Why we need a shotblocker and this Kenny/Reef frontline DOESN'T work

[kennadog]

Bibby is not quick. He just isn't. But his main problem as a defender is he really hasn't got lateral quickness. No amount of effort or practice is going to change that much. He's valuable for his shooting, passing, basketball IQ and court vision. Its just too bad that he's on a team that doesn't help him a whole lot when he's beat. When he had Webber and Vlade behind him, especially, his defensive weakness wasn't so exposed. Altho I saw a few of our guards getting beat tonight, not just Bibby.

I actually love Brad, but he really has never seemed the same physically, since he broke his leg doing a lay-up drill. I keep hoping. Age is undoubtedly beginning to show and being big does take its toll on joints and the spine.

 

[Wheeler03]

Kenn.....while it is true that noone stepped up to help Bibby out tonight. To counter that however is the fact that Bibby got beat whenever Davis decided to drive. You simply cannot ask, or expect your frontcourt to clean up Bibby's mess every other play. And even if Reef or KT stepped up to help, their man is left wide-open under the basket waiting for an easy dunk which Davis will feed to them. Getting beat every once in awhile is o.k. but the number of times Bibby (and other guards -- you're right that Bibby was not alone as the matador) places every other defender in an unfair situation. Just my thoughts, whether or not I am right is something I cannot answer.

 

[DaMan]

Kenn.....while it is true that noone stepped up to help Bibby out tonight. To counter that however is the fact that Bibby got beat whenever Davis decided to drive. You simply cannot ask, or expect your frontcourt to clean up Bibby's mess every other play. And even if Reef or KT stepped up to help, their man is left wide-open under the basket waiting for an easy dunk which Davis will feed to them. Getting beat every once in awhile is o.k. but the number of times Bibby (and other guards -- you're right that Bibby was not alone as the matador) places every other defender in an unfair situation. Just my thoughts, whether or not I am right is something I cannot answer.

completely agree

 

[kennadog]

No I understand that and think Brad took the rap too often for his defense, when he had to cover and then was out of position for RB's. I just know it helped when Webb and Vlade were back there, in the old days.

 

[CaminoChaos]

Re: Shotblocker

I believe that the Kings need a shotblocker but let's face it were not going to get one. I think tonight the players were just sluggish. They looked tired.

 

[BawLa]

The problem lies in the fact that Golden State probably ran 10 half-court sets all night. If we can slow teams down a little and force them into their half-court offense, we are an above average man-on-man defensive team. We simply struggle when it starts going up and down the courts with neither team taking 10 seconds off the 24 second clock.

Exactly. And to take your point one step further we couldn't run with them for 3 reasons:

1. Our starters logged heavy minutes on Wednesday night.
2. Our bench gets barely any playing time so they were noticably ineffective -- not scoring wise but in terms of defense.
3. We weren't making enough shots to slow down their fastbreak in the first half.


-- Back-2-Back games are hard enough anyway but you throw in the fact that we have 2 effective starters that are injured. And Bibby is not 100% either. So we had to turn to a bench that doesn't see much playing time. Although the bench looked fine in terms of the scoring #'s, they were completely inept at defense. But I don't blame the bench as much as the starters. It seemed like once they got a 12 point lead in the first quarter, they never looked back. And we kept up with them afterwords by trying to slow the game down and getting to the line. Which was moderately effective. We did 2 things wrong in the first half. We let them get a big lead and concurrently, we let them get comfortable in our paint. Not to mention that every garbage shot they threw up went down.

I am not very upset at this loss. If we had fresh legs I think it would have been a different game. And sometimes you need a loss like this to remind everyone that there are no free games. We got away from what makes us sucessful which is playing our game. I think the next time we see GS things will be different.

 

[Kev.in]

And true, where is the blame on our guards for letting them get so easily to the whole?

It's been happenings all year but Brad was making a difference just by being there and by playing good help defense. Half of protecting the paint is making it so guys can't get right to the rim. How are you going to score inside if you hardly get into the paint and when you do it has to be a rushed or off-balance shot. Blocking shots is nice (for us, a luxury) but what's nicer is when you can pressure on the perimeter and still have the help to make the ball go back outside to a less skilled ballhandler.

Last night it finally caught up to us because Shareef's legs looked a little weak, Kenny's head was in another time zone and Corliss was out there for 23 more minutes than he needed to be. Right now, our guards are in a tough position. They have to carry the offensive load and they're the only ones (along with Ron) getting back on defense. When the opposition sees a pathetic big man rotation like ours, their point guards get excited and a little more pep in their step.

Potapenko could help (more than Corliss) but I wouldn't expect him to get any significant minutes after the emphasis Musselman put on conditioning in training camp.

 

[skillet]

Right of now, I wish we could of kept L. Woods...

 

[tyrant]

just a bad game. not to worry. if this had been a playoff game artest wouldve been on davis.

 

[AriesMar27]

we cut woods and williams for this? anything would have been better than this...

 

[yanon]

Brad is injury prone and getting old

In order to cover Bibby's mistakes. We need a man-beast like Greg Oden.

 

[BMiller52]

In order to cover Bibby's mistakes. We need a man-beast like Greg Oden.

Yeah, just like every team besides Houston and Miami

 

[Bricklayer]

We need a man-beast like Greg Oden.

Well yes, and if you can find a way to get him here, I'm all ears.

Best I can come up with is making rigging the draft one of the items on the table in the new arena negotiations with Stern. We give you 2000 more parking places, you give us Greg Oden. There. Deal done. Everybody happy.

 

[yanon]

Well yes, and if you can find a way to get him here, I'm all ears.

Best I can come up with is making rigging the draft one of the items on the table in the new arena negotiations with Stern. We give you 2000 more parking places, you give us Greg Oden. There. Deal done. Everybody happy.

Well, the Maloofs are in the Casino business. Rigging a ping-pong ball lottery machine is not that much different from rigging a casino slot machine. haha