Kings at Jazz 11/21/2010, 6PM

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
And suddenly we look like a defensive juggernaut.

There were several things that could have "killed" us last night. Really, last night's total lack of a cohesive offense would have usually resulted in a total blowout. But one thing saved us: Defense.

For 48 minutes, we played hard, knock 'em down, slap your mom defense. In the end, however, our desire to pass the ball to the other team and not make free throws won out.

For what its worth, Luther Head played a nice, effective game last night. Hit those open three pointers (which is what we signed him to do) and a generally good game against Paul, who is most certainly back in pre-injury form. Paul had 14 assists but also missed the crunch time shot that happened to ricochet to Hornet player to seal the game.

After a good ten or so games mired in the drama of Coach Westphal's need to try random lineups like a high schooler tries on prom dresses, some scrub named Donte Greene continued his mini-renaissance in style. Whether or not he lost his athleticism, its back in full stride now, allowing him to make a couple of "Wow" plays every game that most people who are not 6'11" with the general speed of a faster small forward can make. All of that defensive effort and willingness to be a glue guy has returned along with the welcome addition of rebounding skills. Keep playing like this, young man, and you may just have a place in this league.

Missing: Tyreke Evans. Reward: The guy dressed up as him for the past two games. The sooner Reke is healthy and attacking, the better.

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Reke- Where'd you go? I miss you so.
Carl- Nice Spencer impression
Dalembert- Goalie. Please stop trying to play offense please
Head- Looking much better now
Donte- 15 pts, 11 boards, 3 blocks. Josh Smith?

Beno- Nice job not killing us on defense. Take that ft next time though.
Cisco- Where did your stroke go?
DeMarcus- Sloooow down
JT- Nice and controlled. Mop up, janitior.
Casspi- Did you sleep with Coach's daughter too?
rest- Antoine Wright
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AWARDS

TDM: Who is this Jason Smith and why is he playing like good Brad Miller?
SAR: (This spot was reserved for Peja but he got traded last night) Willie Green was impressively not impressive.
JH-AN Award: Tyreke Evans. A little bit of offense in the fourth quarter would have been nice.
Mikki Moore: Emeka Okafor grabbed 14 rebounds but was pretty much outplayed by Sammy D. I'm pretty glad we waited on Okafor and pulled the trigger on Dalembert (mostly because of contracts)
Kenny Thomas Award for Undersized Big Men Getting Limited Work Done: Carl "I swore I could hit that 3" Landry
RA And-1: Demarcus. Please slow down big fella. A little is enough. DOn't over do it.
WTF Moment of the Game: Tyreke's disappearing act in the 2nd half.
WTF #2: Landry struggling + JT playing good in1st half= Carl playing entire 2nd half?


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Tomorrow is a new game. Utah is another good team with another good PG-Big man combo (really two since Jefe and Millsap are both around). Keep up the defensive intensity from last night and I guarantee good things will happen.

Tyreke vs Houdini Act: Try to play like last year
Jefferson and Cousins versus Milicic: Both of these guys were worse than Darko?
Donte vs old Habits: I like the new you. Stick to it.
Omri vs bench: I don't know what to say.


GO KINGS
 
I like The Kings chances in this game for two reasons. A, their two best games this year have been against the two best teams they played, L.A. and New Orleans and B, they've actually played better overall on the road so far. The only playing your best against the elite teams thing has to stop though. You can get away with that if you're The Celtics, Magic, Lakers, Heat, Spurs, etc. but you can't get away with it when you're a bad team, which The Kings still are at this point. The Kings need to bring their "A game" every night otherwise they're going to lose a lot of games to bad teams.
 
head needs to do a job on williams like he did paul, dally needs to upset jeffersons rhythem and landry needs to trump millsap here
 
Biggest concern here is can we keep that same defensive intensity on the road? And can we bring it on the seocnd night of a back to back? Playign defense is hard -- why so many wimps don't like to play it. we spent a ton of energy yesterday. I hope we can bring it again, and I want to see us start getting rewarded fot it too wiht some Ws.We win, it builds and the deense becomes ingrained. Its hard to sell people on busting their *** like that though if we keep coming up short. Gets depressing.
 
Jazz are the real "come back kings". It seems like they are down 10-15pts in the 4th just about every game, and they always come behind for the W. If we can jump out ahead by that many points (something it seems like every team is capable of doing against Utah) and then smother any come back attempts, we can get the W.

I think Dally can give Jefferson trouble with his length as he (Big Al) is a slower, more groundbound big. And if Landry puts in effort he might even be able to slow Millsap, as they are both undersized (although Millsap is a bull, so we'll see). Frontcourt battle should be interesting.

Head vs Williams. Harris and Paul are both tiny, super fast, guards. Williams is fast, but he's also a lot stronger than those two. We might have to sick Reke on him (and Reke is going to have to put in the effort - something he is inconsistant with on D).

If we continue the defense, get a strong follow up effort from Greene, and have better play from our bench (ie: Cousins), then we have a chance.
 
dalembert working hard on defense

It seems like he has a lot to offer to our younger guys. He has people attacking him but doesn't go for fakes or reach for silly fouls often. If Cuz and JT could pick up just that aspect of his game I think they would be a lot better.
 
LOL the Jazz announcer is a pure homer. He says 3 minutes ago that Deron was going to dominate Head, sees our defense and says that Deron's still being bothered by injuries.
 
It seems like he has a lot to offer to our younger guys. He has people attacking him but doesn't go for fakes or reach for silly fouls often. If Cuz and JT could pick up just that aspect of his game I think they would be a lot better.
As well as Whiteside in practice.
 
As well as Whiteside in practice.

Has there been any news/footage of Whiteside? I am excited with him as a prospect but don't recall hearing anything since the season started about him. Could we send him to a D-League team to get some playtime/practice?
 
Has there been any news/footage of Whiteside? I am excited with him as a prospect but don't recall hearing anything since the season started about him. Could we send him to a D-League team to get some playtime/practice?
He's heathy and practicing, just not suiting up for games. As faras the D league, who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if he playes a few games for Reno. But is that better than going up againt Dally and Cousins every day in practice? I want him to learn as much as possible from Dally.
 
He's heathy and practicing, just not suiting up for games. As faras the D league, who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if he playes a few games for Reno. But is that better than going up againt Dally and Cousins every day in practice? I want him to learn as much as possible from Dally.

I'm not sure if it would be better or not. It would nice if we could hear some kind of assessment on what he is currently working on. Obviously it's everything... but I am sure he is concentrating on certain things during practice. From what I have heard about him in the past he was just a very raw player, so maybe practice is all he needs to get better and D-League games wouldn't help much there.
 
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