[Game] Kings @ Thunder Game Thread 2/15/11
- Thread starter ReinadelosReys
- Start date
ReinadelosReys
Starter
=LarryLegend=
Starter
if Cousins swings at a 2pt loss.....OH ****!
=LarryLegend=
Starter
Cousins is about to slap Westphal with his checkbook.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
What are you talking about? So many loose coments around here of late. This team has been absolutely clawing down to the wire with the league's elite teams for months. They need to break through, not some sort of play harder lesson. They could hardly play harder...until tonight. They could definitely play smarter.
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Tetsujin
The Game Thread Dude
Well to be fair, its hard to actually make any substantial comment about the game if you don't actually watch it.
LPKingsFan
All-Star
Tetsujin
The Game Thread Dude
No, I know what it is (lost most of my summer of my junior year to it for football). It was more of a "here we go again" type of statement
Kings Fan Gerard
Bench
Kings do need more talent obviously. But Westphal continues to display his incompetence. Why does he keep on starting Luther Head?
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Lack of options mostly, and there was a stretch back there in Novemeber when he actually brought the defense. Starting a tiny Beno/Pooh backcourt isn;t any more attractive on paper. Nor throwing a borderline NBDL guy like Taylor out there. I think I would have jsut said screw it and started Donte alongside Casspi, called Casspi the SG and hid him on Thabo, had DOnte slow Durant, and...had Beno get humiliated by Westbrook? Er... Anyway, no real good choices.
PurpleHaze
All-Star
Head played a whopping 5 mins! It was less about him starting than Westphal saw enough of his nonsense and went deeper into a depleted backcourt with Jeter getting 38 mins, Taylor 18 mins. Beno played 27 mins tonight. It's always much, much less about who starts compared to who gets most minutes on the court and finishes the game.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
Our backcourt sure got exposed. I am jealous of the teams that have money to burn and park spare vets on the bench in case of an emergency. Hopefully all this or most of this will be addressed. With Beno seemingly having lost his ability to score and Reke out, there really isn't anything but Pooh and I say that with all kudos to the little guy. He's just short. Head and Taylor are useless.
Are we still in lins mode? Inadvertently, I guess.
Are we still in lins mode? Inadvertently, I guess.
If we were competing for anything significant, the guard depth would be a real problem. It was already a problem with Cisco out and Tyreke healthy. Whether it's the draft or free agency, we need to bring in another SG and another PG. Head has proven himself as unworthy of playing time right now and Beno and Pooh are both best suited for backup work. I think there was some intention at the start of the season to have Greene get minutes at SG (why else the mandated weight loss?) but coach has since changed his mind on that. I thought before the season started that our best lineup had Tyreke and Greene as the two guards but that only works if Greene remembers how to shoot.
PurpleHaze
All-Star
Greene at SG can't work - as much as we'd like it too. Not only is he a very inconsistent shooter (Beno far better) but his ball handling is simply not at sufficient level needed at off guard. Even JT is arguably better ballhandler than Donte - only maybe only barely. Still, I might give Greene run at SG in Dallas, but when Berea is in it better be someone like Jeter guarding him.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
We weren't just 3 days ago.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
The Kings are mere toys that they play with. Sometimes they play with the toy. Sometimes they destroy the toy. Tonight they wanted to destroy.
Watching Thompson flail around and Beno move in mud against this team is just another reminder of how far they need to go. Give me Derrick Williams and either Kemba Walker, Irving, or Knight and then we can have a fair fight.
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
Boy am I glad I didn't get to watch this disaster. I go to check the boxscore to see how we lost by 30 points and I see that Tyreke didn't play, somebody care to tell me why please? I see Demarcus had a nice game but 5 TO's wasn't legit. Durant and Westbrook both had sub par games and they still managed to beat us by THAT much? What gives...ohhh I know, how about Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic & Dequan Cook barely missing? Wow I didn't expect this, even without Tyreke we can play better than what we did tonight, I hope we see a more competitive game tomorrow.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
You seem to have a much higher opinon of the Thunder than most observers do.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
I haven't read many of the posts. But I would like to remind folks that Vlade, Webb, and company occasionally got trounced. It just happens folks. Hows this. Next year at this time, no one will remember this game. Thats how important it was. So everyone chill out and go have a cervesa, or whatever it is that you drink.
