[Game] Kings V Denver - 1/3/19 - 7 PM PST

kingdivac said:
He went under screens and left him on at least 3 occasions.....should've been glued to him especially if the supposed quickest player in the NBA.
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From what I saw, Fox made up the distance. Murray simply made his shots. Most of the plays were right in front of me.

The other potential reason is Jokic is such a good passer that if Fox goes over, Murray cuts directly to he hole.
 
WCS is becoming unplayable also the defense by whoever was guarding Murray and the guards lack of boxing out completely killed us, honestly with how stacked the West is right now it will not be to long before we go full development mode imo.

Second game in a row I knew as soon as WCS came into the game in the 4th it was over, his fumbling rebounds/dumb fouls/weak shots it's to much. Jokic missing like 3-5 WIDE OPEN 3's pretty much saved him from complete annihilation.

Harry looked great imo tonight.

I think we are going to hit a really interesting point real soon where some playoff teams could really want the services of some of our role players and might even overpay/trade for them giving us a nice young piece/prospect/pick. Bjelica (WCS) in particular right now (value will never be higher) his value to a team in need of a big who can shoot/pass will be somewhat huge to teams like the current Nuggets (Lyles is trash)/76ers/OKC/Rockets/Pistons (in the East).
 
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kb02 said:
From what I saw, Fox made up the distance. Murray simply made his shots. Most of the plays were right in front of me.
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Fox's defense didn't look "decent", it was inconsistent. This is partly due to Fox still being inexperienced, but he also made some poor decisions on defense. "Murray made his shots" - yes - and some of those were wide open, which is what I was getting at.. You're not playing "decent" defense if your opposition is scoring at a hgh clip or wide open unless the competition is head-and-shoulders better than you, which I don't think Murray was. Farrell was playing better crowding than Fox even at times on Murray. Fox finally played some lock defense towards the end the last several possessions where he appeared to be going full tilt....it was pretty obvious, the difference in intensity. Did the Kings lose because of these inconsistencies alone, no, but they certainly were part of it.
 
White_Chocolate said:
He should be attempting to dunk it or using a jump stop. Instead he is using fade away layups. It looks all wrong and is very hard to watch.
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Stein had some good defensive plays throughout the game, but his offense has fallen off in general from earlier in the season I think. Justin Jackson had a decent game for his minutes. He had some nice defensive steals on at least a couple of occasions. It was under the starting unit that the nice 13 pt lead evaporated in about 3 min into the 3rd quarter. The offense just seems to stagnate or the shooting air balls by Bjelica or Hield at times. There needs to be more movement on the whole on offense. Early in the game Stein and the Kings laid off Jorkic when he missed a couple 3's and thought they could get away with it, and then Jorkic started making them Towards the end of the game Stein played much better defense on Jorkic, crowing him. Murray sunk the Kings. It might've been a good idea to put in Shumpert on defense against him, but Shumpert is such a liability on offense.
 
White_Chocolate said:
Losing by 4 to the best team in the West without one of your most influential players is a solid game. We easily outplayed them for a half. We always struggle with rebounding (especially without Bagley).
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It may have been a solid loss, if not for following up 2 unacceptable losses. The Kings seem to be defending a little better on the whole, but their offense has periods of serious misfire, slop, and inept execution; it's costing them some of these games. I don't care who their opponent is or who they are losing to really. The Nuggets may be first right now, but who knows come the end of the season.

One thing I am happy about is seeing Giles get minutes. He had played hard even though missing some close-in shots. The misses were very close. I loved his hard (borderline-flagrant) foul. I wish the team could capture that ethos a bit more.
 
White_Chocolate said:
I was at the game tonight. We were solid for sure. Denver was just a bit better
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Thing is, sans the never ending rebounding problem -- they weren't better. If the KINGS corralled just a couple of the 16 offensive rebounds they surrendered, they win the game.

And many of those rebounds were due to poor awareness and/or effort. On 2 consecutive plays I saw BoBo (who you wouldn't expect it from) standing still just outside the paint while the player he was defending crashed in from the short corner to get the ball. On several other plays I saw 5 KINGS standing still awaiting the result of the shot attempt and not at all prepared to rebound it. Just can't have that.

Until the KINGS fix this effort problem, they're going to continue to lose games this way.
 
