Hi everyone.
I hate to be the one to break this unanimous chorus,
but whoever says that tonight our guys turned their back on the up-tempo bull*** and went back to Malone's good old ways IS SIMPLY WRONG AND MISLEADING...
As I can easily show (see below) - tonight was the absolute embodyment of up-tempo.
Kings' game pace was NEVER that high (At least this season).
The blessed twist in the plot, though, was some tough D for a change (And an OKC bad shooting night).
So - whether we like it or not - it might be claimed that what we all saw tonight was the very style of play that PDA was preaching for. The one that we (myself included) were so loud against...
Look at the Pace measure in the Kings' advanced stats:
(Pace = The number of possessions per 48 minutes for a team)
And what about tonight? Was the team back to the slower pace we started the season with, or in line with the new (3.0?) quicker pace?
Surprised? I'm not.
I watched the game last night, and I can't believe anyone could have missed that, in the simple eye test -
we ran very fast, and took our shots VERY early whenever we had a chance to (In most cases TOO early for my taste, I admit).
At those times when the OKC defense was already too set and heavy to get a quick easy bucket - we dropped the ball to DMC or Rudy or Landry to post it up and get the defenders in foul trouble (or get blocked, sometimes...)
Now, it's not my favorite kind of BBall, but together with strong D - at least it looks like a plan,
and it worked perfectly tonight!
JUST SAYING...
I hate to be the one to break this unanimous chorus,
but whoever says that tonight our guys turned their back on the up-tempo bull*** and went back to Malone's good old ways IS SIMPLY WRONG AND MISLEADING...
As I can easily show (see below) - tonight was the absolute embodyment of up-tempo.
Kings' game pace was NEVER that high (At least this season).
The blessed twist in the plot, though, was some tough D for a change (And an OKC bad shooting night).
So - whether we like it or not - it might be claimed that what we all saw tonight was the very style of play that PDA was preaching for. The one that we (myself included) were so loud against...
Look at the Pace measure in the Kings' advanced stats:
(Pace = The number of possessions per 48 minutes for a team)
- In the first 24 games (under Malone) our pace was 95.70
- The tempo indeed went up in the next 10 games (the awfully bad stretch after Malone was fired), averaging 99.36
And what about tonight? Was the team back to the slower pace we started the season with, or in line with the new (3.0?) quicker pace?
- Well, tonight's game had a freakishly high pace of 107.72!
Surprised? I'm not.
I watched the game last night, and I can't believe anyone could have missed that, in the simple eye test -
we ran very fast, and took our shots VERY early whenever we had a chance to (In most cases TOO early for my taste, I admit).
At those times when the OKC defense was already too set and heavy to get a quick easy bucket - we dropped the ball to DMC or Rudy or Landry to post it up and get the defenders in foul trouble (or get blocked, sometimes...)
Now, it's not my favorite kind of BBall, but together with strong D - at least it looks like a plan,
and it worked perfectly tonight!
JUST SAYING...
Last edited: