Well...darn again. Tonight we Lob Citied right on Lob City's head, and still we come up just short against this team, The Williams acquisition looked excellent for the night, it changed the whole tone of our starting group, we got in another fun chippy battle with the Clippers, took it to OT...and one more time we lost just like a young dumb, athletic group of newbies is supposed to do against an experienced team. A lot of self inflicted wounds, but this was also the game where the season/preseason long simmering issue of super bench gunner Jamal Crawford against the worst defensive guard line in the NBA finally blew up into full fledged disaster. Suffice it to say that DeMarcus was only the second best player on the floor tonight. Still, before the trade we didn't have a realistic shot to make a game like this such a battle on a night when apparently The Pizza Guy overimbided on Thanksgiving and turned into The Turkey Guy.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Bajaden
Spudfan
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 32min 12pts (6-13, 0-2, 0-1) 6reb 4ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Williams ( B ) -- synergy [n] -- the interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of their individual effects. That was the effect of Derrick Williams tonight. And it was greater than the relatively pedestrian statline above shows. He walked right in off the plane, right into the starting lineup, and far from looking tentative just started running and gunning like the offense was designed around him. He had instant athletic wondertwins fastbreak chemistry with M16, combining on no fewer than four fun get out on the break alley oop sequences between the two of them, once Mac passing to him for a big dunk for the first points of his Kings career, three times Williams grabbing strong rebounds, and immediately racing out leading the break looking for his wingman the other way. He also seemed to have instant chemistry with Cousins, and late in the game was backcutting hard as Cousins retreated toward the perimeter to clear the lane and found Williams at the rim repeatedly. Was even active and attentive on defense for the most part, something that has to have Minnesota fans muttering since they will tell you he rarely could be bothered to bother in 2+ years with them. And the overall effect of this entirely changed the flavor of our starting lineup, despite only one face being different. All of a sudden, there was somebody else out there to worry about than just Boogie. We could score. We could rebound. We had a flavor as he and Ben combined to be a constant menace in the open court. Williams notched 4 assists in the game and was both willing and very effective as a passer on the break. This is a guy with a career 0.5/ast game average. You never would have known. We had full sized athletes all over the court, although the lack of anybody competent on the other end made John Salmons disturbingly important anyway. It was a synergy effect. Suddenly we felt like a real team. Late in the game came up with a massive one handed alley oop slam with 2:25 to go as it looked like we might win it in regulation...only to have it waived off by the refs saying Dudley had fouled him first. Thx Refs. We don't care. Let him foul us, give us the points. So we took them anyway, as we took the ball on the side and immediately Williams just cut backdoor on Dudley again and Cousins found him for another alley oop, this one a two hander. Fun fun. But not perfect. In fact all the fun stuff/synergy was obscuring some other trends that might get ugly in the future. Basically Williams as racing athlete with Mac and Cousins elevated our entire offense, but when you scratched the surface, he was basically struggling at all the other aspects of offense. His jumper looked flat broke. It was ironic he was for some reason wearing Reke's old #13, because every jumper he put up seemed different than the last and really not even close. And both times we tried to post him he couldn't finish those either. basically as long as he ran, cut, and dunked this was a big outing. When we tried to get some more meat and potatoes attempts for him, it was inefficient. And late in the game/OT his grade sunk back a little as it was the inefficient Minny-era Williams who showed up in the OT. He regressed and took a tough tough fallaway jumper as we started to slide. Late in the OT he just airballed a three. Things to watch and be concerned about going forward, bu in general it would be impossible to call the debut anything but a rousing success overall. --Brick
Stats: 23min 6pts (3-7, 0-0, 0-0) 4reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Thompson ( C ) -- With Derrick Williams entering the starting lineup, Jason Thompson is now the clear-cut 5th option on offense. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just makes Thompsons game a little harder to evaluate because he gets so few touches offensively. Jason only played 23 minutes tonight, but in those 23 minutes I thought he defended Blake Griffin about as well as you could expect. Griffin was getting nothing inside on Thompson, which forced Griffin into taking some long jumpers in order to get going (to Griffins credit he hit a few of them and then started playing better). Malone elected to play Patterson in crunch time and over time, which I disagreed with because Thompson was playing such solid defense. His rebounding numbers weren’t there today. His offense was nothing to write home about. He fumbled the ball a few times. But Thompson essentially matched Griffins production for the minutes he played, and you’ll take that.--Mass
