Okay...this felt like it might be the beginning of something. Much to interest again:
-- we played defense and held the #1 scoring team in the league to 91
-- Gay was great again, changes the whole feel having a 2nd weapon (actually the first weapon much of the night)
-- we solved the terrible SG woes by just only playing them half the game and running big lineups with Gay at SG the rest of the mins
-- IT got the unselfishness memo loud and clear, presumably from the coaching staff, but my ego tells me it was me.
-- and on a night when Cuz's numbers were likely better than his impact, we blowout another playoff team
And we're taking it to Texas on our home floor. When do the Spurs come to town? Now we finally hit the road, but 3 of the 4 games out East are winnable. Maybe things turn. Maybe they don't. But we actually have the talent to make it interesting now.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 39min 26pts (10-20, 1-3, 5-6) 5reb 4ast 4stl 1blk 4TO
Gay ( A+ ) -- As I watched the game, it occurred to me, that you don't realize how mediocre some of the players on your team are, until you add someone like Gay. I hate to echo the words of Grant Napier, but, he makes the game look easy. Yes, I know its only two games, but you can see the talent he has. I don't know if I can say he's a complete player, but when he's on, he's damm close. Tonight, there wasn't much he didn't do right. He made the right pass at the right time. Example: He grabbed a defensive rebound, dribbled the length of the floor, started into the lane and then hit a cutting JT for an easy basket. A minute later, he steals the ball, and goes end to end through traffic and lays it in, and made it look like he was walking in the park. A few possessions later, Cousins drove to the basket, but missed, and there was Gay with the follow up basket. If not for a problem guarding Parsons in the first quarter, he would have been almost flawless. But Parsons got him to buy his pump fake, and went dancing to the basket. It was interesting watching how Malone picked his times to rest Gay. He went to the bench briefly at the 3:59 mark of the 1st quarter, and returned 2:35 of the 1st quarter. This was the pattern throughout the game. Upon returning he hit a corner three. On the next possession he drove down the lane through traffic, avoided Howard's outstretched arm, and scored. He wasn't perfect. On one occasion, he started to drive to the basket, but tripped and turned it over. Most of his shots were good shots, except for one where the clock was running down, and another, when he took a three from the left wing very early in the set. After the first quarter, I thought his defense was pretty good. He had 4 steals, and also added 4 assists. All in all, he was a pleasure to watch, and its been some time since I've seen anyone in a Kings uniform make the game of basketball look so easy. I can only pray that this is a sample of whats to come.
--Baja
Stats: 23min 9pts (4-7, 0-0, 1-2) 5reb 0ast 0stl 2blk 2TO
Thompson ( B ) -- Pretty solid bounce back game from JT after his complete meltdown of a performance against the Suns Friday night. He found a few different ways to be effective despite the fact that he is a complete non-factor offensively right now. This isn’t really his fault, and I’m not even saying it isn’t the correct strategy, but he rarely gets the ball. I found it interesting that Malone went with Cousins on Howard for most of the first half, which put Thompson on Terrence Jones who he completely shut down. Cousins did a nice job on Howard, but that was a risky move by Malone as the odds of Cousins getting into foul trouble defending Howard are a lot higher than they would have been on Jones. Thompson had a fine first half, but he really stepped it up in the second half, particularly on defense. Malone used him more on Howard late in the game, and Thompson responded well, battling him the whole way. He had a typical Jason Thompson game offensively, scoring off of hustle plays on the offensive glass and in transition to go a long with a few open dunks. Just a real nice, solid role-playing game for Jason. --Mass
Stats: 32min 21pts (7-14, 0-0, 7-7) 10reb 5ast 1stl 0blk 4TO
Cousins ( B- ) -- DeMarcus started out the game really poorly. Howard picked up an instant foul on him for a three-point play and followed that up by mishandling the pass on a pick and roll. He then proceeded to throw up brick after brick in the paint, finishing the first half 1-6, scoring six points on four free throws and a dunk on the fast break. To top that off, he had only two rebounds at the break. Things turned around in the second half on the scoring side, where he suddenly looked more poised out there and went 6-8, though that does count the crazy stepback jumper that he launched off the glass that really had no business going in. He got two shots by moving on offense, getting a nice delivery from Gay on a pick and roll and then being set up for a thunderous dunk by Isaiah as he rumbled down an inexplicably empty lane. The rebounding was also much better as the game went on, and Cousins grabbed eight boards in the second half. Cousins' passing was on display all night, as he notched five assists, setting up Williams, JT, and IT at the hoop, the final one a sharp bounce pass through the lane that elicited a gleeful grin on the baseline camera. Note to the league: you do not want this guy playing happy. Case in point - after IT was called for a questionable traveling midway through the fourth and started arguing with the refs, it was hotheaded Cousins who came up to him, pointed upwards and appeared to mouth "scoreboard", at which point IT just turned around and went to play defense. Speaking of defense, Cousins was not bad on Dwight Howard tonight (Dwight only scored 4 points on him in the post, on 1-2 shooting and 2-5 from the line), but he had no end of trouble defending the pick and roll, especially in the second quarter where Howard rolled unmolested to the hoop for 2 when Cousins went high, and then a few plays later Harden drove right around him when he stayed home. He also allowed one easy layup to each of the Houston PGs in the second half. To his credit, he did pick up Parsons on a late pick and roll and played some very nice D to bother him into a travel (he also bothered Howard into a travel in the post in the first). Altogether, the second half was a great showing, but the dismal first half forces me to grade Cuz down a bit. --Capt.
