Vegas Summer League - Day 2

[Uncia03]

Sorry for getting this out so late. He headed to Tao nightclub right after the Rockets/Mavs game, and it was a long night. As an aside, I just don't get night clubs. I think it would help if I drank, but it's just not much fun at all being packed into a small space with tons of people all while being sober.
If they had red mood lighting, alcohol, and blasting music in an elevator packed with 20 people, it would of had the same effect. The atmosphere is really cool there, but it would have been nice if it had been occupied by about 10% of the people. But I guess if was only filled with about 10% of people, it would no longer be the hip thing to go to, thereby defeating the purpose or something.

Anyway, I got some of this started when I got back from Tao, but was just too tired to finish it.


With that said, what a day of basketball.
There were four games played today.
Pistons vs Raptors
Lakers vs Cavaliers
Kings vs Warriors
Rockets vs Mavericks

At first I thought the Pistons were playing the Mavericks and I was really excited to see if Rodrigue Beaubois of the Mavs would impress me as much as he did on Friday, but then I find out that they are playing the Raptors so that was a bit of a let-down.
I was not looking forward to the Laker game, because no-one on either the Laker or Cavalier SL team will probably get more than 3-4 minutes off the bench, and so the talent on the teams isn't good, which makes for an uninteresting game.
I was really excited about the Kings vs. Warriors, as there are a lot of fantastic potential match-ups.
And as mentioned, I was excited to watch the Mavericks play to see if Beaubois would be as impressive, so the Rockets Mavs game was going to be fun.

When taking notes today, I basically tried to notate the play-by-play for the impact players, broken down by quarter, to get a sense of how each impact player fared as the game went on. I had to basically wait for breaks in the action (FT attempts, Time Outs, ect) to get my notes down, and sometimes I would run out of memory space in my brain waiting for a break in the action, so we'll see how well this notation system went for me. I think I might develop some acronyms and try it again for Monday's game, to make it a bit easier to notate, we'll see.

So with the days line-up set, let's take a look at how each game played out.

Game 1: Pistons vs. Raptors

This was a great game. A lot of energy in the early going and it carried on through-out the game. Fantastic play, some really outstanding athleticism, and a back and forth match-up all the way through, with the Pistons closing it in the end for the win.

Detroit: Austin Daye

Please don't hurt me but I have to do this.
What a difference a day makes. *cringe*

So remember, how I mentioned in yesterday's game I wondered if Daye had been injured? He started off really well in the first few minutes against Sacramento, then left the game and didn't get back in as far as I could tell till sometime in the 3rd quarter. From that point on, he was out of sync, and just looked...alright.

Today was a completely different story. First of all, he played the entire game. Every minute. He's the only person to do that so far in the two days worth of games.
Next, I'm looking at the box score now for the first time, and it doesn't do him any sort of justice. He was a star out on the floor today. Hands down the best player on the court, and it isn't even close, regardless of what the box score says. Box score shows him with 19 points (8/14 field, 2/4 3-point, 1/2 line) with 8 boards, 2 assists, and 1 TO.
He had a much larger impact than that.


First the defense. He started off playing defense against DeMar DeRozan. You'll see that DeMar ended up with 20 points in the game. Very few of those came against Daye. DeMar was really bothered by Daye's length. DeMar couldn't penetrate past Daye, and Daye's length really contested all of DeMar's pull-up jumpers. It looks as if Daye limited DeMar to just three baskets in the 1st half.
I'm looking at the box score, and it's just completely wrong. It shows Daye with no steals and no blocks. Daye got a piece of one lay-up attempt providing weak-side help. He also had at least two steals from my count. One was where he deflected an entry pass to O'Bryant. The other was when the Raptors tried an alley-oop to DeMar from a baseline out entry pass, and Daye got high above the rim and deflected then controlled it. Not actually sure if you would consider it a block or a steal, but I counted it as a steal, and of course don't see anything in the box score.

There was also a rebound which Daye was out of position for, and it looked like a sure offensive rebound for DeMar, and Daye was able to use his length to bother DeMar into getting the rebound cleanly, and Daye was able to scrap it out and ended up controlling the ball.

Anyway, Daye played the 3 spot, and though he is a twig, was able to really use his length to contest and bother DeRozan all day long. He showed some weak-side defensive presence, and just looked very solid out there.

Now for the offense.
He started off the game with two beautiful passes for assists. In fact, according to the box score he only had two assists, and in reading through my notes I see a few entries where I said he made very nice entry passes, but he most not have got assists on those.
For the start of the game, I know he got the assists. The first was a nice find of an open big man under the basket. Isn't it great to have a perimeter player who can find the open big under the basket?
The second was a threading pass to a cutter for lay-in. Let me tell you, it only took about a minute of playing time, till the entire crowd was 'Oh'ing and 'Ah'ing after Daye for the entire game.

