[Grades] Grades v. Warriors 1/8/2017

[Bricklayer]

Link to Boxscore

Gay ( B+ ) -- had himself a helluva first quarter (15pts) ...that you knew could never last. Eventually things returned to the normal Durant/Gay matchup, i.e., not good. There were blown defensive coverages too. But for a while Rudy in full flight had the Warriors on their heels. Then he scored 8 the rest of the way as the Warriors took away both our #1 and #2.

Tolliver ( A- ) -- this is up near the high end of what Tolliver can give you. The Warriros want to shoot threes, and he said, I can do that. But despite some breakdowns he also gave us defense and largely negated the Draymond mismatch problem.

Cousins ( D ) -- this is the second time in 3 games that Cousins has failed us, and in this one his struggles actually did a lot to finish our upset bid. Started out so well early, but got a couple of close calls against him, which of course always triggers him, and had to sit. The Warriors swarmed him and disrupted him, and he turned it over. Bad time for a slump.

Temple ( B+ ) -- both the guys that Joerger finally inserted after months of fan protests, gave us real games tonight. Temple brought the defense against the long Warriors wings and PGs and scored efficiently at the other end. One big note though, with about 6 minutes to go in the game and us still clinging to a fools hope, Garret went tot eh line and bricked 2 FTs that would have made it 8. The timing and optics were terrible.

Collison ( D ) -- you can ignore the boxscore here, its a mirage. DC scored 9 pts in the last 3 minutes or so of the game as we were basically out of things. Until that point he was right back into being perpetually ineffective. Did try bon defense though, although hard to credit him with making the Warriors guards miss so much in the first half.

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Barnes ( D+ ) -- the ability to hit a shot would be handy. And to avoid the nightly really really dumb turnover. Knew he wasn't shooting though, and unselfish to the point of overpassing. Competed with Durant, but did not stop him.

Koufos ( B- ) -- had to come in several times to spell various Cousins situations. Missed his little flips, on a night when you absolutely can;t and we were relying on inside scoring to give us a chance, but competed well inside in other aspects.

Afflalo ( C ) -- came in and hit a three, and when given a chance on decent matchups was giving us a good defensive effort. But never able to get any real momentum going, and was just kind of the other guy in most of his lineups.

Lawson ( B+ ) -- played an excellent and aggressive first half in all out attack mode, and really outplaying anybody the Warriors put across from him. Like many things, did not go as well after half, and while he was very effective as a scorer, all the Warriors length and hands was causing problems for him trying to set up other guys.

 

[kingsboi]

second consecutive game Cousins has been a non-factor and completely been taken out of his game due to speed and swarming hands. More teams I hope continue this approach with him, maybe he will get back in the post that way on a consistent basis when the shot isn't falling.

My favorite part of the game was the multiple instances where Rudy screened Collison and they both got caught up leaving a wide open lane or wide open three. pick your poison.

Warriors discrepancy in offensive rebounding is alarming, this team needs some youth in there, too bad George Joerger will have none of that.

 

[Bricklayer]

second consecutive game Cousins has been a non-factor and completely been taken out of his game due to speed and swarming hands. More teams I hope continue this approach with him, maybe he will get back in the post that way on a consistent basis when the shot isn't falling.

My favorite part of the game was the multiple instances where Rudy screened Collison and they both got caught up leaving a wide open lane or wide open three. pick your poison.

Warriors discrepancy in offensive rebounding is alarming, this team needs some youth in there, too bad George Joerger will have none of that.

We have no youth that is going to help us be better on the glass anytime soon. Malachi might help marginally from a guard spot, but I don't know he'd give you much more than Afflalo or Temple.

We really do need a tough full sized rebounding fool of a PF. Those guys are almost obsolete in the current game, but we've had so few over the years you'd think they were unicorns.

Alternately of course we could use bigger PGs.

 

[Lopes]

We have no youth that is going to help us be better on the glass anytime soon. Malachi might help marginally from a guard spot, but I don't know he'd give you much more than Afflalo or Temple.

We really do need a tough full sized rebounding fool of a PF. Those guys are almost obsolete in the current game, but we've had so few over the years you'd think they were unicorns.

Alternately of course we could use bigger PGs.