Sac.Kings said:
Teams have figured us out. We can’t rebound and they know it. We are weak down low and you can see teams are absolutely putting all their players in the paint and it’s working out for them. Got crushed on the boards by 20. It’s remarkable we didn’t get blown out. Imagine if the difference was 5-10 instead of 20. We would have won.
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This is spot on.

It'd be one thing if the rebounding problem stemmed from KINGS players trying to leak out too quickly. But from what I'm seeing, that's not the case. All too often I see 5 players squeeze down around the edge of the paint and stand still with their back turned to the player they were guarding not even concerned whether that player might be crashing in for the rebound. It's almost as if they believe the rebound is going to come right to them. Even when a couple players block their man out, there's seemingly 1 or 2 players than don't and the player they were guarding ends up with the ball or tipping it to a teammate.

The KINGS also rarely position themselves correctly for long caroms or tap out rebounds. In today's game, the long rebound is very prevalent but they always seem unprepared for it. SMH.
 
The other thing that drives me crazy is that we can't even get calls in our own gym. As long as I've been watching the NBA, it's widely been known that the home team generally gets the better end of favorable calls. But it rarely seems that way for our KINGS. Even tonight, the Nuggets shot twice as many FT's. And I though the KINGS were just as aggressive as Denver was .. perhaps even more. But no respect at home. Again.

And as physical as Denver was playing on the defensive end, how do they not end up with more fouls? Just boggles the mind.
 
To be fair, in the last 9 games, we've just been bombarded with really great opposing C's:

KAT
Adams
Marc Gasol
AD
Trez
Break with the Lakers twice
Nurk
Jokic

But here's the deal. If WCS wants to be paid like these guys, he has to not completely wet the bed against the top tier competition and disappear. He wants the big contract, but we just can't pay him that kind of money if he's can't play up to to the loaded center position. If he's fine being paid like a reserve ($8-$10 mil), then we can live with him not performing up to a higher standard. But at 18-20 mil a season, he needs to be competing with these guys on a nightly basis to be worth that kind of investment.
 
The_Jamal said:
To be fair, in the last 9 games, we've just been bombarded with really great opposing C's:

KAT
Adams
Marc Gasol
AD
Trez
Break with the Lakers twice
Nurk
Jokic

But here's the deal. If WCS wants to be paid like these guys, he has to not completely wet the bed against the top tier competition and disappear. He wants the big contract, but we just can't pay him that kind of money if he's can't play up to to the loaded center position. If he's fine being paid like a reserve ($8-$10 mil), then we can live with him not performing up to a higher standard. But at 18-20 mil a season, he needs to be competing with these guys on a nightly basis to be worth that kind of investment.
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Yes this is something that somehow gets written off too easily. Yes the teams we play against are good, yes the opposing bigs are good, but why do we have to accept being bad? There was a time when Steven Adams wasn't much more than a bruiser. The difference between half those guys and whichever of our "poor" bigs that has to play against them is that they improved tremendously and find ways to help their teams win. The question isn't "what do you expect us to do against those guys?", it's "why aren't our guys on that list?".

For the record, I believe Fox and Buddy are quickly making their way onto the list.
 
The only thing I'm surprised about is that it ended up a close loss. We got absolutely demolished on the boards, even worse than usual. Not possible to win games when you're giving up that many second chance opportunities. WCS was horrendous tonight. It's not just an effort issue, he's clearly lost confidence at the moment.

Fox got abused by Murray tonight. Hield's shooting was really the only thing that kept it close tonight. Giles had a couple of nice plays.
 
Ok help me here because I just maybe a bit confused. Just looked at some of the stats from last night and they were to me just out of wack.

We took 1 more shot, had a higher %of our shots go in and shot a better 3point percentage also.
On the flip side Denver shot twice as many free throws and had 21 more rebounds. Those last two stats can not win to many games in the NBA.

So I watched the game on tv and came away with a few opinions and the first one is we have no decent starting center or I will just say it WCS is very bad very very bad. His points for the most parts are gifted from great plays from other players. He gets no put backs and has absolutely no jumper and gets stuffed or stopped a-lot more on his post moves than he makes. And why the last two games does he think for a stretch he’s the guy who can carry a team?

He was right when he explained how he got 17 boards that one game (the ball just came my way). Boy he got that right because of the 6 lousy boards he got last night he only got about 2 or 3 on his own skills. 30 minutes and 6 boards from your center is just not right.