He hit a three-pointer, and then a few possessions later, he had a fantastic offensive rebound and 2-hand slam put-back.
The box score only shows him with 1 turn-over, but I had him with two turn-overs and they were on back-to-back possessions.
The first turn-over happened when he was driving into the lane, there was a lot of contact and he lost his handle and the ball.
The second turn-over he was picked clean by the Raptor's point guard.

He had a nice shot, where he caught the ball in the high post, took a dribble or two, and then hit a 7 footer off the glass.
The first play of the 2nd half, he had a nice dribble drive and a pull-up at 10 feet for the bucket, just looked really smooth.

Daye looked really good out there. He was hitting his shots, finding the open man, rebounding both on the offensive and defensive ends, and playing shut-down defense on DeMar.

Detroit: DeJuan Summers

Ok, Summers killed us in yesterday's game, so I was curious as to how he was going to fair in this game.

In the early going, he was a complete non-factor. He had a wide open shot or two, which he was making in yesterday's game, which he missed badly today. In fact, I don't really have any notes for him, for the first quarter or quarter and a half.
He ended up with 19 points on 7/17 shooting, so not nearly the shooting performance that he put up against us, but with that said, I think he looked better in today's game than he did in that great game he put up against us.
First off, once he realized that his shot was not falling, he became a very good passer. He made a great outlet pass to a cherry picker. He also made a nice pass to a cutting guard for the lay-in. Not sure how he only ended up with 1 official assist, because he should of had at least two.
Second, he became far more aggressive with the ball. He stopped taking those 15-18 footers and instead took the ball strong to the basket, or worked for post position and then tried to get the ball in the bucket if his teammates got him the ball.
So in the first game, I just saw great jumpshooting. In today's game, I saw him adapt his game, when his shot wasn't falling, to be a more willing passer, and far more aggressive taking the ball strong to the rim.

I said in my analysis of Summers yesterday, that he didn't show much driving ability at all, and that Donte or JT should have played him tighter to prevent him from getting off all those jump shots. In today's game, he showed me that aspect of his game. Very nicely done.

Detroit: Deron Washington

Who?

You'll see in my post yesterday that I don't mention Deron when breaking down player performances. However, you'll probably recall that I did mention Deron's name when discussing Tyreke Evans, and how I felt Tyreke completely shut down Deron.

Well I'm mentioning Deron today, because as much as Daye was the star for the Pistons today, Deron was the crowd favorite in this game for the Pistons.

Wow.

Do you remember in the game against the Kings, where he flew in and got the offensive rebound and the slam? Tyreke wasn't on the floor at the time, and it ended up being 1 of only 2 field goals for Deron.

Well today, he did that again, twice. It was funny because when it happened the first time, I mentioned to the guy next to me that Deron had done that once in yesterday's game. Then about 5 minutes later, he did it again.

He got on a role, as the first shot he hit for the day was a three pointer (1/3 for the day). You'll see that he ended the day with 6 rebounds, but 5 of them were on the offensive end, which definitely reflects what took place on the court. He was just very dynamic and flying past the block-outs and going high for the offensive rebounds.

On the defensive side, he had this fantastic chase down on a fast break and was able to block the shot.

He struggled mightily on the FT line. He was very aggressive at driving to the rim, and also putting up a shot after an offensive rebound, and he ended up at the FT line 12 times. Unfortunately, he only made 4 of them, so he has to improve in that area. Had he been making his FT's the game would not have been as close as it was.

Detroit: Sean Singletary

Sean looked good in this game for the minutes he got. He started the game, but didn't play the majority of the minutes for the PG position. He ran the team very well, especially in the opening minutes of the game. He looked very quick and was able to get to his spots on the floor and get the pass to the right person. He hit 3/4 shots, had 4 assists and 2 TOs. One of the TOs was unfortunate, as he made a great move to split the double-team, but then fumbled his pass to the big man at the rim for the turn-over.

Detroit: Andre Owens

Owens didn't start the game, but he played the most of the PG minutes today. I don't really have any notes for him. He's a few inches taller than Sean Singletary, and was put into the game for defensive purposes. But he played a very solid game, and ran the team well. 9 assists to only 1 TO, gets it done every time. He was not looking to shoot the ball (0/2), but his teammates were knocking down shots so it worked.

 

[Uncia03]

Pistons vs Raptors - Game 1 (continued)


Toronto: DeMar DeRozan

I was pretty hard on DeMar after yesterday's game against the Lakers, and I was hoping he would have a bounce-back game and show me some of what got him drafted in the lottery this year.

The box score doesn't look too bad, 20 points (9/20) with 4 boards, 0 assists, & 0 TOs.

