ballhandlers are willing to do that and get the team involved before they come on themselves. Was working inside along the baseline looking for rebounds while the bigs shot jumpers. Came up with some great steals showing both hands and anticpation. Just took in away from Curry at the end of the first to trigger a break that got us the lead back, and had essentially a one man 5pt play late in the half when he hit a long jumper, then jumped in the passing lane on the inbounds pass, stole it, slammed inside and hit the layup +1. In the third arguably played one of his best quarters as a PG, assisting on the majority fo Thronton's baskets as he recognized the hot hand and found him again and again. Was really making good decisions on the break too as we were very efficient there and getting good shots nearly every time. His big three at the end of the third gave us an 11pt lead going into the 4th that we unfortunately squandered. Returned as we were falling apart in mid-quarter, had two beautiful drives, but did not finsh either. Played some great defense on Nate Robinson in the final minutes taking away the little guy who had been killing us, but offensive play in the final minute could kindly be called shaky. Hit the two cltuch FTs at the 15 second mark that allowed us to survive the Thompson three and reach OT, but took multiple bad lookign jumpers trying to win it himself I guess, and nearly turned it over at the 30 second mark trying to force the break and dump it down to Cousins before it got deflected. Settled in the OT, and made the sealing plays, slashing to the hoop to make it a 9pt game at the 1:30 mark, and then ending all Warriors hope draining a three against the clock at the 50 second mark to make it a 10pt lead and game over. Another big game on both sides of the ball, another strong assist night. But too many forced jumpers and selfish/dumb moments in the late game to go with a straight A.
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Bench
Hickson ( D ) -- brief minutes where he was inferior in every way to JT. We basically had no bench once again.
Thomas ( C ) -- only bench guy who did anything at all, and it was minor. Had problems on defense due to his size, with the Warriors immediately posting Monta Ellis on him and scoring over him, and then got caught on a pick as fellow mighty mite Nate clearly won this round. Gave us a little something with a three and a nice dumpoff pass to Cousins. But didn't do as well once the starters returned, and his lack of threat from the perimeter and tendency to overdribble hurt us until Marcus returned. After returning in the 4th took a dumb selfish forced drive with momentum headed against us, got smushed, and he Warriors went back the other way and cut it to 6.
Hayes ( C ) -- nice interior pass over to Hickson who got fouled. Some tough work around the glass, but offensively fugly again. Ineffective in his 2nd half stint, leading to an early return for Demarcus
Garcia ( INC ) -- did nothign in a brief first half stint that was apparently so offensive he got replaced by Outlaw for the second half minutes. Now that's insulting.
Outlaw ( INC ) -- randomly inserted at the 9 minute mark of the 4th for the first time, with us clinging on, and somehow designated goto post scorer?? Immediately posted up his man and scored, but then so encouraged he kept on trying it, looked awful screwing up, and was gone along wiht our lead a few mintues later.
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