Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Funny what playing a little defense will do for you, no matter how selfish or fugly things are looking at the other end.
If I'd been a little more on task, I would have put the Grading Consortium gang back to work for this one, but as is, just me for one more night. Was pretty damn unhappy with just about everything until midway through the fourth. Bad game plan. Dumb coaching. Selfish and sloppy play. But like I say, then we got serious about defending, with a group of guys who had all struggled defending in this very same game, and that's a time honored path to victory, preseason or not, rarely seen in these parts in a decade at least. Its a very positive sign and way to end an otherwise question mark raising evening.
Oh, and most exciting yet -- John Salmons rode to the rescue and carried us on home. Yep the stinky fish -- doesn't get much better than that:
Boxscore
Stats: 34min 14pts (5-8, 2-2, 2-2) 4reb 3ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Salmons ( B ) -- always the debate what to do with grades like these. Played completely empty first half minutes. Not horrible. Empty. Did not exist. The fish had left the pan. Took one shot I think, missed it. Iggy didn't tear us up statistically at least, but was doing a lot fo little things. Da Fish? Er... But then, stop me if this feels disgustingly familiar, with him sitting on a game long bagel, we come out of a timeout in the third and run a play for...you guessed it, John frickin Salmons. I dunno. he must be one helluva off the court schmoozer. And worse yet? It worked. He drained a three. And a few seconds later he suddenly hits a second one on a drive and kick from Grevis. So he starts scoring in the 4th, at one point treating himself like a first option entitled to dribble down and throw up junk off his dribble like he was Isaiah Thomas or somebody. And as we come back he is one of the leaders of an unlikely group of guys, most of whom had been struggling through most of the game. For a capper, he ends a long scramble sequence at the end of the game by being the fourth King of the possession to get up a shot, and drains the game winning three. John Salmons = hero. Ain't he dreamy gals?
Stats: 34min 11pts (4-13, 2-6, 1-4) 8reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 5TO
Patterson ( C ) -- PPat probably wishes this game had ended at halftime. He was hot early, hitting his perimeter shots and getting plenty of them. Very active and not really having a problem with Lee on defense. Given that despite putting up some respectable numbers I thought JT was kind of struggling against Speights, things looked good for PatPat on the starting front. Unfortunately for him there are two halves in a basketball game. First of all something that had looked evident in the first half became glaringly so in the third quarter, as out of the half we ran another play for Patterson. Then another. Then another. Meanwhile this big ugly guy wearing #15 is chugging up and down the court battling some lurch looking montronsity with a too big head, and he can't touch the ball. And oh, oops, PatPat just chucked up another shot. Oh, and another. And hey...oh, let's feed him again in the corner! Yippee! A Patrick Patterson centered offense! Very key to victory in the NBA. Of course if he had stayed as hot as he got last game out and scored 27, PPat could have made our irrational decision look rational. As it was he began to miss, and miss, and miss. And then he began to throw the ball all over the court. And again. And again. And all of a sudden all those sparkly numbers had completely disintegrated into a fugly distance chucking PF shooting 4-13 from the field with 5 turnovers. And as we fell behind double figures on the scoreboard it wasn't one of those things where you could say somehow being sucky was working. No, it was just being sucky. Yet you will note there is no D-ish grade listed next to his name for two reasons. First, PPat is not a natural rebounder. He's physically weak. But he really actively battled this time out, and while 8rebs is hardly some intimidating total, it represented a lot of scrap just getting to that point and it doubled up a mostly snoozing David Lee. Secondly, late in the game 5 random Kings came together for a very strong defensive effort down the stretch. PPat was part of that group. Of all of them he might be the one where I least remember him actually doing anything special, but he was out there, and our defense grew stifling, so more credits there. End result = this: if this is the offense we run with him out there, I don't ever want to see him on the floor with DeMarcus Cousins again. Bench him, trade him, get him out of the way. But if this is the effort he is going to give on boards and defense, which would be a huge change from the rest of his career, then he could be a contributor on a winning team. Just quit treating him like a #1 option.