However, most of his points came in the 2nd half when Toronto brought Taggart into the game, and Daye moved over to cover Taggart, leaving Tucker or Bramos to cover DeMar.
In the first half I have him with three field goals. A nice drive to the rim, a good curl around a screen for a pull-up 7 fter, and then another drive to the rim where Daye contested it nicely, but DeMar was able to get the offensive rebound and put-back.

In the second half, DeMar wasn't guarded as well, and he was able to take advantage with a number of nice takes to the basket and even hitting a wide open three at one point.

It looks like he wants to be the go-to guy down the stretch in a tight game. When he's in that mode it seems as if he's most comfortable making a strong move to the hoop, and either laying it in, or more typically, pulling up for a 5-8 foot jumper if he can't get all the way to the rim.

He did this a number of times through-out todays and yesterdays game with limited success. He's able to get his pull-up jumper off, but just doesn't seem to be able to get the ball in the hoop, so it's something he's going to have to continue to work on.

In addition, you'll see that he has 0 assists. I have in my notes that he made one nice drive to the rim, and then made a nice pass out to a wide open shooter who missed the shot. But except for that one instance, I didn't see him looking to set up his teammates.

Toronto: Quincy Douby

In today's game, Quincy was definitely the crowd favorite for Toronto. I think a lot of hit had to do with his name, which people just like saying. But his name was getting called quite a bit through-out the game, so people were hearing it a lot, and then sort of cheering him on towards the latter 1/3 or so of the game.

From the box score, it looks as if he had the best game of the Raptors, and I agree with that. No-where near the game that Daye had, even though the box scores look very similar. He had 21 points (8/13 field, 2/3 3-pointer, 3/5 FT), 5 boards, 3 assists, 2 TOs, and a block. A good line.

My wife was commenting for the first half of the game, that if the Raptors had someone else to help out Douby, they would probably be winning the game, and he really did carry them in the first half of the game, when DeMar was struggling against Daye.

But it really was typical summer league stuff from Quincy. The main difference in this game compared to the last where the box score is pretty similar, is that Quincy handled the ball a lot more, and he was looking to set up his teammates a lot more.
He was moving the ball well, handling it well, and dropping it off to open bigs or kicking it out to shooters probably better than I've ever seen him do.
Perhaps it's due to the fact that he was making all his shots, and was really feeling comfortable out there. But he was hitting his 3, and was successfully getting into the lane for his floaters and lay-ins. And I think his passing was helped by the confidence he had in his own ability to put the ball in the basket.
Regardless, he had a good game, and I do hope that he is able to carry it over into some kind of success for Toronto in the regular season. We'll see how well he plays as the summer league continues.

Toronto: Patrick O'Bryant

Today's game was a much different game than yesterday's game.
Yesterday Patrick had around 15 points on good shooting in the post (7/9) and only five boards and a block.
While yesterday I said his work in the post looked good, today his work in the post did not look good. He had two footwork TO's while trying to make his move in the post, and was to blame for another TO when he didn't aggressively move to catch a ball in the paint. Boxscore has him down for 5 TOs which sounds about right.
He also decided to try and extend his range today, and it did not work out for him. He was 3/9 today, and took a number of 15 ft jumpers. All three of his baskets were memorable though. Two of them came as great post moves, the third was at the end of the game and it was a 15 ft jumpshot and one of those "no, no, no...good shot" type of things.
He also pulled down 10 boards today, which doubled his production from yesterday's game.
Finally at the start of the 2nd half he had two nice blocks with-in a few minutes of each other, but as you can see, those were his only blocks of the night.
All in all, it was pretty difficult to grade him. He did much better on the boards, and had that very nice stretch of blocking shots, all the things you want from this guy. On the downside, he tried to extend his range once he got called for a few post-move footwork TOs, and that failed pretty badly, and his 5 TOs hurt the team, especially one when there was only about a minute left in a very tight game.

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As mentioned before, this was a very good game. Daye's play at the start got everyone into the game, and Deron's play was quite exciting. Combine that with a fast paced, tight game and it was a good start to the day.

Game 2: Lakers vs Cavaliers

I was not looking forward to this game at all. A ton of Laker fans to cheer for a team where no-one will be impact players, going against another team in Cleveland where I doubt a single player gets off the bench.

I was going to keep my eye on Morrison to see if he could have another good game, and also was going to watch Ben McCauley who put up that huge game yesterday.

For the Cavaliers, they had two 2nd round picks (Danny Green & Christian Eyenga) so I was going to see if either of them had any game.

