Yay yay! Big win of the yes this team is for real and we aren't going anywhere variety.
All Big Cuz did was notch 25pts and 10reb in 26 minutes of action. No prob while dominating the 2nd half and bouncing Duncan around like an old geezer at the park. And yet if you asked me why we won this might point to unlikely heroes like Jason Thompson and Omri Casspi who came up with uncommon efforts to help us survive, and even thrive this time during Cuz's nightly whistle enforced benching.
We have played right there with everybody this year. That's the great thing about being 6-4 right now. There are no greater tests. There might be a team who has our number, but there's no class of team we can't play with, and we're proving that every night. Onto Tuesday for the what could be a dynamic Cuz/A.D. showdown, if they let Cuz play. Then onto national TV where maybe we can finally open some casual fan eyes.
NOTE: the Grading Consortiuum is actively recruiting a new squad of graders for this season. And grading wins is more fun than grading losses. Give us a nudge If interested.
Stats: 38min 18pts (7-20, 0-3, 4-4) 3reb 6ast 1stl 1blk 2TO
Gay ( C+ ) -- there was a good game in here waiting to burst out, but for Rudy this was an effort marred from beginning to end by a long line of headscratching forces. Given how much of that he and Collison were doing, I would not be surprised if this was a coaching directive (they're old, on a back to back, attack and run them out of the building!) gone awry. And like Collison, it started early as he quickly forced a drive into traffic and then tried to pass for an easy turnover. But it wasn't an all terrible game, and when he wasn't forcing he settled in and knocked down his little jumpers and post moves, made several great crossover moves on his dribble to get into the paint and at one point basically drive through the entire Spurs defense in the second, and he was getting out on the break where the Spurs struggled to contain his athleticism. But the forces never really did go away, and after half with Cousins going so well they became more obnoxious in their unnecessity. And down the stretch he and Collison seemed determined to sink our boat, with a pair of dumb selfish takes around the 2min mark resulting in a strip and a miss getting the Spurs out on the break the other way. We still called our next play with Gay running the baseline when Leonard went to double Cuz, and after the Spurs had to foul him, he hit both FTs. But he would add another force and get blocked by Kawhi a the 1:10 mark as we clung to a 1pt lead. We needed the points we got out of him, he actually led us in assists for the game again, but in terms of positive impact he might have been our 5th best guy (Cousins, Casspi, JT, Collison) tonight. --Brick
Stats: 32min 4pts (2-5, 0-0, 0-0) 9reb 4ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Thompson ( B+ ) -- one of, if not, his best games of the season as a super roleplayer, and this one given extra kick because of the absolutely critical role he had to play with Cuz again limited in the first half. From the beginning it was clear that we were getting the active and useful defensive roleplaying JT in this one rather than the 0pt 4reb waste of space who shows up the other half of the time. He got an early hoop then went back down the other way with some strong defense on Duncan that went for naught as Duncan zipped the assist past his ear to a cuttng Green. Was looking solid out there in all respects while he was still paired with Cuz, made some solid little passes, got back to clean up several d-boards Cuz could not because he was wrestling with Baynes, and provided that critical bit of length as a 6'11" defender on Duncan. But much of this grade was earned when we lost Big Cuz to his second foul (and first official technical, since the B.S. one in Memphis was rescinded) in the late first. That was the danger period where our guys simply have not been getting it done, and leads have gone to die. But this time Malone changed/shortened his rotations, turning is weak backup guards into just little 8 minute breather guys, and cutting Reggie Evans entirely out of the rotation so that he could keep JT out there for some real size. And JT responded with inspired play, got a nice little dunk on an unusally sweet little dropoff pass from Sessions (although missed a flip two plays later when we tried the same pick and roll), played good defense on Duncan, notched a couple more assists, and gave us one of his better boarding nights of the season. he came up with a big block on Duncan in the final minute of the first half as we closed with a big rush of enthusiasm. He stepped back again once Cuz returned town the second half, for some reason went and tried to post 2 Spurs on one possession, which was odd. But he took a charge, stayed on the glass, and stayed useful to the end of his minutes, which came about because Omri was playing an inspired game himself, and the Spurs finally decided to just go smallball rather than waste any more time with their big stiffs next to Duncan. This was a nice strong effort though filling a critical role tonight, and filling it well, and I almost A minused a game for a guy who only scored 4pts, but slid back to the B+ given that he wasn't there down the stretch.--Brick
