32pts (12-23FG) 11reb 3ast 3stl 1blk 1TO
27pts (8-16FG) 9reb 5ast 1stl 5blk 4TO
33pts (12-16FG) 3reb 6ast 3stl 0blk 6TO
Big Three: 92
Nuggets Team: 95
The 92 combined points from our Big Three was, according to my basketball-reference search, the most any 3 Kings have combined to score in the entire Sacramento era. The closet challenge was 20 years ago on April 6, 1994, before I even arrived at Penn, when Mitch, Spud and Wayman combined for 91 pts in an overtime loss to the Lakers. There was also another 91pt trio in a ridiculous, and I do mean ridiculous, 155-143 shootout vs. the Warriors in 1989, when Danny Ainge had 45, and Kenny Smith and Harold Pressley chipped in with 26 and 20 respectively. But this game trumps both of those, and I do believe anything we've seen in Sacto.
How ya like them apples?
We also got a glimpse of Reggie Evans, and he was just what the doctor ordered. Could have told you that, having him play just down t he road for me for years. But he gave us a first half boost, then promptly got forgotten about as we blew them out after half.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Uncia03
Bajaden
Capt. Factorial
MassachusettsKingsFan
Boxscore
Stats: 38min 32pts (12-23, 0-2, 8-9) 11reb 3ast 3stl 1blk 1TO
Gay ( A ) -- What to say about Rudy tonight? He had a great game. In the first half, he was kind of inefficient, getting 10 points on 11 shots, though he had a highlight dunk on a drive where he used those go-go-gadget arms to flush the ball seemingly from the free-throw line. Toward the end of the second quarter, Rudy was a part of our surge that closed the half and set the tone for the rest of the game, scoring with a killer spin move in the lane and following that up with an easy dunk on a feed from Cousins on a broken defensive play by the Nuggets (not the last - Rudy got an almost identical uncontested dunk on Cuz feed in the fourth quarter as well). But in the third quarter Gay went off from the right block, shooting 4-5 and getting to the line 6 times as he was a huge part of the Kings going +21 in the quarter and turning what looked like a probable loss into a sure win. Not only that, but Gay was a monster on the boards tonight, pulling down 11 to lead the team. Defensively, Rudy had one of his best nights as a King. He played good help, he made two stops in fast break situations, once stealing the ball from useless former King J.J. Hickson (three steals overall), and he kept his man from scoring. Wilson Chandler didn't score at all until midway through the fourth when the game was all but decided. It was an all-around game and marked Rudy's return to Kings-level efficiency following a recent Raptors-style reversion.--Capt.
Stats: 16min 4pts (0-0, 0-0, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 3TO
Thompson ( D ) -- Jason was very active in this one (as usual), and while he had a few good moments, most of his game tonight was sloppy and somewhat careless. The Kings actually tried going to JT in the post a few times in the first quarter, and it worked once, but was just kind of a mess for all of the other attempts. There was an offensive foul, a clean steal, and a forced fadaway jumper that never had a chance. He had his fair share of classic Thompson hustle plays that included a great putback dunk in transition, and a big time block on Mozgov inside. His defense outside of that block was really hit or miss. Faried got the best of him a few times, but it wasn’t a major issue. Most of Faried’s points would come in transition where I can’t really put that blame solely on Thompson. There just wasn’t enough here for me to give him a grade higher than a D. Malone only played him for 16 minutes, and he never got his offense, defense, or rebounding going, but I didn’t think he was hurting the team with his play, either.--Mass
Stats: 34min 27pts (8-16, 0-0, 11-12) 9reb 5ast 1stl 5blk 4TO