LA: Adam Morrison

Morrison outplayed DeRozan handily in yesterday's game. Today at the start he was matched up against Danny Green. He had a terrible first half. Actually, his game was very reminiscent of Curry's game. Terrible 1st half, strong 2nd half.
His first two shots were pull-up fadeaways from about 18 ft, and he missed both. He made his third shot, where he got the ball in the paint, made a nice post move and laid it in.
He played about 6 minutes, and then took a couple minute breather. At the end of the 1st he missed a wide open 3, but his team got the rebound, and he ended up with the ball. He drove it into the paint, lost the handle, and turned the ball over.

In the second quarter, he made a nice drive and kick for an assisted 18 ft shot.

In the second half he did a much better job creating space for his shot, and they started to fall. He was 4/6 from the three-point line, and I believe that all four of those makes came in the 2nd half. (I believe he only had 4 points in the first half)
Once his shot began to fall, it opened up his ability to get into the lane. He made a nice drive and drop-off, as well as another drive and kick. Even though he was able to get into the lane, he just doesn't look that quick, and isn't really crafty at all with the ball. So I don't think he'll be able to do this at all against any sort of real NBA defender. He ended up with 3 assists, but 4 TOs, and I think that being forced to be the primary ball-handler in go-to situations is not really suited for his game at this time.
Once again the Lakers won the game, with some timely shots down the stretch and Morrison's shooting in the 2nd half really was the difference.

LA: Ben McCauley

As mentioned, he had a huge game yesterday. (24 points, 15 boards)
Today, he had a solid game, though not spectacular. (He had 10 points on 5/6 shooting and 7 boards.)
Once again he was a non-factor at the FT line, only taking one attempt (miss). It's interesting because one thing I noticed is that he's a very good offensive rebounder. Of his 7 boards, 4 of them came on the offensive end. He's very aggressive in going for the offensive rebound, and will fight and scrap for those.
What's strange is that he isn't much of a post player, and seems to prefer shooting the 15-18 footer. For all his scrapping for boards on the offensive end, I would have liked to see more fighting for low-post position and trying to get easy buckets there. Of course when you're a combined 17/25 from the field in two days, I guess you can't complain to much about the shot selection.
LA: Allen Anderson

Anderson did enough in today's game to warrant a note here. He didn't shoot the ball well (3/11) but was aggressive through-out the game. He got to the line 5 times, making all five shots and had 3 rebounds along with 2 assists and no TOs. He was 1/2 from the 3pt line, but for the most part was aggressive with the ball and preferred to attack the rim rather than put up the jumpshot.


Cavaliers: Danny Green

Green started the game and was covering Morrison. He did a good job with that coverage.
In watching him play, I wanted him to be more aggressive with the ball. He shot it well 5/7, but of those shots 6 of them were 3pt attempts, with 4 makes.
I have him with two drives to the basket (1 make, 1 miss), and another drive into the lane, with a made 10ft pull-up. But for the most part, it looked as if he wasn't comfortable being the go-to guy for offense and handling the ball as much as Morrison was handling it on the other side.
This definitely was not the same match-up as we saw yesterday in Morrison vs. DeRozan.

Cavaliers: Christian Eyenga

Eyenga didn't start the game, and basically replaced Danny Green, when Green went out.
He didn't have a good game, though the box score looks worse than the performance indicates.
He was 0/4 with 1 point coming from a FT. He also had 3 boards, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 2 TOs.
He obviously wasn't an offensive threat, however he was very active on the court. He was fighting for offensive and defensive rebounds, putting a lot of pressure on ball handlers, and trying to get into passing lanes. It was a poor overall game, but his energy was very noticable.

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All in all, this was a poor game. Just not much of anything to catch my eye and hold my interest.

 

[Uncia03]

Game 3: Kings vs Warriors


Now to the game we've all been waiting for. There were a lot of great potential match-ups, with the whole regional rivalry and both teams young and looking to move back into the upper echelons of the NBA.

The arena was absolutely packed, and it felt like a Warrior home game. As I mentioned yesterday, Curry had more fans than anyone else. In today's game, it was the same. It seemed as if the arena was basically one huge Curry fan club.

After the dreadful Laker/Cav game I was looking forward to a good one. And, it seems as if so much was going on that I was just barely able to keep up with the note taking while writing things down at a furious pace.

Let's see how these young fellows did:

Sacramento: Tyreke Evans

I have more notes on Tyreke's play by play than any other player today. Most of it is due to the fact that I'm paying very close attention to his game, and the other part is due to his large influence on the game. He really is dominating the ball, and it will be very interesting to see how things play out in the regular season once Kevin and Spencer are playing along side of him.