Stats: 27min 25pts (10-19, 0-0, 5-6) 10reb 0ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Cousins ( A- ) -- ok, due to a dastardly internet outage, one of our fine graders was felled and I am having to fill in this grade from memory. Meant to rewatch the Cuz minutes, but no real time, so here goes: first thing of course is how do you grade these half games Cuz keeps having? And that's really what it is too. There are several coaches around the league trying to nurse their decrepit old relics through the season with nightly 24-28min nights. And then there's Cuz, whom the refs are protecting in the same way. But on this night its only a minor downtick I think, because he was there for almost the entire 2nd half and carried us post halftime to the tune of 21pts 6reb in 18min. He got into the foul trouble this time per usual in the first quarter with a pair of fouls inside a minute. The first was fairly spectacular, but I think the right call actually -- Cuz decided to knock the crap out of Baynes on offense, shoulder blocked him back into the restricted area, then finished him with another rhino charge to the hoop. Then pointed to the restricted area as if to say -- look refs, he was standing in the restricted area! It can't be a charge! Well yeah Cuz. He was standing there because you knocked him back 5 feet the first time.
Still, I don't mind those fouls. Get your money's worth, if you're going to foul, knock somebody on their ass. Unfortunately he followed that up with one of the little cheapie nothings I do hate when he went over with his arm up to try to help Ben on Manu, and the refs called...something. Body contact maybe. Not that Manu would ever sell anything. And so there it was, 2 fouls. And I think here what you had was Cuz maybe not quite in his happy place after being called for 27 fouls in the last 5 games and coming off the frustrating losses in DAL and MEM, and so he picked up his first legit technical of the year arguing after he went to the bench (the B.S. one in Memphis was apparently rescinded, so he's back to 1). That was enough for Malone, and with Jason doing a yeoman's job holding down the position in the 2nd quarter Cuz ended up sitting the entire remainder of the half, and only got 9 first half minutes again. But the upside of that was it allowed Cuz to enter the 2nd half well rested and with only 2 fouls, and he took advantage of that in a big way and just danced and dunked on the Spurs inside, several times blatantly passing up his jumper to drive inside and score at the rim. In the 3rd Pop was still trying to mess around and cover Cuz with Baynes and Bonner, which is the same ridiculous strategy that allowed Dwight Howard to drop 37 on them last week. But they had no chance and the only thing slowing Cuz was a Manu elbow which opened a cut over his eye and sent him to the lockerroom at the end of the third. When he returned it was time for the 4th quarter stretch battle, and Pop quit saving his bgi gun and threw Duncan at Cuz. At which point Cuz beat him up and took his social security check, really scoring through him with eye opening ease. Even when he missed the first one, he just overpowered him for 2nd and 3rd attempts. Got him on his shoulder and finished through him over the rim. Very impressive stuff batting around an alltime great even if he is in his declining years. He added a nice pass to Rudy at the 2min mark when Cuz was doubled up high, getting Gay to the FT line to give us the lead back, defense on Duncan down the stretch, and 2 clutch FTs in the final 30 seconds. The Spurs came into town with 4 likely HOFs, but we had the best player and he was huge after half, so I'll largely forgive us only getting to see him for 27min again. BTW, this is now 6 straight games he's been called for 5 or more fouls. Normally I root for the zebras in those African lions vs. herd animals shows. Maybe no longer.