Cousins ( A- ) -- started this one off encouragingly, on our first play immediately going down into the post and hitting that little half hook over the undersized Hickson. First time we've seen that thing used in seemingly a month, and whatever the malaise was from the Boston game immediately seemed to have lifted. Slashed in for a +1 finsish, and was off to the early scoring races. Was hitting the jumper all night too without much hesitation, after a night earlier largely refusing to take it. The biggest threat to a dominant game emerging were two shaky and late whsitles against him in the first 4 minutes of the game that threatened to immediately send him to the bench and scuttle his night before it began. But Malone did a smart thing, let him stay out there and play through it, and Boogie rewarded the confidence by avoiding that 3rd foul (albeit by having to back off on some defensive challenges because of the situation). This time we kept going to him though, and nether Hickson (strength) no Mozgov (speed) was a match, sending him to the line again and again as they got beat. Not much on the glass until later in the game though, and while he and Evans dominated the boards while they were paired, it was mostly Reggie's domination this time. After a quiet start to the third rattled in two straight top of the key jumpers, and threw one of several nifty passes to Gay beating a double with it. He and Gay spent much of the night setting each other up, and there were some sharp passes in the bunch (much better communication than he had with IT, as those two guys had at least 3-4 passes where IT threw the ball to where Cousins wasn't, or vice versa,. expecting something that was not there). As the rebounding picked up, he started notching blocks, this turned into a very well rounded game, and only a night like tonight would this somehow make you a third amigo. --Brick
Stats: 36min 6pts (2-10, 1-4, 1-1) 4reb 1ast 3stl 1blk 2TO
McLemore ( C- ) -- Yeah yeah, I know! He went 2 for 10 from the floor and only scored 6 points in 36 minutes of playing time. But we won, and I doubt anyone is going to get anything lower than a C-, and, he hustled his butt all night long. And there were a few plays where he should have gotten an assist and didn't. Like how he started the game, grabbing a rebound, going the length of the court and missing a layup so JT could get the putback and a basket. That should be an assist, shouldn't it? Seriously he did make a few passes on which the shot was missed. In the first quarter he made a nice pass to Cousins out of a pick and roll, but Cousins missed and was fouled. In the 3rd he made a pass to Williams right under the basket, and you guessed it, Williams missed a chippy. Where he did make an impact was defensively. He wasn't perfect, but he did a very nice job on Fournier. His only big mistake came in the second quarter when he had just came back into the game after only getting a couple of minutes on the bench because Fournier was roasting Outlaw. For some reason, he completely left Fournier wide open in the left corner for a three pointer. But really, that was it. Yes, Fournier did score a jumper over Ben, but it was highly contested. In the third quarter Fournier didn't take a shot with Ben guarding him. Fournier was very impressive by the way. Very talented player. Offensively McLemore is still a work in progress, but I do see some progress. It would be nice to see his number called a bit more. There are periods of the game where he'll go 2 or more minutes without even touching the ball on offense. I like that he's being more aggressive in attacking the basket. Now all he has to do is figure out how to finish. Tiny steps, tiny steps! --Baja
Stats: 42min 33pts (12-16, 4-5, 5-6) 3reb 6ast 3stl 0blk 6TO
Thomas ( A- ) -- First things first. For the 1st 3 quarters of this game + 1st minute of the 4th, this was an absolutely brilliant shooting display from IT. He was 10-11 from the field and 5-6 from the line for 29 points. You probably will only see shooting this good a couple of times a year. His entire grade is elevated several levels due to spectacular shooting in the 1st 3 quarters, and it will be the incredible shooting efficiency that most people will remember and take away from this game. However, when you look at this game in its entirety, and especially when you break down the game into various sections, some of the shine from the brilliant shooting dims a little bit, which prevents me from going too high with the overall grade.
He played 10 minutes in the first quarter and was almost invisible. It’s almost as if someone put a bug in his ear telling him that he should let his teammates do the work. He only took 3 shots (making 2 of them and having his only miss in the first 3 quarters) and only had 1 assist in that first quarter and by and large he was just dribbling the ball past the half-court line then passing it off, then not getting involved in the offense there-after. The good news is that he was letting Cousins and Gay work, but he was just a bit too invisible out there. He also had 1 possession that could have earned him an assist when he played the PnR will Cousins, but Cousins got fouled and couldn’t convert.