I was very impressed with Tyreke in the first game. I felt he was able to get into into the lane at will, and was also a shut-down defender on Deron Washington. (who ended up having a large role on offense in today's game against the Raptors)

However, right from the start I did not like what our team was doing. They again started Jerel McNeal along side Tyreke, thereby taking away Tyreke's size advantage.
Stephan Curry was able to guard Jerel, and they put Joe Ingles (6/8 G/F) on Tyreke. And unlike yesterday, I felt that Tyreke had a lot more problems getting past Ingles and into the lane.
Tyreke seemed to be able to get into the lane when he had a running start, while bringing up the ball quickly in transition after personally securing the rebound, and he was able to get into the lane coming off a screen, but just was not nearly as effective in getting by Ingles in a normal half-court set with-out the aid of a screen.
His ability to get into the paint by himself is critical and I'll continue to pay close attention to that part of his game.

I know that it's not really a practical line-up, but would anyone here like to see Casspi start the game at the 2-spot? I'd love to see an Evans/Casspi/Greene/Thompson/Brockman line-up and see how teams match up to the size we put on the court. I just want to simulate what we can do in the regular season with Martin out there, as I don't think that Curry would have any success guarding either Martin or Evans.

Unfortunately, we decided we didn't want to go with creating match-up problems in this game.

On to Tyreke's Defense. He did a fantastic job in the first game. In this one, not so much. He spent a good portion of his time matched up against
Cartier Martin, and didn't do that good of a job in my opinion. Cartier had a huge game, and though it's not all on Tyreke's shoulders, a large part of it was.
He had some great defensive plays, where he would not allow penetration by Cartier, or successfully fought through screens to stay on Cartier, but Cartier ended up with 27 points on 7/15 shooting, so you can't consider his defensive performance stellar, especially when Cartier went 5/11 for 14 points in yesterday's game.
I don't want to use fatigue as an excuse, but playing a back-to-back, especially with the amount of energy he's expending on the offensive end really has to be wearing on him.
He's going to have to learn to pace himself somewhat for the 82 game schedule.

Tyrekes defensive rebounding was very impressive, and his 10 boards really helped on the defensive end. In addition I noticed that when he secured his own rebound, he was far more aggressive at pushing the ball up the court, and slicing into the lane.

On to Tyreke's offense.
The first two things I have in my notes are:
Tyreke with turn over in fast break. Then: Tyreke with steal, outlet pass to Casspi who is fouled.
So a turn-over and then a steal in the first minute or two.

I have a ton of notes basically saying, "Strong take to the basket" with either a finish, foul, or kick-out.

There were also a few takes which resulted in TO's. There was one where he drove to the rim, left his feet, and passed it out to no-one for a TO. Then there was that critical TO in the final minute of regulation where he drove and lost his handle, that was then followed up by the palming TO in the next possession.

I think that is what stood out the most for me today. Though it was great seeing him drive to the lane to tie the game and send into OT, the three critical TOs (back-to-back in regulation, and 8 second in OT) really killed our chances to win the game. We'll see if he can improve on that going foward.

Kings: Jason Thompson

I know that everyone is down on JT's rebounding. I personally am not too concerned about that. He did well last season, and I expect the same to continue this season. And for all the talk about him not having an impact in this game, do you know what I heard in the fourth quarter when he was re-inserted into the game? "The Kings just want to make sure they win the game, so they are bring back Thompson."
He had a very large impact on this game, and everyone around me was impressed with his size and skills.

The first note I have on JT was a deflection of Curry's entry pass which resulted in a steal, and his hustle up the court in transition and laying the ball in.

The best thing about JT today was his aggressiveness in establishing post position. The entire game, he was battling trying to get position, and much to the crowd's dismay he was getting the opposing player in foul trouble time and again. I don't see that translating well in the regular season, unless he doesn't get the rookie treatment, but his willingness to really battle in that aspect of the game was great to see.
For all the battling for position, he didn't actually get much done in the post. Most of his points came from either the foul line or his mid-range game which looked better today than it did yesterday.
He played defense well enough, contesting a number of shots, getting one official block, and holding his position well.

Unfortunately, I think he ran out of gas. He basically played about 7 minutes of the 4th quarter and all of OT, and didn't do much of anything in that stretch.

Kings: Donte Greene

There was a lot to like, and a lot to dislike about Donte's game today.
First, he had the pleasure of guarding Anthony Randolph, and to be honest I was actually really impressed with his determination and work on the defensive end tonight. Randolph had an amazing game, but Donte really made Randolph work for his shots.
What I liked most about Donte's game was his aggressiveness taking the ball to the rim. That was my biggest criticism of his game yesterday. Today he took 17 shots, but only 2 of them were 3pt attempts, which is just fantastic and I hope to continue to see those types of ratios.
What I disliked most about Donte's game was that he took a lot of bad shots. He would drive to the basket and put up a wild circus shot, or dribble-drive and take a really tough contested jumper.
I don't have a single note regarding him kicking it out to a shooter or trying to create a scoring opportunity for another player. His 0 assists bear that out, and he can't be taking so many shots, many of them bad, while completely ignoring his teammates.
With that said, the solid defense, good rebounding, and aggressive takes towards the basket are such positives that it makes today's game far better than yesterdays, and a bright spot for something to look forward to for his continued growth.

