Well...that went about as well as could be humanly expected. We get a career night from Derrick Williams. A career sharing the ball night from the little guy. And a mere 32-19 mushing by the big guy, including what coulda/shoulda been a Webb behind the back dunk on Barkley moment, when he posterized Dirk, but unfortunately got called for smacking him alongside the head with his forearm in the process (for these purposes we'll ignore all the times he passed it to Mavs like they were teammates). The Mavs looked helpless to stop any of it, and if it were not for our summer league quality bench tonight, this is a 25 to 30 point smackdown of a playoff team.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Spudfan
Rainmaker
Henkel
Boxscore
Stats: 35min 31pts (12-16, 3-5, 4-6) 5reb 0ast 5stl 0blk 2TO
Williams ( A+ ) -- my very first note on Derrick this game was a negative one, as he turned his head, didn't get through a screen, and let Marion free along the baseline for an easy conversion. Actually my second note was a negative too, well mostly negative, as he suddenly did something we have not seen from him before, and pulled up for an IT special 3ptr on the break off his own dribble. Of course in this game he made it -- in this game he made everything -- but it was still a bad shot. And that just about concluded the negative portions of my notes, as for the 3rd time in two weeks I finally ended up just pushing away the laptop with a final note of "career game" and enjoying the spectacle. He was just incredibly alive from the beginning of this one. You take the highlights of his first game with us, add in the ability to drain any jumper he took, a postup on Caldeon which he of course hit, two alley oops including the big splash play by IT throwing it off the backboard for him to finish near the end of the third, and splash on defensive energy and athleticsm as he just time and again stepped in passing lanes on the suddenly very old and slow looking Mavs, and he simply played a great game. In fact in the NBA he's never played a better one. I suppose it can be said that after giving us an early 4 rebound boost on the boards, he only nabbed 1 thereafter. But that is really and truly a nit, especially with the Boogie Monster in full King Kong mode in there. Call it showing off for the new guys, call it making an argument to the coaching staff why he should keep getting minutes, call it just taking advantage of an old slow team with his athleticism, whatever, it was a career game, and career games in wins are normally going to get you A plusses in this neck of the grading neighborhood. --Brick
Stats: 30min 10pts (3-7, 0-0, 4-6) 7reb 3ast 0stl 1blk 2TO
Thompson ( B+ ) -- JT did exactly what his role asked of him tonight and did it extremely well. Jason's job is not to challenge for leading scorer on the team, have the offense run through him or anchor our defense but rather to play solid to above average defense, clog up the paint a little, make life uncomfortable for the guy he's guarding, offer just enough offense to keep the defense honest and to bring effort/energy in the paint and on the glass on both ends. Tonight he did just that and I want to single out his defense on Dirk as being a game-changer. He made life very uncomfortable for Dirk, bodied him up, played him physical, forced him into tough fade away after tough fade away and really I thought prevented Dirk from getting into a rhythm. Dirk is Dirk, he'll hit shots many wouldn't have the cojones to take. When you face a top scorer like Dirk you live with the tough shots, not much you can do about them. Jason however did contest just about every look Dirk had, was right up in his face and did a good job sticking to Dirk and not letting him find open spaces/gaps in the defense. When you force Dirk to become more of a passer than scorer and didn't require a double team to do so, you played him just about as well as anyone can 1v1, and that's what Jason did tonight. Contributed well on the glass as well with 7 rebs, which wasn't easy given our franchise was eating up every rebound in his vicinity. On offense hit a couple open shots when the shots were there, didn't force anything, moved the ball well and was the epitome of a role player in that he stayed out of the way while our big three on the night were cooking, and boy were they hot. Looking past the numbers, this is part of what makes JT an attractive piece, he contributes while staying out of the way on offense which actually makes our offense more potent, more efficient. The guys who should be aggressive are allowed to be aggressive, while JT is comfortable staying out of their way, setting screens, being scrappy on the offensive glass, then hustling back on defense and immediately getting in Dirk's grill. Very good game from Jason tonight. I'd like to see him get a shot playing across a Gay/JT/Cuz front line. --Rain
Stats: 36min 32pts (10-17, 0-0, 12-14) 19reb 3ast 3stl 1blk 9TO
