Kings HARDWORKING Team & Coach Westphal

I still have no comment on Westphal's random insertions of players. For example, what was up with playing Jermaine Taylor for a couple of seconds in the first quarter? He turned it over twice and nothing else. I do however want to comment on how I love how the Kings compete in every game for a while now...I hope they keep this up. I don't expect many wins and I do expect some letdowns just because.
 
Westphal's coaching was outstanding tonight! He was standing up throughout much of the game coaching intently with purpose. He outcoached the ZenMaster - simpy put. But it was mostly the Kings players as it almost always is. Even the refs were on their game with very few missed calls, no blantant all out Kobe bias, etc. Mentioning a couple seconds of zero impact by Taylor is absurd in overall context of this amazing victory on the road over the NBA world champs. One thing for damn certain, this Kings team is no longer one of the softest teams in the league - you can forget that old rag.
 
RookieOfTheDay said:
I wonder if the anti Westphal brigade will change their tune if The Kings start winning more games like this.
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ive actually been defending westphal a lot but if we lost this, a lot of blame would have been on him leaving cousins out so long. i'm glad it didnt have to come to that though. then again we were missing a lot of FTs :p
 
steelevt said:
ive actually been defending westphal a lot but if we lost this, a lot of blame would have been on him leaving cousins out so long. i'm glad it didnt have to come to that though. then again we were missing a lot of FTs :p
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Cousins finished with 32 minutes. I think maybe Westphal just wanted to make sure he was rested for the 4th quarter. Getting hit in the eye may have had something to do with it too.
 
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RookieOfTheDay said:
Cousins finished with 32 minutes. I think maybe Westphal just wanted to make sure he was rested for the the 4th quarter. Getting hit in the eye may have had something to do with it too.
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Yeah, after the game, Jum Gray asked how his eye was. He said better, but he was still seeing "flurries."
 
We won, but I don't understand Westphal taking out Cousins for that 4-5 minute stretch in the fourth. You know, the one where the offense went completely bye bye, where Gasol and Odom just reached up over the top of Landry for offensive boards, and where the Lakers made a surge back up the scoreboard? Yeah, I got some questions on that part.
 
Great win.


As for Westphal, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, this team is slowly getting better. We're fighting every game, and as tonight has shown, we can hang with any team in the league (except for Boston :p).

On the other hand, his substitution pattern still leaves me scratching my head. He tends to go away from things when they are working, I cant help but feel like we could have beaten the Lakers by a lot more than 5 if he had stuck to his big lineup of Cuz/Dally. Then again, considering we DID beat the Lakers by 5, I really shouldnt be complaining. Hawesome win.
 
steelevt said:
ive actually been defending westphal a lot but if we lost this, a lot of blame would have been on him leaving cousins out so long. i'm glad it didnt have to come to that though. then again we were missing a lot of FTs :p
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Amen, glad to see others miffed about it too. It was stupid, sorry, but it was.
 
kingsboi said:
I still have no comment on Westphal's random insertions of players. For example, what was up with playing Jermaine Taylor for a couple of seconds in the first quarter? He turned it over twice and nothing else. I do however want to comment on how I love how the Kings compete in every game for a while now...I hope they keep this up. I don't expect many wins and I do expect some letdowns just because.
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I would have thought thats a pretty easy one to figure out!

Kobe got Tyreke into foul trouble and was schooling Donte so the logical thing was to try someone else on him. He tried Taylor because from all the reports the kid is a great athlete and a good defender. It didn't work out so that was the end of it.

That was a pretty obvious move I would have thought!
 
last year I defended Westphal. I cut him some slack because it was his first year and he had a very young team. But there were things that he did that were unorthodox. This year he's still doing the same things again, and as a result he's losing me. It was never about winning or losing with me. I expected to lose more than we won. Its about the style of his coaching and his in game decisions. Last night I was happy to see him up and yelling along the sideline. Showing some emotion. I'm sure the players were happy to see their coach that involved. But he still made some decisions that were befuddling to me. A win is a win, and I don't want to rain on any part of it. Nothing would make me happier than to see Westphal succeed, because that means the team is succeeding. And thats all I care about. I have nothing against him personally. But if I see mistakes being made on a regular basis, then I'm going to say so. And I'll give him credit when deserved as well.

