Kings Vs. Suns Game Thread, 2/5, 7p.m. PST

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Emma

Emma

Starter
#1
#1
First and foremost: Props to pretty much everybody who played. There's no such thing as a feel good loss, but this one hurt less than usual.
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I was drinking Jerry's kool-aid all night. The "Donte could be an amazing power forward" variety. I see it sometimes, I see other facilitating forwards and instantly compare Greene to them. I think of his ceiling in the ascending forms of players like Boris Diaw, Hedo Turkoglu, and if we're lucky, (God forgive me) Robert Horry (I hate myself), + great defense. I see in him the potential to develop into the type of spacer / creator that a championship team absolutely needs. I am very pleased with his new found dedication. It will be fun to track his improvement.

We'll probably get another extended look at him in this capacity on Friday against the Suns.
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Tyreke Evans is a beast. That dude never concedes the game if there is some sliver of a hope for victory. Was I hallucinating? Did he really score eleven points in roughly thirty seconds? I was almost as satisfied with that singular performance as I would have been with a victory. Watching Pop shake his head as he walked to the visitor's locker room was as memorable as watching Evans shut down Arenas. How can Evans get any better? It's freakin' spooky. He's not even a fully grown man! 20 years old!!!

Unbelievable.
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I suppose I'm obliged to bring up the boo birds at Arco. I don't really care that they're there. As to whether they were booing the Kings or Kevin Martin specifically, I say: "whatever." If you're playing, and you suck, you get booed. I can't imagine it actually having a real effect on a professional NBA player's confidence. At this level, being booed by someone should just mean to a player that someone's paying attention. Take note. Play better.
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AWARDS

TDM - Dejuan Blair. As he approached 15 points in 10 minutes I became green with envy. The Spurs found themselves a gem.

LW-VC - Matt Bonner. Chucker tonight, assassin tomorrow.

JHA - Kevin "I live to flop" Martin (part two!)

SAR - Michael Finley

RA&1 - Richard Jefferson - Thank you Donte Greene

WTF moment of the game - Kevin's weak-sauce layup attempt. Yeah, you get booed for that.
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As I write this the Suns are laying a 19 point whoopin' on the Nuggets...
Edit: the Suns won by 12

The Suns are 30-21, 12-15 away. So the only indication of supposed success on our part is this being an away game for them. They've won their last 4 - Stoudemire and Nash are pick and rolling everyone to death, and it would seem they have finally re-gained their early season stride.

Predictions:

Kings 108 Suns 115

Pts: Evans 30, Amare 29
Asst: Evans 7, Nash 452 (Huh? Not possible?), okay just 14
Rbds: Hawes 8, Amare 7
Blks: Greene 3, Lopez 1

Starting Lineups:

Evans / Nash: I want an epic level battle
Martin / Richardson: Richardson must be contained
Casspi / Hill: Casspi can win
Greene / Amare: Interesting, very interesting...
Hawes / Lopez: Keep on doing it Hawes.
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I am really considering attending this game. The ticker reads 18 losses in 21 games. They won the GS game I went to, I figure they could use my juju. :D Even if I do go, I still have to say that this one does not look very good for us. Here's to superstitiously increasing our odds of winning!


GO KINGS!!!
 
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MassachusettsKingsFan

MassachusettsKingsFan

All-Star
#3
#3
Greene at PF can be lethal at times, but my biggest concern with him at that spot in the future is rebounding. I just can't see a good playoff team with Hawes and Greene a your "bigs" ( I'm not saying anyone suggested this, just thinking out loud).
 
Bricklayer

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#6
#6
MassachusettsKingsFan said:
Greene at PF can be lethal at times, but my biggest concern with him at that spot in the future is rebounding. I just can't see a good playoff team with Hawes and Greene a your "bigs" ( I'm not saying anyone suggested this, just thinking out loud).
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Look, Reynolds is an idiot ok? Said it many times. ;)

He's a smallball lover, and I don't think he even knows how/why it works. "Robert Horry this, Robert Horry that". Give me a break. Robert Horry was always as much SF as PF (until he got old). But you know why Robert Horry as PF worked? Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, that's how. Same way Rashard works in Orlando. Horry was a "PF" alongside 3 of the Top 10 big men of all time. In any other situation it would NOT have worked. You need rebounding, interior defense, post play out of bigs...unless of course you have an All Timer there giving you all those things himself.

Now if Jerry has some plan to get us an all time great center to pair with Reke, then sure, I am down with experimenting with Donte at PF (still a waste of his excellent perimeter defensivive skills). Until such time as we find said uberstud its just dumb. This whole fascination with being small and weak is just dumb. We have pieces that going forward could make us one of the biggest and lognest teams in the NBA. Jerry instinctively would like to move them all up to positions where they can be nice and small and weak, but hey, would have his mystical "quickness advantage" and cause all those nasty "mismatch advantages", the same way that little PGs sure do have mismatch advanatges on Tyreke. :rolleyes:

Then he'll blabber on about how the modern game requires everybody and their grandmother to be 3pt shooters, conveniently ignoring that the very team we are playing has 3 rings while starting two non-3pt shooting bigs and a PG who would rather drive than chuck, that the Lakers last year did not (Bynum Gasol), the Celtics the year before did not (Perkins, KG, Rondo), and just in general ignoring that he is in fact dead bleeping wrong. I would just shake my head if he were a private individual, but it makes me actively mad because he is a public figure who constantly poisons the Sacramento fanbase with this kind of stupidity.
 
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Tetsujin

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#7
#7
pupsingh said:
PF Donte C Al Jefferson SF Casspi
SG Evans PG Beno

bench:
hawes
brock
cisco
sergio
lottery pick

get it done petrie
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God No. If we did do that trade, I'd rather have the line-up be

Hawes
Jefferson
Casspi
Greene
Evans

Jefferson is not a five. Plus with this lineup, we have a definite size advantage over most other teams in the NBA and are a bit better defensively.
 
Emma

Emma

Starter
#9
#9
If Donte gets eaten by Amare tomorrow (which will likely happen), then I'm gonna put down Jerry's kool aid. I did not think Donte looked terribly uncomfortable out there playing the 4 - on the offensive end at least. Really, I mean only to say that I halfway agree with Jerry's assessment. I think he is really a perfect 3. Donte is a 3 who does not suck at playing the 4.

(That's an ambiguously constructed statement huh?)
 
Kingster

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#10
#10
Donte

Regarding Donte, he can play the two, three, or four, depending on the matchup. I think it's great he's getting the experience of playing these different positions because it's going to make even better down the line. But there is a near term downside. Confusion. He's a young second year player, and regardless of the position he plays, he's going to have problems with offensive and defensive recognition. Playing three different positions has got to make it even more difficult. Give him a couple of years and he's going to be very good. One other thing. Temperment. Maybe it's the stark contrast of Thompson and Martin that brings this to mind, but Donte really seems to have a good temperment for the game. He seems similar to Tyreke in that regard. Another big plus for his future.
 
xrzn

xrzn

Starter
#24
#24
Did the refs stop play because Hill hit the ground and didn't get up? I'm pretty sure they aren't allowed to do that.
 
captain bill

captain bill

Starter
#25
#25
greene-caspi have been playing a good 2 man game. hawes is sucking it up all over the place early on.


also, 3 fouls on reke? is this for sure? i thought there were only 2, maybe this is a scorekeeping error?
 
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