Kings: Omri Casspi

I felt he had a really poor game yesterday, and was hoping for more from him today. He started the game next to Donte, and I thought it would be good to see him get those early minutes with the rest of the crew.
Unfortunately the primary issue he had in the first game plagued him in today's game.
But four of my first six notes for him are:
Terrible entry pass to JT for turn over.
Couldn't handle fast break pass from Jerel for turn over out of bounds.
Bad cross-court pass deflected for turn over
Terrible alley-oop pass for turn over.

He ended up with 5 TOs in the box score, and to be honest I thought it was more than that.

On the good side, he ended up with 5 boards today, instead of the 1 he had yesterday.
Also, I have in my notes that twice he hustled on the offensive end and was able to get the ball knocked off of a Warrior in order to secure another possession on the offensive end. Though those are not considered offensive rebounds, it's basically the same thing, so the box score doesn't show it, but I have him with those two offensive rebounds.
Also, he had 2 assists, though his passes today didn't look as nice as the ones he made yesterday.

So he showed some hustle today, and all-in-all a better showing than yesterday. However, he's got to cut down on those terrible turn overs.

Kings: John Brockman

I thought Brockman did a decent job yesterday, but Robert Battle got a lot of minutes as well, and did just as good if not better.
Today, Brockman did not start, and got about half the minutes, with Donte playing a lot of the 4 today.
With that said, I thought his game today was far superior to yesterday, and if he can do that every night I think he'll give us a solid 10 minutes off the bench.
He played 9 minutes today and gave us 7 boards.
First possession in the game gave us a strong defensive rebound.
Then on the other end of the court, got a nice hustle offensive rebound. So two rebounds in the first 30 seconds of play.
He ended up with 5 offensive rebounds, and I had him with one possession where he knocked the ball off of a warrior to gain the possession, so that would have counted as a 6th offensive rebound.
He should a lot of hustle and a good nose for the ball in today's game, in limited minutes. That is basically what his role would be in the regular season, and I hope to continue to see that sort of effort and effectiveness from him.

Kings: Jerel McNeal

I felt as if I was really harsh on Jerel McNeal after yesterday's game. Today he played a much better game, but even with that I don't want him on our team, if he's going to play beside Evans. If he's going to play along side Beno or Sergio that would be an undersized back-court but at least it wouldn't give away our advantage with having Tyreke at the point.

I got started late on this, and now it's time to go out and do things in Vegas. I'll finish up on Jerel, and then put my thoughts in for the Warriors and then the Rockets/Mavs game later tonight.

Sorry about this.

 

[Uncia03]

Kings vs Warriors - Game 3 (continued)


I ran out of space in the previous post, so will put the rest of Jerel's information starting here.

Kings: Jerel McNeal (continued)

On to Jerel's performance today.

As mentioned, he had a better game today than yesterday. Hit all of his shots (4/4) for 8 points, 2 boards, 1 assist, 2 steals, a TO, and a very nice blocked shot.
He started the day guarding Curry, and to be honest I don't think he did a very good job.
As I mentioned, in the Day 1 breakdown, Curry had a hard time getting into the lane, or getting his shot off while being guarded by the Rocket's James White. In the first half Curry only had a few points and was 0-8 from the field. And though he shot horrible, he was able to really use his dribble to create space from Jerel and get a shot off. In addition, Curry was able to get by Jerel and into the lane far better in this game compared to the first.

Jerel guarded Curry quite a bit in the 2nd half, and all those shots Curry was missing in the first, he was making in the 2nd half, plus Jerel was letting Curry get into the lane to get fouled and to the line.

So Jerel's offense was much better, and he showed more activity in the all-around game. He also showed a much better ability to pass to open teammates for a potential shot than he did in yesterday's game. But he's undersized allowing Curry the opportunity to be able to guard him even though he's playing the 2 guard, and did not do a good job defending Curry in turn. So, still not to pleased with the performance.


Golden State: Anthony Randolph

He had a very good game today. What is interesting is that I don’t really have a whole lot of notes for him. I think part of that might be due to him just consistently hitting his shot all night long. He was 10/13 from the field, and that was with Donte playing good defense on him.

In the opening minutes of the game, he and Donte went at it, with Donte hitting 1 of 2 contested shots and Randolph hitting 2 of 2 contested shots. Later in the quarter, he made an aggressive take to the rim, missed the shot, but rebounded his miss and put it back in. In the 2nd quarter, he got a deflection for the steal, then ran the floor and received the ball back for a nice dunk.
The boxscore shows him with 5 blocks, however, in the 3rd he had back-to-back blocks. I don’t have the benefit of replay, but the first block on Tyreke’s shot was close, but the 2nd on JT’s put-back attempt was a clear goal-tend. It wasn’t even close, and even the Warrior fans around me were thanking the Refs for that call. With that said, as he was in the first game, he was very active on defense, looking to use his length to contest shots. In this game he did a far better job at staying in control and not picking up a lot of fouls.