I’m guessing the Malone didn’t like the energy and he pulled IT with 2 minutes to go, which is something that doesn’t normally happen. Things changed when he got back in with 9 minutes to go in the 2nd quarter and he would essentially play the rest of the game. He started getting more aggressive, using screens to free himself up to either drive into the lane or pull-up for the jump shot. Unfortunately the play-making wasn’t present in the 2nd quarter either as he zero assists, 1 possession that could have been an assist which wasn’t converted, and a couple of turn-overs.
So going into the 2nd half he was sitting on 1 assist and 2 missed assists in 19 minutes of play along with 4 turn-overs, which is pretty terrible if you’re relying on your PG to make plays.
The 3rd quarter was where IT really shined, however. In that quarter he was both aggressive with his shot as well as finding his teammates for scoring opportunities. He scored 14 points on 4-4 shooting along with 3 assists and 2 assist opportunities which weren’t converted.
He started and played pretty much the entire 4th quarter, and really Malone should probably have given him a breather towards the end of the game. He knocked down a shot 30 seconds into the 4th. From that point on he went 2-5. So his last 10 minutes of play the 4th quarter he had 4 points (2-5), 0 assists, and 2 missed assist opportunities, which wasn’t the best of production and could have been a result of not getting any rest in the 2nd half.
So he had an invisible 1st quarter, an aggressive shooting but poor playing making 2nd quarter, an utterly fantastic, couldn’t do it any better, shooting and play-making 3rd quarter, and an average shooting, but poor playing making 4th quarter.
As to the defense, it wasn’t really very good at all. Both Brooks and Foye were able to get into the lane at will against him. Luckily for us Brooks was horrible and wasn’t able to do much of anything even after getting free from IT. Foye wasn’t fantastic, but he was much better, and IT, like Ben, cheated too much on the weak-side giving Foye too much room to shoot from the 3pt line when the ball got swung.
Another thing I also mark down while grading IT is how many ‘selfish’ plays he has. These are plays where he basically is the only guy to touch the ball before putting up a shot. I will count things such as when he goes 1-3 on the fast-break, but won’t count it if he is running up the court and Cousins outlets to him and he has a good scoring opportunity either alone or against a single defender.
In the first quarter I mentioned that he lacked energy and was pretty invisible. Well he only had one ‘selfish’ play in that quarter, which goes along with his invisibility act. In the 2nd quarter he came out very aggressive, and in the span of 4 minutes (6 minute mark to 2:10 minute mark) he had 4 selfish plays. Now, the good news is that he made all 4 of them, but the bad news is that even if a guy pulls up in transition and makes a 3pt shot when there are 4 Denver players back and only Ben under the rim, it’s not really a shot you want someone to take. This 3pt shot in particular was one where he sparked a 5pt run and Grant and Jerry were happy to see it, but had he missed it would have been deemed an ill-advised shot. (In fact later in the game IT passed it to Rudy in the corner and Rudy missed, and they said it wasn’t a good shot. So though some people look at the results, a bad shot is a bad shot whether it goes in or not)
The 3rd quarter, where he was really brilliant, he only had 1 selfish play. If he could harness that 3rd quarter play and give that constantly it would really help the Kings in winning games. In the 4th quarter he also only had 1 selfish play.
All-in-all it was a good performance from IT, but mostly because he was knocking down his shots and he really shined in the 3rd. He had a couple of turn-overs due to mis-cues with Cousins which is something that we actually don’t see a lot of. He had as many assists as turn-overs, and pretty much all of his play making took place in the 3rd quarter when the Kings were able to come from behind then break open the game. Hopefully the coaching staff with focus on all the things he and the rest of the team did right in that 3rd quarter, so we’ll see more of it in the future, because if he can more consistently play the way he did in the 3rd the Kings are going to win a lot more ball-games.
I]--Uncia[/I]
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