Tee hee.
Well, you weren't sure where this was headed as we came back off a 5 day break looking like we didn't even remember who each other were. But we got steadied by the bench of all things, and then the starters locked in, and our own Big Three bumped, grinded and battled down the Heat. Serves those arrogant bastards right for treating us as a JV team they could rest their old guys against.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Rainmaker
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 40min 26pts (11-19, 1-5, 3-3) 3reb 1ast 1stl 1blk 5TO
Gay ( A- ) -- This was another of those tales of two halves. He started the game on a bad note by shooting an air ball from beyond the arc. He followed on the next possession by throwing a very dangerous pass that somehow got to JT who laid it in. At the other end, he lost Lebron briefly, who blew past him for a dunk, and was fouled. He then attacked from the left wing, but left it short off the rim, got the rebound, but missed the putback. At this point, I thought just maybe this wasn't going to be his night. After a time out, he came back in and played very good defense on Lebron and then on Battier. He followed at the other end with a beautiful spin move on the right baseline for a dunk. He then stole the ball, only to have the ball stolen back by Chalmers. After getting his second foul guarding Lebron, he went to the bench at 4:45 of the first quarter. He re-entered the game at 5:09 of the 2nd quarter and immediately missed a three pointer from the right elbow. He followed that with a terrific one handed finish of an alley opp from Cuz. He ended his contribution to the first half by hitting a a 15 footer. He picked up in the second half where he left off at the end of the first half. He started by hitting a three pointer from the left wing, and then hit a long two pointer from the right wing. A bit later, he drove into the key, and upon contact he threw up a shot over his shoulder as he was spinning with his back almost to the basket that went in, and he was fouled. From that point on, he hardly missed a shot. Maybe his most important shot of the night came when he hit a highly contested 12 footer that tied the game with 1:02 left in the game. He then started the overtime by hitting another three pointer. Offensively he scored 26 points and went 11 of 19 overall. Had he rebounded better, he only had 3 boards, or had a couple more assists, He only had one, his grade might have been higher. We certainly wouldn't have won the game without him, and overall, his defense, except for a couple of lapses, was pretty good tonight. Overall, good game from the SF position. --Baja
Stats: 21min 10pts (5-6, 0-0, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Thompson ( A- ) -- Thompson was a bit of a mismatching part, playing against a Heat team that really doesn't have size in the frontcourt. He opened the game guarding Shane Battier of all people, and outside of a few minutes guarding Haslem in the second half was pretty much stuck on a perimeter player all night. Because of that, you can't really complain about his low minutes in the game -- or about his low rebounds as he was spending so much time on the perimeter. In point of fact, Battier wasn't really killing him - six of Battier's nine points came on two threes, one where JT was helping on a Bosh cut in the lane and the other in transition when JT was again defending the paint. He was a half-second late on a couple of help rotations (I noted one Bosh and one Chalmers basket that were not quite contested) but other than that played solid defense despite being forced onto the perimeter. On offense he was playing great positional ball - four of his five baskets were assisted, and on all four of those he had nobody between him and the basket and got an easy layup. What more can you ask for? Because of Miami's smallball lineup he didn't get a lot of minutes, but he definitely gets a good grade for his minutes played. --Capt.