We had Acy and Evans at one point. Now only Cuz and Koufas are the only part timers

 

[Big Cuz 15]

second consecutive game Cousins has been a non-factor and completely been taken out of his game due to speed and swarming hands. More teams I hope continue this approach with him, maybe he will get back in the post that way on a consistent basis when the shot isn't falling.

My favorite part of the game was the multiple instances where Rudy screened Collison and they both got caught up leaving a wide open lane or wide open three. pick your poison.

Warriors discrepancy in offensive rebounding is alarming, this team needs some youth in there, too bad George Joerger will have none of that.

shocked they don't have him in the post getting them in foul trouble. i don't see any creativity in the offensive schemes with joerger.

 

[KingsFan80]

I don't know about Grades..but Tolliver and Temple played good, Lawson good, Collison no, and Barnes is horrible. He needs to find a good seat on the bench. Let someone else play

 

[206Fan]

I think the Kings need to find a solid PF to pair next to Cousins. We are terrible on the boards, and I think demoting Koufos to our bench helps with our bench's rebounding.

Tyson Chandler is old and kinda washed up, but he's still an amazing rebounder. I wonder if we give the Suns a call?

 

[Blob]

The graphic misses the point which is to imply "this was a loss before the game started, move along, nothing to see here" but there's more to it. We've seen this before. We were rolling when Boogie's stifled momentum and chances at upset bid. Its not enough for the team to do well. It has to happen on his terms. When defense stiffens, it is a time for more patience and poise, not less. Its time for more intensity and hustle when calls don't go your way, not less! This is how champions are made and you stay in these games to the end. We were probably were going to lose anyway but Cousins turned probability to certainty. When you make the ref a scapegoat and drag the rest of the team down with you, you help do your opponents job for them. Objective fans know what I mean. The mark of a man is not how he responds to success....it's how he responds to adversity.

 

[Blob]

I think the Kings need to find a solid PF to pair next to Cousins. We are terrible on the boards, and I think demoting Koufos to our bench helps with our bench's rebounding.

Tyson Chandler is old and kinda washed up, but he's still an amazing rebounder. I wonder if we give the Suns a call?

Vlade agrees with you thats why he's going after Millsap. Tyson Chandler is fairly similar to Koufos. No thanks.

 

[hrdboild]

We have no youth that is going to help us be better on the glass anytime soon. Malachi might help marginally from a guard spot, but I don't know he'd give you much more than Afflalo or Temple.

We really do need a tough full sized rebounding fool of a PF. Those guys are almost obsolete in the current game, but we've had so few over the years you'd think they were unicorns.

Alternately of course we could use bigger PGs.

In his former life (pre George Karl) Boogie was one of the premier rebounding bigs in the game. As he's expanded his offensive skillset and started hanging around the perimeter with the guards more and more, that desire to fight inside and own the boards has disappeared from his gameplan and what was one of our team's only strengths for years has suddenly become a significant weakness. Trying to patch it up with a rebounding PF would just be more of what we've been doing throughout this past decade of futility-- missing the big picture and overreacting to immediate needs instead. We need a shooter, draft Stauskas. Oh wait, he's not ready yet. Trade him and sign Marco. We need defense, draft Cauley-Stein. Oh wait, he can't rebound. Get a rebounding PF instead...

Could be Vlade has already brought in our bench bigs of the future with Skal and Papagiannis. Skal is long and bouncy and Papagiannis is a big body who can carve out space under the basket. Assuming DeMarcus hasn't completely lost the knack, we really just need the most talented front court partner we can get to play 30 minutes per game and hold their own. People get hung up on the type of player it should be-- a stretch 4, a defensive specialist, an enforcer to grab boards and dish out hard fouls-- it really doesn't matter. Any number of styles could work, we just need talent. A mediocre version of any of the above does us no good. It just comes down to who is obtainable that is good enough to elevate the whole team to a higher level of competitiveness.

 

[KingMilz]

I think the Kings need to find a solid PF to pair next to Cousins. We are terrible on the boards, and I think demoting Koufos to our bench helps with our bench's rebounding.

Tyson Chandler is old and kinda washed up, but he's still an amazing rebounder. I wonder if we give the Suns a call?

Tyson Chandler has taken the Kevin Love approach to rebounding where he now no longer contests shots or does anything much on D other than sag back for rebounds, dude barley defends the rim anymore. Teams would just bomb wide open 3's on us even more with TC.

