[Game] Kings v. Nuggets, 2/19/16 - 7 PST, 10 EST
- Thread starter VF21
- Start date
Big statement from our core players tonight. Whatever else we decide to do Cousins, Gay, Rondo, Collison, and Cauley-Stein should stay I think. Watching us compete against a restocked Clipper team at the start of the season I thought we were 1 or 2 solid players away from being something special. 50 games later I still think that's where we're at this season. Picking the right players to fill those holes won't be easy though.
I
Im Still Ballin
Guest
It's always going to be a tough game when you come up against the greatest coach of all time Mike Malone.
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
You have come to this conclusion after a win against Denver? I still don't think this trios ceiling is very high, Rudy needs to be the odd man out and just try to build around Rondo and Cousins, if Rondo doesn't book it of course, which is still a possibility despite what we as fans want to believe.
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
Malone was in the refs ear all game long just jawing away, still has a lot of learn as a coach to not attack them for every call they make.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
Remember the days when a lot of us were saying that if Boogie could quit the stupid fouls, he'd be a monster Well folk, I introduce Sacramento's own Monster: 37 pts, 20 rbds, 4 BS, and, er, 6 TOs with 4 fouls. We are getting used to this but maybe we should take time out to admire what he does.
Cousins was a man among boys out there....Denver threw everything they had at him. 0 result
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
oh I'm sure the fans admire him plenty....it's just that after a while of putting up video game stats, we all just want the W instead. The accolades are nice to look at but being a winner is the most important thing of all.
Glenn
Hall of Famer
I kinda wonder also if the league's trend towards small guys is going to seem like easy feeding for Boogie, AD, Drummond, and Townes. All four are major studs and very, very young. Boogie is the oldest! Throw in all the other usual suspects and WCS and the league is going to have to look for big guys or be easy pickins.
No, I thought we were close to competitive against the Clippers early in the year but came up a little short on talent and experience with the game on the line. We seemed to lose our focus throughout the course of the season for various reasons, but when we come to play like we did tonight, the feel of the game is different. We're working hard to stay competitive and we still take too many games off but we have the talent to almost compete with anyone. That's the key. Almost. That doesn't explain the head-scratching losses to the Sixers, TWolves, and Pelicans -- it's quite obvious when we don't come to play. But some of that is fatigue and some of it is momentum related. One bad loss adds pressure to win the next one and we've been making it extra hard on ourselves with our defensive performances. The defense can get better if we continue to work on it in practice. We've been good at forcing turnovers, grabbing rebounds, and blocking shots we just can't defend the long ball.
You could blow it up and start over or see what Rudy will get you in a trade, but I think we can build on this core and become more competitive next year. None of these guys are near the end of their careers yet. One more starter quality player in the rotation and we go from borderline playoff team to solidly in the 5-8 range. Then you keep tweaking from there.
We won tonight, in case you missed it.
But hey, keep trying to find ways to diminish Cousins. It's actually kind of entertaining.
The other thing that almost killed us was the production from the dynamic duo of James Anderson and Ben McLemore. A grand total of 3 points and 3 boards. Whoop!
Iced Espresso
Starter
I think Doug could of got us 3 in his suit.
3 pt, you are so generous tonight.
in 48 min, SG dynamic duo posted:
2 points (1/9 shooting)
3 rebounds
2 assists
4 TO
1 steal
We won 4 on 5
lawlman91
Starter
HOW DARE YOU
I mean, he didn't actually say that. It was a smart play throwing the ball up long enough to bleed most of the clock. That was mostly just me projecting
One more assist doesn't really matter, it just looks cleaner in the box score.I think all of those bigs are extremely different, so it's hard to answer the question.
Drummond doesn't have much of an offensive game at this point. Towns is going to be elite(imo), but it's his amazing skillsets that make it hard to guard him. AD is the same too, but he also makes a living picking out his spots on the floor. Cousins has become a versatile scorer, but he lives and dies by drawing fouls.
I think the league's trend towards small guys is going to make it easy for bigs like Cousins and Okafor, but not necessarily everyone else in the NBA.
parker
Bench
Defense is part of the game and Ben played solid defense, including in the fourth when Denver was beginning to make their run. Ben also saved a wild Rondo pass and had a nice hard foul to prevent a layup.
Not quite 4 on 5.
biltalent
Starter
Yep, I think Ben really had a good game defensively. Nice ball presure against Mudiay, held his own against Gallinari in the post and forced him to pass it out, good rotations.
K
KingMilz
Guest
I'm surprised that the Nuggets have not picked up Reggie Evans to run the offense through him
I think he was upset with himself because he held onto the ball instead of passing it back to Rondo/Collison, allowing Denver to foul with more time on the clock. After ... well. Choke.
KingsFanGER
Starter
At least we gave more effort.
But we still make too many mistakes.
Glad the Nuggets couldn't capitalize, but more.experienced and talented teams won't let you get away with those kind of mistakes.
But we still make too many mistakes.
Glad the Nuggets couldn't capitalize, but more.experienced and talented teams won't let you get away with those kind of mistakes.
I guess the silver lining is that a lot of these mistakes were on the offensive end more so than on the defensive end.
Entity
Hall of Famer
Cousins don't like the foul game. He thinks the teams should concede when down by 3 possessions with 30 sec to go.
LPKingsFan
All-Star
He ended up on Mudiay for a while and, while Mudiay wasn't all that effective on his own, Ben did seem to pressure him well.
More importantly, there still were some switches on defense, and in one particular instance down the stretch I remember Ben was switched on to Gallinari and held his own.
What really hurts, in my mind, is when Cousins draws the swarm down low, actually succesfully passes out of it, and the Kings swing the ball around to the open shooter and the shooter misses. Ben may have done this, but I distinctly remember Collison missing a couple of these from the corner (Collison otherwise had a great game, though).
KingsFanGER
Starter
Yes we scrapped on D. We finally tried to go OVER the screens, which should help against teams with dangerous guard lines. Ben using his quickness to pick up his man close to half court was a very welcomed sight. Rondo showed, that it's not athleticism that is holding him back on D.
But there were plenty of mistakes on the defensive end too. Cousins picking up guards and not switching back to his man when possible. WCS playing help defense even though Cousins was already there, leaving his man for the easy putback. Gay backing too far off of the slower Gallo (Gay is quicker - get into his body!!!). And we still have trouble picking up the right matchups in transition.
It's a small step, because our players finally tried and we abandoned some of the strange habits, we got into under Karl, but it wasn't really a good defensive game.
But ever lasting criticism aside - I'm happy we got the win and if we cut down the TO's, we should be competetive even with the tough part of the schedule coming.
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