You Be the Coach: vs. Grizz 01/18/2012

[Bricklayer]

Well, they're better than us. They have a big frontline that Boogie has struggled against. They have Tony Allen to throw at Reke. After a close first half, they blew us out in the second half on our homecourt a week ago. And now the prominence last game of Jimmer and Chuck has added another wrinkle into our wrinkled old crone set of rotation wrinkles. They have however lost 3 straight games, and been blown out in each, so maybe the new front office's genius move of attacking Rudy Gay has got them distracted.

So how do you you coach this to pull out an unlikely victory?

Grizz likely rotation:
C- Gasol
PF- Randolph
SF- Gay
SG- Allen
PG- Conley

PG/SG - Bayless
SG/SF- Ellington
PF/C- Arthur
PF/C- Speights

[Bricklayer]

-----------------------------

I am not a fan of constant lineup shuffling, and so I am going to stick with the same starting 5:

C- Cousins
PF- Thomposn
SF- Salmons
SG- Evans
PG- Thomas

reserves:
TRob *see ntoes
Jimmer
Thornton

main big: TRob (against the Grizz reserves); Hayes (if JT fails and big minutes are needed against Randolph)
-- Hayes has people to push and shove with in Gasol and Randolph. On the other hand there is no reason TRob can't handle the reserves Speights and Arthur. You know as well as I do Smart will play them both, but I think the way to run this is that TRob gets primary shot to be the primary backup against Speights/Arthur. But if Jason fails again, then jsut like last game you bump Hayes up into JTs spot rather than TRob because I think either Gaosl or Randolph just destroy TRob if we have him try to guard them.

PG, NOT SG this time: Jimmer
-- givne how well it worked this time, and Brooks' last game, Jimmer should get bumped over him in the rotation. but Jimmer/Marcus as a reserve backcourt is defenseless and has no ballhandling. Meanwhile just a week ago Jimmer was awful against this team, and got absolutely lit up by Wayune Ellington of all people. Meanwhile there is actually a place to try to hide him amongst the starters against Tony Allen, although Allen can attack the hoop and could hurt him there. Its still a reasonable matchup. But I am sticking with Thomas as a starter, so off the bench I just want to make sure Jimmer is mostly guarding Bayless, who can score himself but at least hasn't had a career high against us in the last week. Note: if I just start Jimmer, and make IT the reserve here, the matchups and balance gets a lot better. But our continuity is broken again.

SG/SF: Thornton
-- Coach Smart has obviously struggled badly to find ways to play Thornton without slicing Reke's minutes, or vice versa. the key to that ever working was Reke had to play a lot of PG, because Thornton can only play the one spot, which just happens to be Reke's natural position. But in this one Memphis is likely to spell Gay with guys like Ellington or Tony Wroten -- natural SGs posing as SFs. So I am not afraid to get Marcus some minutes at backup SF if those guys are the matchup.

No JJ:
-- James Johnson is the obvious Gay matchup, but we know he's been suddenly and mysteriously yanked from the rotation so that won't happen. And Gay was no factor in Sacto. And off the Grizz bench there is nobody for him to guard. So his minutes may be scarce unless its a blowout.

-- Brooks and Cisco should both be fine options against the Grizz reserves. Not necessary but fine. The biggest issue with them aren't them themselves, but other guys. If Brooks plays, then Jimmer becomes the SG, possibly against Ellington, who lit him up last week. I want no repeat of that. And against this team we may be able to get Thornton some non-Reke minute stealing minutes by playing him some at SF, which would chew into Cisco's time. Of course we could only play Marcus at SF if both Brooks and Jimmer were there together in the backcourt...so...can we get a balancing trade already?

[HereWeVivek]

more of what we saw in the second half of the last game. just add in a little Marcus Thornton

[Kingster]

It's all about toughness and grit with this game. You've got to get some major effort and toughness out of Cousins, Thompson, and Robinson. And I'll throw Tyreke in there as well. He's the best defensive player. Now he needs to really get after it in this game and get loose balls and rebounds and inspire his teamates. No sight-seeing allowed in this game. Get the ball.

PS I wouldn't mind seeing more of Johnson. He's one of the toughest defensive players the Kings have. Maybe after being a dnp for a while he has become a little more prudent in his offensive game.