Cousins ( A+ ) -- Probably his best game of the year in what could end up being a important win when all is said and done. Dominate through out even if his first quarter stats didn't look great. Shot 2/8 for the quarter but at least a couple of those misses came from missed shots that quickly became put backs. Great on the glass early as he just dominated Blair for position down low. I don't understand how Carlisle thought he could get away with throwing undersized bruisers at Cousins, especially when they weren't doubling aggressively for the first two and a half quarters. Then finally Dirk gets a shot while Dallas's seven foot defensive specialist sat on the bench. Dumb and a little insulting, you can't just hack Cousins out of a game anymore. After a disastrous run by the bench helped steady the ship with the rest of the starters. Just to much inside. Able to establish great position almost every trip against over matched defenders. Also started pushing the ball far to much, a trend which continued through out the night, which lead to some ugly turnovers. No let down after the half as he got us off to a hot start with a couple of baskets followed by a great rebounding display on both ends. What was a still a big quarter got slowed down a bit as Cousins rightfully took a step back as Williams took over the last half of the third. Short run in the forth as we slowed things down a bit to grind this one out, but at that point the damage had already been done. Great game and a reminder that big post defenders are a scarce resource in the league and that Cousins is really damn good. --Henkel
Stats: 34min 3pts (1-7, 1-4, 0-0) 4reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
McLemore ( C- ) -- With an amazing game from our starters Ben was the odd man out and it’s actually something that could be a problem going forward. When the game started it was Cousins and IT dominating the ball and he didn’t even touch the ball till the 7th offensive half-court set possession and he received the ball as it was swung to him and he continued to swing it around the horn. The very first time he received the ball with a scoring opportunity was at the 4:10 mark when he had a 3pt shot that he took and made. So he was on the floor for 8 minutes before getting his first look, and unfortunately though he made that shot those would be the only 3 points in the game for him. He actually came out a few seconds later and then came in with 9 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, but at the SF position because Outlaw picked up his 3rd foul. He took a couple of shots in the 2nd quarter but none of them were of the catch-and-shoot variety but were off the dribble in one way or another, which really isn’t his strong suit at the moment. The 2nd half started pretty much like the first half did, as he only got the ball with the ability to have a scoring opportunity 1 time in the first 11 half-court set possession. Now in this game he wasn’t running and moving around as much as we’ve seen in the past and I don’t know if he was told to basically be a floor spacer rather than move around or what was going on, but he wasn’t moving around on offense and his teammates weren’t really getting him involved. So as I mentioned at the top, it could be a potential problem, especially when you bring Gay into the line-up. In the 2nd half he did have a couple catch-and-shoot opportunities which he did miss, but it definitely felt as if he was getting frozen out, and since he depends on other people to get him good looks, it’s something to watch going forward. The thing that was really encouraging is that the lack of offensive production didn’t stop his energy or from him from producing in other areas. He did grab 4 rebounds and made some really nice passes to pick up 3 assists and he actually did a good job guarding Ellis. Ellis made some plays against him, but by-and-large Ben did a good job against him. So the effort was there, the defense wasn’t bad, but he missed his shots, and he didn’t move the way that you expect him to, though I don’t know if that was by design or not for this team-transition game.--Uncia
Stats: 38min 24pts (7-16, 4-6, 6-6) 2reb 12ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Thomas ( A+ ) -- There were some questions coming into the game tonight about IT. Would he be able to get the ball to Cousins in the post? Could he temper his desire to shoot? Would he be able to find the open man? Fortunately for Kings fans he seemed to answer these questions with a resounding YES! IT started the game by throwing a nice pass to Cousins which lead to a shot right at the hoop and 2 free throws. The next four trips down on the offensive end all started with passes to Cousins at the elbow and built from there. It was clear from the start that the game plan was to run the offense through Cousins at the elbow during half court sets, and that is largely what happened. IT would bring the ball down the court and then pass it off to Cousins. He made sure that Cousins got his touches, but he was also setting up other guys and recored three assists in the first quarter. Of course he also scored 10 points while shooting 4-6. In the second quarter things slowed down for IT a little bit. Instead of the offense running through Cousins at the elbow we were focusing on getting the ball to Cousins down low. For those who didn’t see Uncia’s grade on IT for the last game, go check them out! He did a great job of breaking down who got Cousins the ball and where. But why is that important here? Well in the second quarter IT only recorded 1 assist (a nice pick and roll with Cousins) and went 0-2 with 1 turnover. For whatever reason, he has a bit of trouble getting it to Cousins in the deep post and his game suffers a bit when that is the way we are playing. If IT is going to be the long term starter for us, that is the one area that he will need to work on. In the second half of the game IT picked up the pace again and was great. He scored 14 points while recording 7 assists for a total of 12 and a new career high. That 12 could have easily been 15 as Outlaw and Thornton missed some wide open shots that were set up for by penetrating then kicking it out. As impressive as IT’s stat line was tonight, I think the most impressive aspect of his game was that he helped make his teammates better which is something that he hasn’t always done.--Spud
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