Stats: 22min 11pts (3-7, 0-0, 5-7) 9reb 0ast 1stl 1blk 2TO
Cousins ( C ) -- felt sorry for Cousins out there tonight. Was reminded of last season when Cousins went on this huge tear in January, at which point Keith Smart decided he wanted to get IT more involved and start running and gunning again. Result was Cousins went into a funk, and never was as dominant again. Tonight was interesting on a couple of levels. First of all, last time we saw Cousins we were running a highly Cousins centric offense and he was just tearing guys up. Inside, outside, passing, he was touching it nearly everytime down the floor and good things were happening. Then we give him a night off, bring him back this game and what? Had forgotten the entire thing? All of a sudden we surround him with a bunch of weenie long bombers, and run a weenie long bomber centric offense. Boogie rarely touches the ball at all as PPat, Jimmer etc. bomb away from outside. And DeMarcus is just a spectator. Every once in a while we give it to him as a passing pylon out near the 3pt line. What happened?? He was doing a pretty good job as the lone boarding amigo amongst all the scrawnies, but he had all of 3 shots by halftime. In fact if it were not for getting lucky enough to get to go at old Jermaine O'neal for a few minutes in the late third, where suddenly he was getting fed inside again, he might have finished the game with fewer shots than anybody except Outlaw and Prince MmmBop, who got 7 minutes each. Interesting point #2, for the last several seasons Cousins has seemingly always struggled against the Warriors. Bogut bothers him as he is supposed to, but also for some reason David Lee seems to be able to get into him. Was tonight's odd scheme because of that? Did we decide to not even try? Don't know. On the other end Cousins was competing against Bogut, but Bogut scored over him repeatedly inside on tough finishes. Interesting point #3, unfortunately some parts of this game began to feel like last year. Boogie picked up a lot of fouls unnecessarily, some I think because he wasn't involved offensively and you just have to keep big dogs involved offensively. But he was also screwed over by the refs in a budding rivalry with Bogut. The refs gave them a double foul, then came back and fouled Cousins out of the game on a play where Bogut not only appeared to intentionally foul him, but knocked him to the ground. Foul? Cousins of course. Felt like last year. And Cousins' calm was not at the same level it has been the rest of the preseason. Assessing blame is difficult here, but some needs to be assessed. Malone needs to quit screwing around and feature him. The refs need to quit screwing him over. And Cuz...well he's got to keep his cool. Despite how positive things have looked this preseason, if every game we treated Cousins like a 4th option and the refs continued to screw him over, I am not so 100% confident in his makeover that I don't think trouble would eventually follow.
Stats: 21min 3pts (1-5, 1-2, 0-0) 2reb 3ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Fredette ( D ) -- well, like PPat I am sure Jimmer wishes this one had ended much earlier. Just in Jimmer's case, maybe after the first 6 minutes would have been good. Hit a three as we hopped out to a 13-2 lead, and watched Curry throw up some seriously deranged junk the other way against him. And man, if there had just been an earthquake or a bomb threat or somebody who ate too many nachos, just anything to clear the building at that point, Jimmer could have gone home head held high. But as it turned out, there was a lot of game left to paly, and little of it would go Jimmer's way. He started throwing up wild stuff trying to score inside, we were ball sloppy, and so was Jimmer. And of course Curry wasn't going to keep scrubbing it up all game. That was particularly evident in the early third when Curry blew up and smoked Jimmer, and we just had no answer until IT arrived. Given how up and down virtually everybody is its hard to say that any one game is ever a dealbreaker, but this was obviously no argument at all for being in the starting lineup next week when the season kicks off.
Stats: 22min 7pts (3-5, 1-1, 0-0) 2reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 6TO
Vasquez ( D ) -- continued drabness and decisionmaking woes here. Like Jimmer and PPat, his best moments came early, and then it was a long downhill slide. I wasn't sure what was going on early, as a guy who has been pretty determined in feeding Cousins in his other games, now seemed to virtually ignore him. But the shooters were shooting, including Grevis himself who hit two early jumpers, normally his weakness. And the offense was hopping. On defense we mostly had him handle the bigger Thompson while Jimmer took Curry, and Thompson did not go off until the 2nd quarter when he got our rookie on him. But then things went into a long downslide, both for Grevis and us as a team, When he returned to the game he made a few furtive attempts to be more patient and determined at trying to set up Cousins but it didn't last long, and his own offense grew forced. Actually got blocked trying to force the ball through Curry inside. And by the third a guy we brought in to be floor general just didn't seem to have any control of the game at all, and started racking up turnover after turnover trying to...I don't even know what. Half the time I couldn't tell what the point was, or what we were running. Suffice it to say that while Grevis has always been a high turnover guy, we didn't bring him in to be a two turnover to one assist guy.