So kudo's to Westphal and the team. Great victory, and hopefully there will be many more to come.
 
Progress, this team is coming together and they really look good and should have atleast 15-20 wins at this point but they can't close out games in the last minutes and just give games away.
 
bajaden said:
last year I defended Westphal. I cut him some slack because it was his first year and he had a very young team. But there were things that he did that were unorthodox. This year he's still doing the same things again, and as a result he's losing me. It was never about winning or losing with me. I expected to lose more than we won.
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Come on now. Let us be true to ourselves. It always was and it will always be about winning and losing. However unorthodox Westphal's style of coaching, if we're winning you can be certain that you would not complain.

This team is still very young just like last year's team. Plus we hve to take into consideration a lot of guys are new to the team (especially 2 significant starter caliber players - Cousins and Dalembert) and most were inexperienced and therefore expected to be inconsistent on their games. Half of the season Westphal had to address issues like player injuries, players coming in over-weight and in poor condition, and attitude problems that merited corresponding discipline. Take away all these negative factors and I am pretty sure we wouldn't have seen Westphal as unorthodox as he had seemed.

I am just glad it seems like it is becoming clear which players deserve to be included in our regular rotation now that most of the negatives I mentioned above had been dealt fairly well. I just hope in a few more games it would also be clear who should start and who should finish the game.
 
Prince_XY said:
Come on now. Let us be true to ourselves. It always was and it will always be about winning and losing. However unorthodox Westphal's style of coaching, if we're winning you can be certain that you would not complain.

This team is still very young just like last year's team. Plus we hve to take into consideration a lot of guys are new to the team (especially 2 significant starter caliber players - Cousins and Dalembert) and most were inexperienced and therefore expected to be inconsistent on their games. Half of the season Westphal had to address issues like player injuries, players coming in over-weight and in poor condition, and attitude problems that merited corresponding discipline. Take away all these negative factors and I am pretty sure we wouldn't have seen Westphal as unorthodox as he had seemed.

I am just glad it seems like it is becoming clear which players deserve to be included in our regular rotation now that most of the negatives I mentioned above had been dealt fairly well. I just hope in a few more games it would also be clear who should start and who should finish the game.
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I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. And your entitled to your own opinion. But don't put words in my mouth as to what I might say if the record was different. Just for the record, I criticized Rick Adelman when I disagreed with what he was doing. I qualified what I said about winning and losing. And I mean't it.
 
steelevt said:
ive actually been defending westphal a lot but if we lost this, a lot of blame would have been on him leaving cousins out so long. i'm glad it didnt have to come to that though. then again we were missing a lot of FTs :p
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I think that finally Cousins conditioning is starting to improve. He isnt gonna run 48 minutes a game, but his conditioning at the begining of the season was not where it needed to be. When big men get tired, you can see it in their rebounding, their shot selection, and most importantly their defense. Tired bigs tend to rack up fouls. I am overjoied to see that Demarcus's stamina is improving! He is begining to understand that if he wants to stay in the game, he has to have enough stamina to keep going. Enough stamina to not commit stupid fouls. As his conditioning improves, PW will continue to use him more and more. His talent is very apparent, and so PW is always looking for ways to utilize Cousins talents to help the team win the game. More and more teams will learn that they HAVE to double team Demarcus or they will get beaten up under the rim. It is remarkable that a ROOKIE is dominating like he is under the basket. Double teams mean more opportunities for other players on the team to step up their games and give the Kings a better chance at winning more games. I am very excited by the progress of Demarcus Cousins! His latest spurt might not get him noticed for ROY, but he certainly is earning himself a spot on the rookie/soph game for sure! I can't think of any other rookie center who is performing better right now than Demarcus Cousins. I have not seen a game where at some point the opposing team has not had to double team Cousins in the post! That is high praise indeed from opposing teams when your rookie center demands a double team! Can you imagine how good this guy is going to be in 2-3 years? He is already starting to flex his muscles. I think Demarcus has the ability to become one of the best centers in the Western Conference! Great selection by Geoff Petrie! In fact, Petrie's last 2 draft picks have been just AWESOME! GO KINGS !!
 