Stats: 41min 27pts (10-21, 0-0, 7-10) 17reb 5ast 2stl 0blk 5TO
Cousins ( A ) -- What a game. There was so much going on here that I don’t even know where to start. I’ll say this, though; DeMarcus Cousins was much better in the second half and overtime than he was in the first half. He wasn’t very involved in whatever offense we were running in that horrendous first quarter, and had one of the more frustrating sequences in the first half where Bosh blocked him (he thought it was goaltending), complained and was late getting back on defense forcing Jason Thompson to defend Bosh inside, leaving Battier open for what felt like his 5th 3 in the first half. It didn’t start very well for Cousins, but boy did he turn it around. His offense on the night wasn’t flashy. We didn’t feature him as much as we could have or should have. He was getting hammered all night, though, and really made his living at the free throw line, or on the offensive glass with putbacks. This was mostly because no one on the Heat could handle DeMarcus inside (duh). It was foul him or get scored on in the second half. That’s it, he was a beast. His 17 rebounds were 9 more than any Heat player, and if the Kings destroyed Miami in any one area it was on the glass. You can thank DeMarcus for that. We’ve seen games out of DeMarcus where his superior skill level was on display. This wasn’t that kind of night. This was an “I am bigger than all of you, and you can’t stop me” kind of night. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was fun to watch. I also have to mention his passing, particularly from the high post or on the break to Jason Thompson for easy buckets. His defense on Bosh was hit or miss, which was frustrating because for stretches I saw DeMarcus guard Bosh really well. So well that it gave me that “why can’t you do that all the time?” feeling. Overall, though, it was an improvement on that end from a few nights ago. With all of that being said, above all else, I was most impressed by his composure tonight. Things were not going well early on in this one, and Cousins picked up an early technical. He had about 3 quarters + overtime of frustration to tech himself out of this one and he didn’t. He had 5 fouls for a while late in the fourth quarter and throughout overtime, and he never fouled out. That’s impressive. That’s improvement. Even when Miami tried to take him out of it in the 4th quarter with back-to-back hard fouls via James and Chalmers (I’ll call flop on the Chalmers one, but still) Cousins never retaliated. He kept his cool, and the Kings won. They beat the Heat. --Mass
Stats: 24min 2pts (1-4, 0-1, 0-0) 5reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
McLemore ( D ) -- ok, so I get to be the designated Debbie Downer grade in this one, but then again I had the SGs, so what do you expect? Ball of complete nothingness out there in the first quarter. Think he grabbed a defensive board or two. Otherwise just ignored by both teams as a non-entity. Came back in with the starters to close the second half, and immediately had a series of demoralizing misadventures, turning his head and getting scored on inside by Chalmers on a cut, missing an open three after Cuz was doubled, getting stripped by Cole as they went right after his handle on a move inside. Finally did get one easy little dunk when Isaiah hit him standing right under the hoop with under 2min to go in the half. That would be his only score. It was an anybody could have done it play. Members of this board could have done it. Started the 2nd half immediately being made a passer on our drawn up play, and threw it out of bounds past IT's reach. Really had maybe his only highlight of the night on a nice pass a couple of minutes later though over the top to beat the fronting on Cuz. Then resumed his struggles with another turnover trying to dribble into traffic, missed another three on a kickout from Cuz (he misses so many of those you have to wonder how long Cuz is going to continue making that pass) and even took a hard screen to the chops by Battier for his troubles.. Played almost no role as we stormed back into it late in the 3rd. Just the extra body out there, although with us its always notable when our SGs aren't causing a defensive meltdown. Anyway, you know its going bad when even when everybody else is having a party you are the one poor schlub left out. In fact they may have just forgotten to invite you entirely. --Brick
Stats: 41min 20pts (7-16, 3-7, 5-6) 7reb 11ast 1stl 0blk 3TO
Thomas ( A- ) -- Isaiah didn't start this one off all that well. While he had a favorable defensive match-up against Chalmers he came out struggling on the offensive end. Missed his first three shots and had problems holding onto the ball. Made a bad pass which ended up next to Vivek in the stands. Later dribbled into trouble and lost the ball only to have Cole bounce if off his own foot. Contributed to us coming out slow and getting down 23-6 early. Began to settle as the quarter wore on and hit two shots, including a 3 on a kickout. Had a nice pass to Ben cutting under the hoop in the 2nd after returning from a breather. At the end of the 2nd with the clock winding down forced the issue into a crowd and picked up a charge. Didn't successfully execute the last play of the quarter in either the 1st or the 2nd. Did however do a good job stepping back and running offense for his teammates, making a quick initial pass to start sets most trips down the floor. Continued contributing more as a facilitator in the 2nd half while the team won the 3rd. After his 2nd half breather, came in and hit a big 3 with 6 min to go to make it a 3pt game. Then two mins later threw a pass to Cuz which missed him by 5+ ft and resulted in a turnover. Had a mini explosion in the OT period to help give us a bit of a cushion as he got the best of Chalmers when it mattered most. Gay slipped a screen up top on Isaiah's man and IT hit him for a wing 3. Then running the two-man game with Gay again, came off to the left elbow and hit the jumper. Next possession came down and hit a pull 3 from the top of the key. Had a hand in the first 8 points of OT where we got some separation, went up 97-91 and were able to hold on. Probably not your typical A- performance but when you come up big and do so against the two-time defending champs, your grade gets slightly bumped. Along with Gay and Cuz, Isaiah was a key part of the trio which led to the upset.--Rain
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Oh and Spoelstra was definitely priming for the playoffs, indeed, since we are 1/3 into the season and haven't even hit the all star break, yeah he definitely had playoffs on his mind. 