If I'd been a little more on task, I would have put the Grading Consortium gang back to work for this one, but as is, just me for one more night. Was pretty damn unhappy with just about everything until midway through the fourth. Bad game plan. Dumb coaching. Selfish and sloppy play. But like I say, then we got serious about defending, with a group of guys who had all struggled defending in this very same game, and that's a time honored path to victory, preseason or not, rarely seen in these parts in a decade at least. Its a very positive sign and way to end an otherwise question mark raising evening.
Oh, and most exciting yet -- John Salmons rode to the rescue and carried us on home. Yep the stinky fish -- doesn't get much better than that:
Boxscore
Salmons ( B ) -- always the debate what to do with grades like these. Played completely empty first half minutes. Not horrible. Empty. Did not exist. The fish had left the pan. Took one shot I think, missed it. Iggy didn't tear us up statistically at least, but was doing a lot fo little things. Da Fish? Er... But then, stop me if this feels disgustingly familiar, with him sitting on a game long bagel, we come out of a timeout in the third and run a play for...you guessed it, John frickin Salmons. I dunno. he must be one helluva off the court schmoozer. And worse yet? It worked. He drained a three. And a few seconds later he suddenly hits a second one on a drive and kick from Grevis. So he starts scoring in the 4th, at one point treating himself like a first option entitled to dribble down and throw up junk off his dribble like he was Isaiah Thomas or somebody. And as we come back he is one of the leaders of an unlikely group of guys, most of whom had been struggling through most of the game. For a capper, he ends a long scramble sequence at the end of the game by being the fourth King of the possession to get up a shot, and drains the game winning three. John Salmons = hero. Ain't he dreamy gals?
Stats: 34min 11pts (4-13, 2-6, 1-4) 8reb 2ast 0stl 0blk 5TO
Patterson ( C ) -- PPat probably wishes this game had ended at halftime. He was hot early, hitting his perimeter shots and getting plenty of them. Very active and not really having a problem with Lee on defense. Given that despite putting up some respectable numbers I thought JT was kind of struggling against Speights, things looked good for PatPat on the starting front. Unfortunately for him there are two halves in a basketball game. First of all something that had looked evident in the first half became glaringly so in the third quarter, as out of the half we ran another play for Patterson. Then another. Then another. Meanwhile this big ugly guy wearing #15 is chugging up and down the court battling some lurch looking montronsity with a too big head, and he can't touch the ball. And oh, oops, PatPat just chucked up another shot. Oh, and another. And hey...oh, let's feed him again in the corner! Yippee! A Patrick Patterson centered offense! Very key to victory in the NBA. Of course if he had stayed as hot as he got last game out and scored 27, PPat could have made our irrational decision look rational. As it was he began to miss, and miss, and miss. And then he began to throw the ball all over the court. And again. And again. And all of a sudden all those sparkly numbers had completely disintegrated into a fugly distance chucking PF shooting 4-13 from the field with 5 turnovers. And as we fell behind double figures on the scoreboard it wasn't one of those things where you could say somehow being sucky was working. No, it was just being sucky. Yet you will note there is no D-ish grade listed next to his name for two reasons. First, PPat is not a natural rebounder. He's physically weak. But he really actively battled this time out, and while 8rebs is hardly some intimidating total, it represented a lot of scrap just getting to that point and it doubled up a mostly snoozing David Lee. Secondly, late in the game 5 random Kings came together for a very strong defensive effort down the stretch. PPat was part of that group. Of all of them he might be the one where I least remember him actually doing anything special, but he was out there, and our defense grew stifling, so more credits there. End result = this: if this is the offense we run with him out there, I don't ever want to see him on the floor with DeMarcus Cousins again. Bench him, trade him, get him out of the way. But if this is the effort he is going to give on boards and defense, which would be a huge change from the rest of his career, then he could be a contributor on a winning team. Just quit treating him like a #1 option.