A lot of good stuff from other players and liked the coach giving Giles a run and he is playing smarter and has stopped the fouling that has caused many early exits.
 
Cojc said:
Ok help me here because I just maybe a bit confused. Just looked at some of the stats from last night and they were to me just out of wack.

We took 1 more shot, had a higher %of our shots go in and shot a better 3point percentage also.
On the flip side Denver shot twice as many free throws and had 21 more rebounds. Those last two stats can not win to many games in the NBA.

So I watched the game on tv and came away with a few opinions and the first one is we have no decent starting center or I will just say it WCS is very bad very very bad. His points for the most parts are gifted from great plays from other players. He gets no put backs and has absolutely no jumper and gets stuffed or stopped a-lot more on his post moves than he makes. And why the last two games does he think for a stretch he’s the guy who can carry a team?

He was right when he explained how he got 17 boards that one game (the ball just came my way). Boy he got that right because of the 6 lousy boards he got last night he only got about 2 or 3 on his own skills. 30 minutes and 6 boards from your center is just not right.

A lot of good stuff from other players and liked the coach giving Giles a run and he is playing smarter and has stopped the fouling that has caused many early exits.
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Willie is a bench rotation guy. No clue why his shot has regressed however. That clearly is concerning.

Giles and Bagley have talent and are our bigs of the future. Glad to see Giles finally get some game time. He clearly has things to work on but he will be better next year with more game time this year.
 
Defensive rebounding has been a real issue all along. Our interior defense gets exposed by good teams.
Jamal Murray just took over the game. Not even the Fox could slow him down.

My other observation is that the Kings seem to depend on long range shooting with their fast style of play much more than in the past. When the shots are falling they can run with any team. When they have a drought, they can lose to any one. The remedy for a bad shooting night is defense, rebounding and taking the ball in the paint on offense. The Kings have improved a lot on defense and have some really good stretches with stops and steals. This is new. They seem to still have one crummy quarter on defense in a lot of games, but that is still showing improvement.

Rebounding is weak and at times just not there. Bjelica has some good rebounding games. Willie has some great games but his average game is not good. Giles can rebound. Kosta does not seem to be prospering with the current style of play. I have been a fan of his, but he may need to get traded. Bagley is really being missed for his rebounding alone. Jackson is okay at rebounding but needs to get stronger.

When the Kings cannot buy a bucket they need to stop throwing up shots and get in the paint. Denver gave a clinic last night in how to out rebound teams and out score them in the paint. It is a game that the Kings should watch several times. It shows their weaknesses..
 
kingdivac said:
Teams are not statically going to allow the Kings to go to their strengths. Stein has to be much more aggressive in the paint on offense. He had a better game than Portland overall, but still quite a few lapses.
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Agreed. If anything, this dynamic magnifies the Kings' weaknesses. If one couldn't see them earlier, one can certainly see them now.
 
WCS was terrible. Team rebounding was pathetic. BUT...

Dave Jeorger not calling a timeout sooner early in the 3rd while Denver dropped 11 unanswered on us wiping out a 15 point lead cost us the game. Good coaches see that **** coming a mile a way and call it after 5 or 6 point swing... not when the momentum has completely shifted and we're now clinging on a 3 to 4 point lead. Jamal Murray needs to send Jeorger a fruit basket after last night.
 
one thing to keep in mind, and fivethirtyeight montage of the Kings fast breaks shows, Kings speed strategy is to have everyone, including centers, sprint down the court. Check that fivethirtyeight video and the common thing is WCS on that fast break.

Traditional rebounding is not his strongest characteristics to begin with.

However, it is hard to say which number of overall rebounds is his fault vs the Kings run-run-run strategy where they are counting for him to beat his counterpart in sprinting.
I cannot think of any center that could fit that sprinting role better than him.
You can solve defensive rebounding, but then you have to have center under your basket, and you are giving up the pace which is the way Kings are beating opponents.

That being said, as pointed out before, teams will get in better shape, Kings will wear themselves out and this strategy being the 100% probably cannot work for the whole season. I do not think Kings have a more winning option right now.

The next step (next season) is to mix run-run-run with the organized team defense and slower possessions as needed so Kings can choose how to beat opponent if run-run-run alone does not work.
Step by step...
 