FaStRmAn said:
Tired bigs tend to rack up fouls. I am overjoied to see that Demarcus's stamina is improving! He is begining to understand that if he wants to stay in the game, he has to have enough stamina to keep going. Enough stamina to not commit stupid fouls. As his conditioning improves, PW will continue to use him more and more. His talent is very apparent, and so PW is always looking for ways to utilize Cousins talents to help the team win the game.
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Bravo. Sometimes, fans just couldn't see the obvious the way you my friend had seen it.

Also, when Bynum sat it was a good time to rest one of Cousins and Dalembert. Don't fans remember what those pretending-to-be basketball experts say in this board?

Cousins and Dalembert are both slow and not capable of defending quick power forwards like Odom. Both should play exclusively as centers, PERIOD!:rolleyes:
 
So they win 1 game they were expected to lose vs the 8 or so they lost they should have won. Ya, that makes it all even out.
 
FaStRmAn said:
I think that finally Cousins conditioning is starting to improve. He isnt gonna run 48 minutes a game, but his conditioning at the begining of the season was not where it needed to be. When big men get tired, you can see it in their rebounding, their shot selection, and most importantly their defense. Tired bigs tend to rack up fouls. I am overjoied to see that Demarcus's stamina is improving! He is begining to understand that if he wants to stay in the game, he has to have enough stamina to keep going. Enough stamina to not commit stupid fouls. As his conditioning improves, PW will continue to use him more and more. His talent is very apparent, and so PW is always looking for ways to utilize Cousins talents to help the team win the game. More and more teams will learn that they HAVE to double team Demarcus or they will get beaten up under the rim. It is remarkable that a ROOKIE is dominating like he is under the basket. Double teams mean more opportunities for other players on the team to step up their games and give the Kings a better chance at winning more games. I am very excited by the progress of Demarcus Cousins! His latest spurt might not get him noticed for ROY, but he certainly is earning himself a spot on the rookie/soph game for sure! I can't think of any other rookie center who is performing better right now than Demarcus Cousins. I have not seen a game where at some point the opposing team has not had to double team Cousins in the post! That is high praise indeed from opposing teams when your rookie center demands a double team! Can you imagine how good this guy is going to be in 2-3 years? He is already starting to flex his muscles. I think Demarcus has the ability to become one of the best centers in the Western Conference! Great selection by Geoff Petrie! In fact, Petrie's last 2 draft picks have been just AWESOME! GO KINGS !!
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Naturally you don't have to convince me of his potential. But yes, he's in much better condition now than at the beginning of the season. Its not unusual for playes coming out of college to be in less than perfect shape, and usually bigs are the worse culprits. Lets face it, they have no idea what it takes to play in the NBA night after night, nor 82 games in a season. Hopefully once they learn, it never happens again. Are you listening Donte?
 
Čarolija said:
I would have thought thats a pretty easy one to figure out!

Kobe got Tyreke into foul trouble and was schooling Donte so the logical thing was to try someone else on him. He tried Taylor because from all the reports the kid is a great athlete and a good defender. It didn't work out so that was the end of it.

That was a pretty obvious move I would have thought!
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I don't see it as obvious as you do I guess.
 