He was also charged with 6 turn-overs, however I don’t recall all of them, and they don’t seem that memorable to me, at least, none of them seemed to have the same sort of impact as the 3 Tyreke had to close out the game.
He rebounded the ball very well (11 boards) was active on defense, and hit almost all of his shots, so it was a very good game for him. I don’t expect his shooting to be that good when facing defensive pressure, but if he can maintain that sort of consistency into the regular season he will be very impressive.

Golden State: Stephan Curry
In his last game I mentioned that he had very little success shooting the ball off the dribble, or getting into the lane, and he found virtually all of his success coming off of screens and hitting a shot. Today’s game was a different story.

I have very few notes for his first half of play. His first pass attempt was deflected by JT for the steal. I had him make a strong move to the rim, but lacking the strength to finish, and then I have this note: “Doing well using the dribble to create space, but coming up short on shot.”

That note basically summarizes his first half. He was able to use the dribble to create space from Jerel McNeal to get a shot off, but he was missing all of his shots. I believe he was 0-8 in the first half. With that said, I thought his game was looking better than the first game, because he wasn’t able to get any space against James White, so I’m putting his ability to get space on Jerel McNeal for being unable to keep with Curry.

In the second half everything changed for Curry. I believe he went 8/14 with 3 3pt shots made. I count 7 instances in the 2nd half where he was able to drive into the lane and either take a lay-up attempt, or get fouled. In fact he went to the line 11 times, and I believe that 9 of those times took place after the 1st half. I really wish we could have put Tyreke on him once he got hot, because I would have liked to see if Tyreke could have shut him down or not. Unfortunately, Tyreke might have spent all of a minute guarding Curry, so that scenario did not play out.

So Curry got aggressive, was able to get by Jerel McNeal and get into the lane, and that more than anything was what proved to be the winning move to allow the Warriors to get back into the game, and eventually win it.
Curry also had a solid all-around game with 6 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 3 TOs. But he didn’t seem to be trying to set up his teammates all that much, we’ll have to see how his playmaking comes along.


Golden State: Cartier Martin
I don’t have any notes for Cartier, as I was just too busy trying to keep track of all the Kings players in addition to Randolph and Curry. With that said, he had a huge game and I did want to mention him.

First, on offense I felt he really gave Tyreke a lot of trouble. He was able to get himself free for open shots, as well as get into the lane, mostly by coming off of screens which Tyreke struggled getting through.
He set himself up well on the 3pt line and did very well there. (3/5) Overall he went 7/15 from the field, and went 10/11 from the line.

He was strictly looking to score, as he had no assists, and Tyreke did play him tough a few times and forced some turn-overs, but in the match-up between Cartier’s offense and Tyreke’s defense, Cartier won that handily.

---------------------------
After yesterday’s game I mentioned how I thought that the free-throw misses early in the game is what cost the Kings the game to the Pistons, and how the second biggest issue was the turn-overs.
In today’s game we went 20/34 (58.8%) from the line and had 20 TOs.
So we had the same amount of TOs’, shot 6 less FTs but our % dropped by almost 10%.
We didn’t correct the things we needed to correct, and we lost a very close game. If we had shot 75% from the line we would have won the game. If Tyreke hadn’t had those 3 costly TOs late in the game, we would have positioned ourselves far better to win the game.
We are a young team, and I am going to be very patient with them. I expect these types of things from them, and hope to see a gradual improvement as they work to build team chemistry, and a team identity.

 

[Uncia03]

Rockets vs Mavericks - Game 4

First , I should start off by saying that Tyreke was signing autographs after this game. So my wonderful wife stood in line for me, so I could watch the start of this game, to help give a breakdown of what I saw. With that said, I did miss about the last 3 minutes of the 1st quarter. I’m fairly certain I didn’t miss anything of importance however.

Next, the primary reason I wanted to see this game was to see if Rodrigue Beaubois would play as well as I thought he did in the first game. I thought Beaubois was the one of the top 3 players of day 1. When I looked at the box score, it didn’t look nearly as impressive as what I thought I saw on the court, but I still felt my feel for him was more accurate than the box score.

The other reason I wanted to watch the game was to see what sort of game James White would have. He impressed me in the 1st game, shutting down Curry, and playing a good aggressive slashing game.

One other note is that the energy in the building went away after the Kings/Warriors game. The place was completely packed for the Kings/Warriors game, with about 90% of those in attendance huge Curry/Warrior fans. As this Game 4 was the last one of the day, about 85% of the people left, so it was almost an empty building.