I liked Chandler a lot prior to the Suns but all the Suns did by bringing him in was destroy the development of Alex Len who actually protects the rim and is capable at the other end, Chandler is literally Rondo style stat padding his boards.

 

[KingsFanGER]

It amazes me, that somehow I have a completely different opinion on why our team has trouble to rebound the ball. Asking for a full sized old school PF seems odd for me, when we constantly get outrebounded by teams, that are basically playing small at 4 positions.
Whenever I watch a Kings game, there are two major scenarios where we fail to come out with the rebound,

1. Cousins has the inside position on his matchup, but the opponent shoots a three, causing a long rebound, leading to an advantage for the opponent further away from the basket. This usually leads to to tip-out, which is most often collected by the opposing wings and guards.
2. Cousins our KK is forced to rotate to cut off penetration, which leaves his man briefly open for the putback or at least gives him a matchup advantage versus Barnes for example.

Adding a traditional PF to the lineup would potentially help with the second scenario, but would do nothing in the first. And adding a traditional PF would put us at an overall disadvantage, because we would not be able to keep up with the speed of most teams, nor with the shooting and would still give up long rebound after long rebound. What we need is not a traditional full sized PF, but more aggressive and athletic wings and bigger guards.

Same goes with the narrative, that we need to put DMC back in the post more. Really every isolation post up attempt I remember in the game versus the Warriors resulted in a turnover or a low efficiency shot attempt. Just feeding the post won't work, when the Warriors get away with slapping on Cuz's arms, wrists and shoulders and aren't afraid to double every time. What we should try is to let Cousins play within the offense instead of isoing him and let him get into position early, so that all he has to do is to catch and finish before the help arrives. We started the game really great - the ball was moving, our role player hit their shots, Cuz and Rudy were scoring in the flow of the offense, we forced plenty of turnovers. And than our momentum stopped again - the ball was sticking in Cuz's and most of all Rudy's hands too much, because they seemed to have some internal battle going on, wether Rudy or Cuz should lead the team in scoring. That caused forced drives, bad shot attempts and a lot of turnovers.
Compare that to the Warriors, where 3 (or 4, when you count Green) stars score within the flow of the offense, it's just crystal clear, why we lost the game.

It all comes down to lack of athleticism, lack of shooting, but most of all to lack of teamwork and too much hero balling. And that's not a new issue and while I see Cousins really trying to cut back his isolation attempts (when he is not overly frustrated and tries to win it all by himself, which still happens too often), Rudy just doesn't learn. What's even worse, is that he seems to think he should just launch 3's while guarded, which is basically a bailout for the opposition. He did that versus the Clippers in crunchtime, where his shot selection was just awful in the end and he did it again versus the Warriors. I just can't stand it anymore. If he wants to lead his own team and wants to be the star - get the hell out of here. I want teamball and guys playing for each other and I think watching our bench mob trying to beat people with ball and player movement is a lot more enjoyable, than watching Gay going to work on his own and making one dumb decision after the other.

Let me add one thing: I completely understand Cousins frustration with the ref's. Once again he got called for laughable contact. The moving screen call really was the icing on the cake, when you take a look at the screens the Warriors set with great regularity. Not that you can't call it a moving screen. Cuz was leaning forward. But as a ref you should treat every player the same and that's clearly not what they do.

 

[LPKingsFan]

Can we give the crowd a low grade? The amount of warriors fans was expected, but what I didn't expect the was the lack of energy or enthusiasm from my fellow kings fans, especially when the team was making its runs in the first half. We were up double digits against the warriors but it felt like my wife and I were on an island in our section (and there was plenty of purple there).

Maybe it was the weather. Or maybe it was the looming sense of inevitability. But G1C should have been rocking more, at least in that first half.

 

[ppine]

I see the positive effects of Coach J now all the time. The team is playing better, but there is no doubt that the opposition has come up with ways to swarm Cousins. Better play has not translated to wins lately, but it still might.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

the kings need better production from the 3 point line to make the opposition pay. rudy needs to go. he's supposed to be the second option but defenses don't focus on him like they do with cousins or tyreke. he's just not a scary threat.

 

[pshn80]

the kings need better production from the 3 point line to make the opposition pay. rudy needs to go. he's supposed to be the second option but defenses don't focus on him like they do with cousins or tyreke. he's just not a scary threat.