Stats: 22min 11pts (3-7, 0-0, 5-7) 9reb 0ast 1stl 1blk 2TO
Cousins ( C ) -- felt sorry for Cousins out there tonight. Was reminded of last season when Cousins went on this huge tear in January, at which point Keith Smart decided he wanted to get IT more involved and start running and gunning again. Result was Cousins went into a funk, and never was as dominant again. Tonight was interesting on a couple of levels. First of all, last time we saw Cousins we were running a highly Cousins centric offense and he was just tearing guys up. Inside, outside, passing, he was touching it nearly everytime down the floor and good things were happening. Then we give him a night off, bring him back this game and what? Had forgotten the entire thing? All of a sudden we surround him with a bunch of weenie long bombers, and run a weenie long bomber centric offense. Boogie rarely touches the ball at all as PPat, Jimmer etc. bomb away from outside. And DeMarcus is just a spectator. Every once in a while we give it to him as a passing pylon out near the 3pt line. What happened?? He was doing a pretty good job as the lone boarding amigo amongst all the scrawnies, but he had all of 3 shots by halftime. In fact if it were not for getting lucky enough to get to go at old Jermaine O'neal for a few minutes in the late third, where suddenly he was getting fed inside again, he might have finished the game with fewer shots than anybody except Outlaw and Prince MmmBop, who got 7 minutes each. Interesting point #2, for the last several seasons Cousins has seemingly always struggled against the Warriors. Bogut bothers him as he is supposed to, but also for some reason David Lee seems to be able to get into him. Was tonight's odd scheme because of that? Did we decide to not even try? Don't know. On the other end Cousins was competing against Bogut, but Bogut scored over him repeatedly inside on tough finishes. Interesting point #3, unfortunately some parts of this game began to feel like last year. Boogie picked up a lot of fouls unnecessarily, some I think because he wasn't involved offensively and you just have to keep big dogs involved offensively. But he was also screwed over by the refs in a budding rivalry with Bogut. The refs gave them a double foul, then came back and fouled Cousins out of the game on a play where Bogut not only appeared to intentionally foul him, but knocked him to the ground. Foul? Cousins of course. Felt like last year. And Cousins' calm was not at the same level it has been the rest of the preseason. Assessing blame is difficult here, but some needs to be assessed. Malone needs to quit screwing around and feature him. The refs need to quit screwing him over. And Cuz...well he's got to keep his cool. Despite how positive things have looked this preseason, if every game we treated Cousins like a 4th option and the refs continued to screw him over, I am not so 100% confident in his makeover that I don't think trouble would eventually follow.
Stats: 21min 3pts (1-5, 1-2, 0-0) 2reb 3ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Fredette ( D ) -- well, like PPat I am sure Jimmer wishes this one had ended much earlier. Just in Jimmer's case, maybe after the first 6 minutes would have been good. Hit a three as we hopped out to a 13-2 lead, and watched Curry throw up some seriously deranged junk the other way against him. And man, if there had just been an earthquake or a bomb threat or somebody who ate too many nachos, just anything to clear the building at that point, Jimmer could have gone home head held high. But as it turned out, there was a lot of game left to paly, and little of it would go Jimmer's way. He started throwing up wild stuff trying to score inside, we were ball sloppy, and so was Jimmer. And of course Curry wasn't going to keep scrubbing it up all game. That was particularly evident in the early third when Curry blew up and smoked Jimmer, and we just had no answer until IT arrived. Given how up and down virtually everybody is its hard to say that any one game is ever a dealbreaker, but this was obviously no argument at all for being in the starting lineup next week when the season kicks off.
Stats: 22min 7pts (3-5, 1-1, 0-0) 2reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 6TO
Vasquez ( D ) -- continued drabness and decisionmaking woes here. Like Jimmer and PPat, his best moments came early, and then it was a long downhill slide. I wasn't sure what was going on early, as a guy who has been pretty determined in feeding Cousins in his other games, now seemed to virtually ignore him. But the shooters were shooting, including Grevis himself who hit two early jumpers, normally his weakness. And the offense was hopping. On defense we mostly had him handle the bigger Thompson while Jimmer took Curry, and Thompson did not go off until the 2nd quarter when he got our rookie on him. But then things went into a long downslide, both for Grevis and us as a team, When he returned to the game he made a few furtive attempts to be more patient and determined at trying to set up Cousins but it didn't last long, and his own offense grew forced. Actually got blocked trying to force the ball through Curry inside. And by the third a guy we brought in to be floor general just didn't seem to have any control of the game at all, and started racking up turnover after turnover trying to...I don't even know what. Half the time I couldn't tell what the point was, or what we were running. Suffice it to say that while Grevis has always been a high turnover guy, we didn't bring him in to be a two turnover to one assist guy.
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Naming someone after a Hanson song is unacceptable!