Stats: 41min 25pts (11-19, 0-0, 3-3) 9reb 6ast 0stl 3blk 3TO
Cousins ( A ) -- Cousins had another great night and started off the first quarter hot by hitting 4-5 shots (9 points), making 3 assists and recording 2 blocks with only 1 foul in 9 minutes. But for some reason he only attempted one shot in the second quarter during 10 minutes of play. Even with scoring zero points in the second quarter he managed to finish with 25 points while only attempting 3 free-throws. Four of Cousins 19 attempts tonight were blocked by Jordan, when you take those blocked shots into consideration Cousins shooting looks even more efficient. Outside of a couple turnovers and a missed blockout on Jordan he didn’t make many mistakes. The main takeaway from tonight though is that Cousins and Williams seem to have some chemistry. They connected on a few passes and worked the rebounds well together. I think Cousins is going to like playing with Williams and it might just make Cousins a more efficient player too. --Spud
Stats: 35min 14pts (5-12, 1-6, 3-3) 4reb 3ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( D+ ) -- This is a really tough grade. I want to give him a decent grade for his overall effort and hustle but there were some problems with his game tonight. He had a season high in minutes play with 35 minutes and had good production through-out the entire game with 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals. Prior to the last 2 shots of the game (both missed 3pt shots) he was shooting 50% of the field at 5-10 shooting, and he hit two enormously clutch FTs to tie the game with only 16 seconds left in the game. There were, however, two major problems with his game. The first was the manner in which he was scoring. It wasn’t until the 2nd to last shot in the game (during OT) before he took a shot where he came hard off of a curl, received the ball and rose up to shoot. He missed that shot, but that’s the sort of shot we’ve seen him take with confidence, and that was completely lacking in this game. In fact, it looked as if he wasn’t at all confident with shooting the ball tonight. He had a wide-open 3pt shot from the corner with no-one guarding him or running at him and he hit the edge of the backboard which seems insane considering how good of a shooter he can be. Anyway, he scored his points mostly due to Williams finding him on the fast-break, and other than that seemed to not have confidence in his outside shot. He also took the last 2 attempts for the Kings and by missing those shots closed their chances at winning. The biggest reason, however, for the bad grade was due to his defense. And I know that every Kings fan who was watching that game just held their breath when he got isolated playing defense against Crawford. And for good reason, because Crawford obliterated Ben tonight. Crawford was able to get anywhere he wanted on the floor which not only allowed him to get 10+ assists but also allowed him a ton of easy scoring opportunities. Now I know that Crawford was really hot tonight, but when Ben was guarding Crawford, it felt as if Crawford just ignored him and went on his merry way right to the spots that he wanted. I love the athleticism and hustle that Ben brings to the floor, and he’s showing a lot more than Thornton at the moment, but if he’s lost confidence in his shot than he needs to find it, and he’s got to get better at staying down and in front of the guys that he’s defending. --Uncia
Stats: 36min 11pts (4-12, 2-6, 1-1) 3reb 7ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Vasquez ( C+ ) -- If not for Vasquez terrible defense, he might have had a B. But he didn't do enough on the other side of the floor, and he did play pretty well offensively, to compensate for his defense. His lateral quickness is absolutely horrible. It didn't matter who he was trying to guard. Collison went anywhere he wanted to go on the floor, and when he had to guard Crawford, it got worse. Its not as though he doesn't try, he's simply incapable. By comparison, he makes Jimmer look like a lock down defender. That said, he did have his moments on offense. Now that he had a new weapon to work with, he made the most of him with a couple of nice alley oops. He made a couple of nice passes on the pick and roll as well, ending up with 7 assists, and could have had more if not for some missed shots. He didn't shoot the ball that well, going 4 for 12, and 2 for 6 from the three, but it was good enough to keep the other team honest. His most memorable shot coming late in the 4th quarter with one tick left on the shot clock, when he traveled but wasn't called and jumped into Griffin and literally threw the ball at the basket and banked in a three. That shot ended up tying the game and eventually sending it into overtime. He didn't do much in overtime except for a nice dish to Patterson on a pick and roll, and miss a wide open three. --Baja
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