Stats: 23min 4pts (1-4, 0-0, 2-2) 1reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( D ) -- Well…there has been a lot of talk about the poor play of our SGs and it looks as if Malone is on the same page because Ben didn’t perform well in this one and not only did Ben not get a lot of minutes, our SGs in general didn’t get a lot of minutes with Malone choosing to play big for large stretches of the game. I think that Malone saw that Ben was getting a bit frozen out of the offense so on the 1st possession of the game he ran a designed play to get Ben an open look. Ben came off of a screen, caught the ball and went up for the open jumper…but missed the shot. Unfortunately that was really the only designed play ran for Ben. He took 3 other shots, 1 was an offensive rebound where he went up and knocked down the jumper and the other two were corner 3s from the right wing that he missed. (One of the corner threes was a nice set-up, the other was a very ragged play), He also didn’t provide much rebounding or provide any assists and on an early play in the game got stripped for a TO which resulted in an easy basket in transition for the Rockets. So by and large he didn’t take many shots and didn’t really do much on the offensive end. On defense it was his job to guard Harden and you know what? He actually did a pretty decent job on Harden. The first few possession the Rockets went to Harden in the post and Ben did well in keeping Harden from converting. Guarding Harden on the perimeter was hit-and-miss. Harden never actually was able to go one-on-one and beat Ben to the basket so the Rockets brought Howard up to set high screens and Ben’s performance in defense varied. On one possession Howard killed him on the screen and Harden had an open lane to the rim. The next play Ben was more aware of the screen coming and iced it, then was able to get back in front of Harden...but Harden ended up hitting the long 3pt shot, which from a defensive possession is what you want to see even if the offense happens to convert. So in the 1st half Ben got 18 minutes of playing time and to me it felt as if he was solely out there to try and defend Harden. In the 2nd half it got interesting because 1 minute into the 3rd quarter Harden rolls his ankle and comes out of the game. Ben played 3 more minutes but because Harden wasn’t playing and Ben’s offensive game or hustle game wasn’t really there, Malone sent him to the bench where he sat for the rest of the game. So ineffective in the offense and asked to contain Harden which he had some good and bad moments doing…and ended up being benched for all but 4 minutes of the 2nd half translates to another poor outing and another poor grade for Ben. I’m curious to see if Malone is going to continue to start Ben or bring him off the bench or play the larger line-up of Outlaw-Gay-Williams/JT-Cousins if he thinks he can get away with it on the defensive end. We’ll see but right now Ben doesn’t look good in this new starting line-up and it might be time to think about moving him back to the bench where he can hopefully get more minutes being a higher scoring option and get back into some sort of rhythm. As a last interesting note to this game: Our SGs were 2-7 in 30 minutes of play with 3 rebounds. 2 of their 3 rebounds and all of their buckets came from an offensive rebound and put-back...not what you want to see out of your SGs.... --Uncia
Stats: 42min 19pts (7-12, 1-3, 4-5) 2reb 8ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Thomas ( A- ) -- okay, and here we finally had it. It was clear from the beginning of this one that somebody had talked to IT about that gunning performance last time out, and it was a completely different player in the early going of this one. Quiet start, actually maybe too quiet as I was worried for a while we were seeing another J.R. Smith/Kobe "oh you don't want me to shoot? I'll show you not shooting..." performance, and the result was that IT actually managed to play the entire first quarter, 11 minutes, without taking a single shot. As a playmaker he wasn't doing much either until just before leaving, when he came up with a pair of nice drive and kicks for assists. But the lack of FG attempts would change immediately upon him returning from his only rest, as he immediately forced a random bad shot three...and hit it while being fouled for a 4pt play. It was a worrisome sign, but it didn't lead to any prolonged dumbness, and IT kept himself in check until the end of the half when DeMarcus went to the bench, and then he squirted free for a couple of late hits, capped by drawing the third personal foul on Dwight just before halftime. And so IT managed to score his 11pts alright...but this time he did it without disrupting the team, without ever missing a shot, and while picking his spots. It was really exactly what was needed. In the third he began to make some really nice passes to Gay for an alley oop, slipped it inside to Cuz as he rolled to the hoop, late in the quarter he made several nice dropoff passes after breaking down the defense -- he was playing like a PG this time not a shooting guard. There were a few rumbles, a few burps where his inner gunner struggled to take possession. After scoring a hoop on nice little curl around a screen, he got overexcited and needlessly threw up a 1 on 1 shot next time down. He forced one of those transition threes off his dribble, and added another force in the early 4th when it briefly looked like he was going to regress into hero ball to try to save a team that didn't need saving. But it never fully took hold. Whether it was the coaches talking to him during timeouts, or self regulation or what, every time you felt that overfevered play coming on, something would break the fever and he would sink back into running the team. And that was perfect. Rudy Gay was great, Cuz came on late, and we just pulled away from the Rockets and outclassed them fairly easily. Anything more would have detracted, not added. In the final two minutes IT scooted to the hoop for maybe the game sealer, and then got a little going away gift on a nifty pass from Cuz as IT was circling under the hoop. And so Isaiah wrapped up a game where he was less of an impact player, but I think actually more of a positive factor than he often has been. When you have Cuz and Gay one obvious comparison is to having Randolph and Gay in Memphis, and tonight IT was channeling his inner Mike Conley. You can win some games that way. --Brick
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