Way to overrate westphaul's achievements. The guy almost iced DMC last night for whatever stupid reason he had.
 
bajaden said:
Naturally you don't have to convince me of his potential. But yes, he's in much better condition now than at the beginning of the season. Its not unusual for playes coming out of college to be in less than perfect shape, and usually bigs are the worse culprits. Lets face it, they have no idea what it takes to play in the NBA night after night, nor 82 games in a season. Hopefully once they learn, it never happens again. Are you listening Donte?
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That is so very true. I guess some players take longer than others to understand where their conditioning needs to be in order to contribute on an NBA squad. But there is still hope for Donte if he can really rally, work hard, and get back into good enough shape to make a difference on the court. It seems like Donte's shot has left him, but I would bet a lot of that is due to the fact that he is still not in game shape and again tired bigs tend to miss shots and become non factors in games. Lets all hope Donte gets it going, because the rest of the team is leaving him behind.

Čarolija said:
I would have thought thats a pretty easy one to figure out!

Kobe got Tyreke into foul trouble and was schooling Donte so the logical thing was to try someone else on him. He tried Taylor because from all the reports the kid is a great athlete and a good defender. It didn't work out so that was the end of it.

That was a pretty obvious move I would have thought!
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I have a hard time defending some of Westphal's rotations. Inserting Taylor on paper looks like a good idea, however in real life it was a poor decision. On the other hand, I thought putting in Luther Head was going to be a disaster, and in the first few minutes it WAS a disaster. But Head was able to rally and make some big plays for us and hit a coupla huge shots. Head played minutes we desperately needed at the 2 spot with Tyreke in foul trouble. So it is very hard to fault PW's rotation decisions when the result is a "W". But I think he needs to play Taylor more earlier in games to get him some playing time before just throwing him into crucial situations where execution is the key to success. It must be very hard for Taylor to come in cold off the bench not having played much, and then having to come in and check quite possibly the best player in the league! That is asking a great deal from a player so far down the bench. Taylor has some potential, but he needs a great deal more game experience in order to be a solid contributor for us.
 
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I am truly conflicted as to my attitude towards Westphal. His use of Head and Taylor was idiotic no matter how it turned out. However, it's the same "let's use the guy who hasn't played in a few days and the last time he sucked" move he has always done. It is against everything that I understand as being wise and what the players like. The players are politely complaining. It's more than Landry.

On the other hand, this team never gives up. NEVER! They may do dumb things and they may choke but they never give up. Also, look at the maturation of Cuz. He didn't improve like this in college under a great coach. It is not just his knowledge of the game but his demeanor and endurance. He got mugged on the sideline by two Lakers and was called for a turnover. This was the time he normally would get a T or at least scowl. Nothing. He headed down court without a wimper. Who gets credit for all of this? He applauds when he fouls - neat idea, actually. The big guy has taken over the team. As an aside, when Reke got his 5th foul, I wasn't half as worried as if Cuz had gotten his 5th.

Normally we blame the coach for everything that is bad but now do we give this coach credit for the good? On an emotional high, yes, we do it because we are fans. String a few losses in a row and do we start another "Fire Westphal" thread? Probably.

I give little credit to Westphal. I give credit to the players and how they have come together. Reke is the cool assassin. Casspi is energetic and obviously won't settle for anything but the best from himself. And then there is the big guy. Landry is a true gentleman. I DO give Westphal or a coach/player some credit for his maturation. Some external force (mom/Coachie?) may be at work. In any case, most of these guys are flat out nice guys and on an NBA scale of intelligence, pretty smart. I don't mean NBA smart, I mean smart as in intelligence/IQ. Landry is sharp, Cisco is great off the court, Dalembert is the calm hard working "veteran", Beno is all work, etc. There isn't a complainer. Heck, unemotional and inconsequential Jackson can be seen mumbling words of encouragement. Honest, I watch. I don't know what is going on in Luther's head.

Maybe we just got very lucky and have the pieces that can motivate themselves despite their aggravation about the non-system that Westphal uses. (Has anybody seen a pick and roll yet?)

My feelings about Westphal are very conflicted. He is a nice guy and a mediocre coach in my opinion. Maybe all we need is that he is a nice guy. Did I say "we?" :) Some day we will need better.
 
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