Kingz19 said:
Bogdan gives the same production as a starter but all of a sudden our bench sucks. What’s hurting the Kings is the fatal flaw of bad defense and bad rebounding. Not which SG starts at SF

Edit: I know you werent specifically saying he should start or anything but that’s what the discussion would lead to. Most of Bogdans minutes will be with the second unit, or rotations with maybe one of Fox and Buddy in it. He gets the extra minutes in crunch time. That’s how it’s going to work without running our backcourt into the ground. I haven’t noticed any chemistry issues with the three
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It has nothing to do with him individually, the team is far less threatening relying on role players to make plays. Teams are starting to send two defenders at Fox and Buddy on pick and roll. They are also letting Shump get the looks he's been getting. Shump has played well this year but the Kings are a more dangerous unit with the big 3 on the floor. Ideally you want to make sure you still have production off the bench but they rarely run at their peak talent level throughout the game for more than a few minutes. Not good enough long term.
 
Really. Bogdan cannot handle most 3s. A big reason they are not on the floor at the same time. Like Bogdan can Handle Durant. Please. Total Nonsense. I can rattle off another 15 3s who would tear up Bogdan.

Kings need a true 3 and a rim protector. Trying to mix and match for better results is ridiculous.
 
Kingster said:
I'm 90% sure that WCS will be gone, either by the mid-season trade deadline, or during the summer. WCS is small potatoes compared to the talent of Bagley or Giles. I see Divac parlaying him and some salary cap space into players more complementary to this team going forward.
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Willie is talented though. I think his athletic ability and his skill are definite positives and in some ways he's being misused. I just don't know if the Kings are wise to invest money in a spot that will possibly lead to the same gaps elsewhere remaining open. Hopefully Bagley comes back soon because time is ticking. If the team looks like it really misses Willies impact in what he does well then they are more educated on the matter and can make a more thoughtful decision.
 
KingsSelecao said:
Really. Bogdan cannot handle most 3s. A big reason they are not on the floor at the same time. Like Bogdan can Handle Durant. Please. Total Nonsense. I can rattle off another 15 3s who would tear up Bogdan.

Kings need a true 3 and a rim protector. Trying to mix and match for better results is ridiculous.
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And a smaller Shumpert can? I watched Bogdan handle a 4 the other night. He can handle 3's better than anyone else on the team, no doubt, and I think with his length and strength gaurding most of them won't be an issue. And if the question is handling someone like Durant then I guess 100% of the league can't either. In particular with Durant, Bogdan did guard him this year and I thought he did quite well.
 
SacTownKid said:
Willie is talented though. I think his athletic ability and his skill are definite positives and in some ways he's being misused. I just don't know if the Kings are wise to invest money in a spot that will possibly lead to the same gaps elsewhere remaining open. Hopefully Bagley comes back soon because time is ticking. If the team looks like it really misses Willies impact in what he does well then they are more educated on the matter and can make a more thoughtful decision.
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I just don't think he is very talented by NBA standards. He is underwhelming when it comes to things such as coordination, anticipation, hands, shooting ability, strength, balance, and motor.
 
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Kingster said:
I just don't think he is very talented by NBA standards. He is underwhelming when it comes to things such as coordination, anticipation, hands, shooting ability, strength, and motor.
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Purely talented? Maybe not, but his gazelle like genetic makeup will surely entice some team to overpay.
 
ppine said:
Defensive rebounding has been a real issue all along. Our interior defense gets exposed by good teams.
Jamal Murray just took over the game. Not even the Fox could slow him down.

My other observation is that the Kings seem to depend on long range shooting with their fast style of play much more than in the past. When the shots are falling they can run with any team. When they have a drought, they can lose to any one. The remedy for a bad shooting night is defense, rebounding and taking the ball in the paint on offense. The Kings have improved a lot on defense and have some really good stretches with stops and steals. This is new. They seem to still have one crummy quarter on defense in a lot of games, but that is still showing improvement.

Rebounding is weak and at times just not there. Bjelica has some good rebounding games. Willie has some great games but his average game is not good. Giles can rebound. Kosta does not seem to be prospering with the current style of play. I have been a fan of his, but he may need to get traded. Bagley is really being missed for his rebounding alone. Jackson is okay at rebounding but needs to get stronger.

When the Kings cannot buy a bucket they need to stop throwing up shots and get in the paint. Denver gave a clinic last night in how to out rebound teams and out score them in the paint. It is a game that the Kings should watch several times. It shows their weaknesses..
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I agree with all 100 points you make.
 
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