--BrickStats: 40min 8pts (3-8, 0-3, 2-2) 4reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( B- ) -- The final play of the game was really a microcosm of Ben's day. The Spurs set a double screen on Ben for a Ginobili baseline curl - Ben got through the first screen (knocking Parker to the floor) but was NOT going to get through Duncan, leaving Ginobili open for a potential game-tying three. Luckily for us Manu missed it and we escaped. But my point stands: McLemore was simply unable to stay in front of Ginobili all night long - Manu had 21 on the night and at least 13 of those were on Ben. I would, however, like to excuse the three-point play on the penultimate possession where Cuz fouled Ginobili on a drive right down the lane. There the Spurs ran a play to get Duncan to set a down screen on Ben, but it was a screen Ben was never supposed to get away from. Duncan, with both hands hidden behind Ben's back, gripped his jersey and held him tight to keep him out of the play. This was NOT the first time Duncan did this in the game (see: Nik Stauskas) but he's Tim Duncan, and he's wily, and he's a superstar, so he gets away with it. That said, Ben had no chance to stay in front of Manu - or Cory Joseph for that matter, who was in the game only briefly but got around Ben twice in two tries. Still, I don't want to deny Ben's progression in defense this year. The effort is definitely there, and I think we can't discount this: Ben knocked the ball away from Ginobili on a drive late in the second quarter leading to a breakaway dunk and the Spurs' second consecutive turnover - I think that play actually got in the Spurs' heads and led them to lose composure for two more poor possessions in a row. It was a very big steal even though Ben didn't get credit for it. Offensively Ben was mediocre. He started out very aggressive with two strong drives (one in transition) but came up empty both times. In the second quarter Ben had a very nice drive into the lane and then kicked to Landry on the baseline for an assist. But after that he kind of quieted down on offense, though to be fair the typical offensive strategy for the Kings' shooting guards is: go to the right corner, and let the other four guys run a play. Whatcha gonna do? Anyway, I wanted to give Ben a slightly lower grade, but 1) we won the game, and 2) he was asked to play a team-high 40 minutes and guard Manu Ginobili for the majority of it. Not much of Ben's game was standout, but it was just good enough to allow us to hold on and beat the reigning champs. That's gotta be worth more than a C.--Capt.
Stats: 39min 19pts (7-13, 0-2, 5-6) 2reb 5ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
Collison ( B ) -- this was about as erratic and teetering an effort as DC has given this year, but in the end it teetered in the right direction, and unlike the last game vs. Memphis, this time the quick on (aging) quick matchup at PG went DC's way. His first shot was a forced a dumbish little shot on the semi break pulling up in semi traffic early in the shotclock for no reason. I note that because that was a consistent problem tonight for both Collison and Gay. Every third shot they would randomly force just crap . But on the flip side his second hoop was a clever little basket waiting for the defense to relax and then squirting in. And hence the erratic. For every seemingly random dumb little force there were saavy little takes, attacks on the break to get to the line, he stepped in and took a charge. He picked off a lazy pass in the final 2min of the first half and raced the other way and nearly dunked it and capped the big run before half with a little jumper. Things got adventuresome down the stretch, as he really hurt us in the late 4th by twice forcing drives on the break and getting striped on each one, creating open court opportunities for the Spurs as he and Rudy were taking turns being nimwits. And at the 2min mark Parker cut to the rim and Collison couldn't do anything as Parker laid it int to take the lead while this grade plummeted. But DC played some great defense on Parker at the 1:45 mark to challenge his jumper and force an airball. And at the 30 second mark with all the attention focused on Cousins defensively he sliced into the lane and threw up a tough layup off the glass to give us a 3pt lead with 28 seconds to go. He could not resist just one more wobble when the Spurs fouled him intentionally at the 7 second mark, and he choked the 2nd free throw to leave the lead at 3 and the door open for a potential tying shot (it has occurred to me this year we don't have a single deadeye FT shooter I truly trust in that situation. Maybe Stauskas will be one day, but right now he looks shellshocked). Thankfully nothing came of the final wobble though, and in a strong win you'll remember the weebles more the wobbles.--Brick
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