Ah, life as a Sacramento Kings fan, where I'm happy we at least had a close loss and competitive game. After all I put together this Grading Consortium with the promise of wins and glory...and girls of course -- where are the dang Consortium groupies? Anyway, I didn't want the troops to get depressed and discouraged so early in the season.
The restoration of the Cousins-centric offense led to a restoration of competitive play and another superstaresque performance by Cousins. Unfortunately he's got a damn good lawsuit for lack of support pending, as once again he was out there all alone trying to carry us, and huffing and puffing at times to do so. Meanwhile I don't think we had a single other double figure scorer through 3/4, and even the mighty mite was off his game. I think the first guy to join Cousins as a double figure scorer was Travis Outlaw believe it or not. At that point Cuz already had 29. Hence the difficult poll question above, and some trepidation about how things go tomorrow. Asking Cousins to come up with another night like that back to back is a bit much. Somebody else is going to have to show or we're going to end up 1-5 and spiraling before we even got started. Maybe that Smart fella was cleverer than we thought in getting these guys to score.
Your graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Capt.Factorial
Spudfan
sdballer
Boxscore
Stats: 24min 2pts (1-6, 0-1, 0-0) 2reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Salmons ( B- ) -- I saw a lot of whining about John Salmons in the game thread, but watching Salmons closely I think a lot of it was undeserved. What Salmons did poorly tonight was shoot the ball - one of six is not a good showing. Salmons' passing, however, was quite a bit better. He wasn't ball-stopping, he wasn't over dribbling, and despite not being on the ball a ton he ended up with three assists and four good passes that resulted in missed shots (including one to Cousins at the rim). He had one drive-and-kick where he hit an open Thornton on the perimeter which led to a hockey assist when Marcus drove and dumped to an open Cuz. And on defense, Salmons did a great job. Tasked with guarding Batum, he allowed a grand total of 3 points on 5 shots. He had two near-steals when knocking the ball away from Blazers players, and did a good job on stopping the ball on a 2-on-1 break, which allowed Thornton to recover for a steal. When you know you aren't going to get a star-level performance out of your SF, solid defense and good passing are going to earn you a decent grade. --Capt.
Stats: 31min 10pts (4-8, 2-4, 0-0) 4reb 1ast 2stl 0blk 1TO
Patterson ( C+ ) -- for a while in this one we were getting about all you can reasonably expect when you are reduced to starting Patrick Patterson as your starting PF. He was finally hitting some of those threes, and just as importantly was doing a good job of fighting the much bigger Aldridge on defense. No he wasn't on the boards, but then again anybody expecting him to be is kidding themselves. Was still fighting Aldridge in the 3rd, and it was ironic that we had major defensive problems against Portland at that point, but that PPat guarding their best player was the one guy doing his job. I don't know where his grade would have been at that point, he was hardly starring out there. but he was contributing. Unfortunately the offensive contributions, modest at any point, dried up, and down the stretch the other shoe dropped as the Blazers finally said enough of this nonsense, starting pounding the ball to Aldridge the same way we were to Cousins, and PPat lost control of him as Aldridge was able to repeatedly get his favorite turnaround jumper again and again and powered them home. --Brick
Stats: 37min 35pts (13-25, 0-2, 9-10) 9reb 1ast 4stl 1blk 3TO
Cousins ( A- ) -- And yes, suddenly we were back to the Cousins centered offense, and suddenly we were competitive again. It almost didn't get going, as he came right out and on the first defensive play and stupidly swiped at the ball on Robin Lopez in the post and got a quick foul. Of course maybe he knew something we didn't, as Lopez proceeded to drop 6 quick points on us. An early theme of Boogie's defense is he has taken big strides as a team defender and a man defender against guys who set up, but bigger/more athletic centers who just run to the rim can still get behind him for finishes. Another theme, career long, is that when faced by a bigger shotblocker, Boogie likes to retreat outside and pepper them with jumpers. And in the first half oh boy did he. The jumper was on, he threw in some more of those Tim Duncan bank shots which you can see becoming a trademark one day, and he poured it on. Came back in in the mid 2nd with the reserves struggling and began making all court contributions on both ends to pick us back up, and opened the third aggressive and