His overall defense is still horrible. On the Landry Fields dunk from Lin Grant and Jerry talked how Thornton needed to be up on Lin to stop the pass. Yet, the failed to mention Evans was caught again looking at the ball and Fields had an open lane all the way to the hoop. Want to score on the Kings it's easy. Whoever Evans is guarding put out on the wing or in the corner. Dribble the ball along the 3 point line and wait for the cutter as Evans just stands there looking at the ball.
Indeed, I was thinking to myself when Tyreke did not defend that one play the right way -- gee his overall defense is horrible!
Actually I wasn't, but then again Tyreke never stole my girl or pissed in my Wheaties or whatever the hell happened between you two. Tyreke's overall horrible defense oddly is somehow invisible to any known statistical measure for us. You can't find it in raw stats, where he's an upper echelon steals/block/rebound guard, or defensive +/- where we are 3pts points better on defense per 100 possessions with him, or in opponent production, where he's 3rd ont the team, or anywhere else. Its probably that high basketball IQ you always credit him with that allows him to sneakily be horrible without any evidence of it in the stats or noticed by the coaches. Perhaps you should send them a memo and out the sneaky bastard.
Now back in the real world, a place many Kings fans have unfortunately abandoned because they are just in so much pain they can't stand it and all that, what you have is a star player who learned during his rookie season not to pick up cheapie fouls that occasionally limited him. Hence you don't see him scrambling around slapping at every guy who goes by. He plays in "no man's land", osometimes known as good defensive positon, so that he can both close out with his length, or dive back and help inside. And it keeps him wihtin range to help on the boards in wayx he could not if he was stuck out at the three point line. End result is that he rarely gets lit up, and occasionally can really get into guys and disrupt them.
Now last night was not one of his better defensive games. But then again, my fatigue diagnosis plays into that. Didn't look focused early, and he was sluggish. He also leaked out on a couple of plays looking for easy hoops, something he rarely does and that I took as signs that of fatigue/laziness. It wasn't a banner game. And of course he let Landry sneak back door on him, which proves he is horrible.