Now on to the game:


Dallas: Rodrigue Beaubois

One word. Domination.

That’s it. Beaubois dominated this game. He wasn’t enough to get his team the win, but he was amazing. It was actually nice, as I felt very vindicated for my high praise for him. (regardless of what the box score said)

His statline: 34 points (12/21 field, 7/12 3pt, 3/3 line), 5 boards, 8 assists, 2 TOs

Here is what is so impressive with those numbers. All 12 of those 3 pt attempts he made were off his own dribble. He wasn’t running around screens, catching the ball and shooting, and he wasn’t sitting at the 3 pt line waiting for someone to draw and kick it to him. He had the ball in his hand, created space with the dribble-drive and then put up the shot.

In addition, those 8 assists, they were created by him penetrating into the lane and either dropping off the ball to a big man, or kicking it out to an open shooter.

He was able to get into the lane at will, and had very little problem splitting the double teams they threw at him.
He’s very athletic and skied high for a few defensive rebounds. And he had very little trouble finishing at the rim.

Now he did have 9 personal fouls, but I believe four of those came in the last 2 minutes of the game, when the Mavericks were playing the foul game trying to catch up. The Mavericks hit 3 or 4 3 pt shots in the closing minute or two to make it a very close game at the end.

Anyway, it was a great individual performance. I’ll be seeing him play one more time on Monday, so I’m curious if he can continue his high level of play.


Dallas: Ahmad Nivins

I mentioned Nivins as a strong player in yesterday’s game, and wanted to see if he could have a repeat performance.
His play was solid today, though nothing too exciting. He was 5/12 from the field for 11 points, and he grabbed 8 boards. He did have 4 turn-overs which really hurt his team.
So a solid effort, but not one where he made much of an impact.


Houston: Joey Dorsey

I mentioned that in yesterday’s game, Joey Dorsey had some wonderful passes, and that his play was solid. He worked to improve on his play, and had a great game today.

The first two things he did was have a nice block, and then another beautiful high-post pass to a cutter for the lay-in. He had a lot of hustle plays today, fighting for rebounds, and playing aggressive defense.

He was 5/8 from the field for 13 points, but he made his impact on the boards and the passing with 15 boards, and 3 nice assists. He also had 2 blocked shots, with only 2 turn-overs for the game.

He also did a very nice job in limiting Nivin’s effectiveness, and I believe his defense was the primary reason Nivins did not have as good a game today.


Houston: James White

White did not have much of an impact game today. He was 2/6 from the field for 6 points, had 2 boards, 2 assists, and 2 turn-overs. Unfortunately he did not cover Beaubois, as it would have been interesting to see if he could shut down Beaubois as he did Curry.

With that said, something the box score does not show was his attempts at playmaking. In today’s game he was working hard to get into the lane and kick the ball out to shooters. In fact, had his teammates knocked down their shots he would have obtained at least 3 more assists if not more. So that is something which I didn’t see in yesterday’s game. He also made some nice entry passes into Dorsey.

So he didn’t have as much of an impact in today’s game, but he continued to slash into the lane with the ball, and actually did more work trying to set up teammates compared to the last time I saw him play.


Houston: Chase Budinger

Budinger’s box score from yesterday looked solid, but I felt he had a horrible game. Today’s game was a bit different.

First of all, he could not miss from the field. He was 9/10 from the field, and 6/7 from the line for 25 points. When you are a shooter like him, and the ball is going into the basket at such a high rate, it’s easy to look good.

My biggest complaint of his last game, was that he couldn’t handle the ball. In today’s game I counted at least 7 times where he aggressively drove the ball into the lane and either got all the way to the rim, or pulled up for the 10-15 ft shot. He also played the catch-and-shoot game well, but it was the aggressive takes to the basket which impressed me.

So he had a very solid shooting game, and he was aggressive with the basketball, working to create his own opportunities, rather than force the team to create those opportunities for him.

Unfortunately, shooting is really all he did in this game. It’s fine when you shoot that well, but the 1 rebound and 1 steal isn’t going to get it down. It’s clear due to the 0 assists that he was looking to create his own shot, not create for his teammates, but I think at this point in time, the fact that he was successful in creating his own shot is a step in the right direction.

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This was a good game to watch, mainly because of Beaubois. The Rockets had a healthy lead for most of the game, and it only got close in the closing 2 minutes or so, but at least that added for some excitement for the end of day 2 of summer league.


That is it for the 2nd day of Summer League. I am not going to be in attendance for Day 3, but will be there for Day 4, and the King's 3rd game. I'll jot down my notes again, and let you all know what I saw after the game.

Go Kings!!!!!!!

 

[MoneyMike916]