attacking inside as he discovered that he could slip by Lopez and finish at the rim. Was clearly huffing and puffing by the late 3rd after trying to singlehandedly carry us, but as we started falling behind we couldn't afford to pull him, and he impressively found another wind again -- 2nd or 3rd time he's already shown that in the young season, where it looks like he's done, and then finds another gear. Started dominating down the stretch of the third, and by the end of the quarter had 29 already. Made some defensive mistakes in the second half, but also some excellent defensive plays, including a big block on Lillard inside. What he never really did do was dominate the glass. In fact he seemed to be having an oddly un-Boogielike night with those hands. he wasn't catching as cleanly as he normally does, and non-rebounders like Lopez seemed to be able to rip things out of his hands on the glass. Malone, who claims to value rebounding, has intentionally surrounded Boogie with absolutely awful worst in the league type rebounders in that starting lineup, so we need the big guy to clean up big time to make up for it. he did not, and we got pounded on the boards and hence my excuse to throw a "minus" on a 35pt night. But let's be clear here -- I A- these things because I believe in him MORE strongly than you do, not the other way around. This could be a HOF player in the making. He'll have many huge nights in his future. hopefully some with a little more complete statlines. As an aside, does not mean I am requiring him to go 30+ 10+ for a straight A. Just requiring us not to get whipped by 16 on the glass in a loss on the same night he is having troubles on the boards. --Brick
Stats: 40min 5pts (2-11, 1-6, 0-0) 6reb 1ast 2stl 0blk 1TO
Thornton ( F ) -- I'm curious how the guy that was arguably the worst King on the night ended up playing the most minutes. Ben had his foul troubles but we could have tried shifting John down to a better positional fit, gone with the 2 pgs or even tried a little Jimmer. Any one of those less-than-desirable solutions would have had a hard time being worse than what MT gave us. His defense, aside from the occasional steal, has always been a negative and was a big reason there was some concern around here in letting our only defensive guards go (oh well). But there was a time when MT was able to score at a fairly elite level, through a combination of tough drives and outside shooting. I'd blame the new coach for his issues right now but frankly, the offense doesn't look that different than last year, so it's not that. Whatever it is, MT has to pull his head out and start contributing something on offense because scoring is the only thing he really brings to the table. The only assist MT is going to give this team is by raising his value enough to bring something useful back to the team in a trade. He did grab 6 boards tonight, on a night we were outrebounded by 16. Personal note: Not sure how you've done this for so long Brick as grading these bums is painful. --sdballer
Stats: 32min 12pts (5-10, 1-4, 1-2) 2reb 6ast 2stl 0blk 1TO
Vasquez ( B- ) -- Tonights game was a good example of the player many of us thought we were getting before the season started. Greivis started out the first quarter hitting a few shots and directing the offense beautifully. He made it an emphasis all night long to get the ball to Cousins. In the second half there was a stretch where GV hit Cousins for three consecutive plays before he passed it to Marcus for an open shot. After that he went to Cousins for a couple more plays. Many beautiful pick and rolls lead to layups by Cousins or drawn fouls. It really was a thing of beauty and I hope we see it more often. We made our best run during this Cousins focused period of time, before ignoring Cousins which resulted in the Blazers lead ballooned to something like 15. Along with the great passing we expected to get from GV, we also got a little taste of the “hero ball” we had heard about. He took a few more three point shots and runners in the lane than he should have while trying to bring us back. I hated the shots when he took them, but it is hard to blame him when so many of his beautiful passes that lead to WIDE open looks were bricked. So i’ll forgive the shots tonight and give him a solid B as he seemed to do more good than harm… but if our guys start knocking down shots he will have to cut down on those field goal attempts.
Disclaimer: Our team defense was a mess and everyone looked lost. It’s hard for me to put blame on either guard as they both seem to be doing about the same thing so it might be the defense scheme that is leading them to cheat off their guys which is giving everyone open looks. Without knowing I don’t think it’s fair to criticize their defense too much tonight.
.--Spud
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