Just a lone minority report. Rudy is good at what he does. Don't get rid of him until you get someone to fill the hole in our starting lineup. I know he'll probably go for nothing at year end. I can't do anything about that. But I can root for us to keep a valuable asset in a year when some say we don't have many valuable assets.

 

[HndsmCelt]

We have no youth that is going to help us be better on the glass anytime soon. Malachi might help marginally from a guard spot, but I don't know he'd give you much more than Afflalo or Temple.

We really do need a tough full sized rebounding fool of a PF. Those guys are almost obsolete in the current game, but we've had so few over the years you'd think they were unicorns.

Alternately of course we could use bigger PGs.

And in related news Brooklyn just signed Quincy Acey today

 

[Bricklayer]

And in related news Brooklyn just signed Quincy Acey today

well, I've always liked Acy as a presence, but I would hardly call him a board mashing presence. As his stature floating around unemployed in midseason might indicate.

 

[New Era]

Can we give the crowd a low grade? The amount of warriors fans was expected, but what I didn't expect the was the lack of energy or enthusiasm from my fellow kings fans, especially when the team was making its runs in the first half. We were up double digits against the warriors but it felt like my wife and I were on an island in our section (and there was plenty of purple there).

Maybe it was the weather. Or maybe it was the looming sense of inevitability. But G1C should have been rocking more, at least in that first half.

I feel like the energy at G1 has overall been pretty weak all year. Honestly, I just don't think there is a lot of excitement about this team, even if they do hover around the 8th seed.

 

[KingsFanGER]

I feel like the energy at G1 has overall been pretty weak all year. Honestly, I just don't think there is a lot of excitement about this team, even if they do hover around the 8th seed.

Of course there isnt a lot of excitement. Basketball Fans arent dumb. They realize, that there is no long term future for this squad.
For people to bond with a team or players you need an identity, guys, who stand for this identity (i.e. Tony Allen or Tim Duncan) or guys, who stand for a promising future (Embiid).
The only thing worth cheering for in SAC are Cousins and Temple (and maybe Lawson) and both get a lot of cheering, when they have their game going.

 

[New Era]

Of course there isnt a lot of excitement. Basketball Fans arent dumb. They realize, that there is no long term future for this squad.
For people to bond with a team or players you need an identity, guys, who stand for this identity (i.e. Tony Allen or Tim Duncan) or guys, who stand for a promising future (Embiid).
The only thing worth cheering for in SAC are Cousins and Temple (and maybe Lawson) and both get a lot of cheering, when they have their game going.

I don't think the majority of casual Kings fans like Cousins that much. The hardcore fans who post in here are a much different group than the typical fan that you might run into at your work, family gathering, etc.

 

[KingsFanGER]

I don't think the majority of casual Kings fans like Cousins that much. The hardcore fans who post in here are a much different group than the typical fan that you might run into at your work, family gathering, etc.

Well I have never met another Kings Fan in person in my life. So you probably have more experience in that regard. All I can speak about is the atmosphere in the Arena, when I follow games on leaguepass and when Cousins is on, it seems like a lot of people are supporting him.

 

[dude12]

I've gone to 4 games this year and the level of excitement is consistent.....good effort is met with cheering, continual poor effort is always a problem....but the people I have sat around have been juiced for the game.

 

[Kingster]

As I recall the narrative of this team used to be that we don't need rebounders so much; we've got Cousins; so go out and get some guy to do some basketball thing (like block shots), and if he isn't much of a rebounder we can live with it. Cousins would come to the rescue. Didn't happen. Part of the reason it didn't happen is that WCS was supposed to get a rebound every 3 minutes, or at the very least one rebound every 4 minutes. Again, didn't happen. (He's currently averaging one rebound every 5.3 minutes).

In addition to the misconceptions noted above, the need for athleticism was underestimated. Repeatedly, we've seen opponents get key offensive rebounds off of the Kings, especially from the wing positions, especially at key junctures of games. The quickness to the ball on this team is terrible, and with many long rebounds because of a 3 point shooting league, the poor athleticism is magnified. The upshot of it all is that the notion that this team could be successful by adding some complementary mediocre pieces to Cousins has proved false. This point is important because it's a lot easier getting mediocre complementary players through FA than it is to get guys that are unequivocally talented in FA, especially for the Kings. With this FA avenue for success being blocked, the Kings are left with trade or draft to achieve success, both of which seem seem doubtful, but I'll leave discussion of that for another day.