Sac.1989
Starter
Haha the funny thing is that without Tyreke we try to move the ball more, but we're just so bad at it that we end up turning the ball over. The spacing is horrible and you have guys forcing passes in between 3 defenders and all. Donte seriously needs to get his 3 point shooting back.
Also, I hate to say this (sorry Baja) but our guys seriously suck at finishing shots near the rim. Luther Head, JT, Omri - all keep blowing easy shots. I know JT has improved, but really for a guy his size it shouldn't be that hard to convert a damn lay up.
Also, I hate to say this (sorry Baja) but our guys seriously suck at finishing shots near the rim. Luther Head, JT, Omri - all keep blowing easy shots. I know JT has improved, but really for a guy his size it shouldn't be that hard to convert a damn lay up.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
I have an extremely high opinion of the Thunder. Two Hall of Famers in the making in my view, plus add Greene who could easily be an All-Star down the line and add Harden, Sefalosha, Ibaka. Youzsa. Now that is an extremely talented group. All they need is a big guy for defense and rebounding (Aldrich, or maybe Dally?) and barring injury they are definitely headed for NBA Championship contention in a couple of years. OKC is the Kings competition, not the Lakers. The Kings are going to have to deal with them for the next decade, barring some major injuries. So the Kings better add some bigtime athleticism to their roster if they don't want to get beaten like a drum for years down the line.
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Kingster
Hall of Famer
They got trounced because shots weren't falling and legs were dead. Not because they got overwhelmed by the sheer athleticism of the other team. This butt-kicking is no fluke.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Sure it is. Unless you think that somehow the Thunder are that much better than not just themselves a few days back, but also the Lakers, Hornets, Jazz, Mavs, etc. etc. Not the same degree of fluke as it was with those old teams -- the old teams expected to win and would occasionally get blown out on the fluke, while this team probably loses, but just makes a tight game of it -- but its still an aberrant result from what we have been seeing.
Any athletic team can overwhelm you with their athleticism when you play into their hands, and that was realy all that happened here. The difference between this game and last one? Well Tyreke is a major cog, but not just because of Tyreke's talent, but precisely because of that pace he plays wiht that maddens so many people. Slow it down, slug it out, and all of a sudden we are a team fully capable of beating this Thunder team because we are playing OUR game, a power game, a game where we use OUR advantage of overwhelming size/strength rather than play into their hands with their runners and jumpers. The Thunder are better than us, but they are not world beaters. They are two great players and a bunch of guys who are only as good as you make them by playing the style of ball they need to be effective. When you run aroudn without a plan, take quick shots, turn it over, don't get back, yeah of course that's a runner and jumpers paradise. Now you slow it down, play slamball, muscle them around inside, take the air out of the ball and turn it into a halfcourt war, and all of a sudden being skinny or undersized isn't cute anymore. All of a sudden they have probelm matchups trying to stop your star guard and your power people.
Well said. What killed us in this game was not only the fast pace but also not having enough options out on the court. On almost every single possession that Cousins was out there we went to him down low (and rightly so), but when Cousins is basically your only offense then it's not hard for the defense to anticipate what you're going to and play the passing lanes. And the second we turn it over they are off to the races - and with athletic guys like Westbrook and Durant running the floor there isn't much that much smaller guards like Pooh or Beno are going to be able to do.
A couple of other things stood out to me, and these were on the defensive end. I'm sorry to say, but Omri is getting burned by whoever he's guarding on a regular basis, especially off the ball. I mean seriously, he's becoming a regular appearance on the wrong end of posters. Another thing is that the guys clearly aren't communicating enough. Westbrook was blowing past Pooh for easy dunks and on replays you'd see Pooh gesturing for the help to rotate but no one ever did. Happened on a thunder fast break too, where Dalembert pointed towards an OKC player (I believe either Greene or Ibaka) while running back, but Cousins was facing the other way. No one picked up that player and they got a nice bounce pass to him for an open layup/dunk, with at least 3 of our guys actually sort of "back" on defense.
Cousins' frustration with foul calls are also hindering his ability to get back and defend. That two seconds he wasted looking down instead of running back resulted in a Kristic and1 IIRC, and it's something that he is guilty of several times in a game. I hope that the coaching staff takes time to address this issue with DMC, because to begin with he isn't a very fast runner, nor a good help defender/shot blocker, and so isn't much use to us running back 3 seconds after the other team has a 5 on 4.
Daequan Cook showed what a real shooter is. Omri may be shooting 39% from 3 but err ... as an outside threat I'll take Cook over Garcia or Omri any day.
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