[Grades] Grades v. Warriors 10/29/2014

What grade would you give Boogie for this game?


  • Total voters
    76
  • Poll closed .

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#1
Welp...yep, feels like another Kings season is underway already.



5-15
1-3
4-14
0-5
4-12
3-10
3-5
1-4
1-3
0-3
1-3
1-1
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24-78

Ballgame.

We sure do know how to compete with a Game 7 World Series victory don't we?

Given the game was televised in India, no doubt through Vivek's hard work, we may also have just set back the cause of basketball in an entire subcontinent by several decades too.


Boxscore

Stats: 34min 14pts (5-15, 0-2, 4-5) 9reb 0ast 1stl 1blk 3TO
Gay ( D ) -- ok, well, cause for concern as the malaise that was there throughout the preseason has carried over into the season now. And the type of malaise is the problem: this was the iso focused tunnel vision, tough forced drive into traffic and long jumper off his own dribble mess that Toronto was dealing with at the beginning of last year. Because he's highly talented there were a scattering of spectacular takes to the hoop, mostly on the break or semibreak. But the reason they were spectacular was because they were right into the teeth of the defense and beating 3 or 4 guys to get those finishes. And far more often what we got was just team killing lazy jumpers directly resulting in Golden State fastbreaks. On multiple occasions he missed, as in just didn't see or acknowledge open guys on go 1 on 1, and he seemed almost annoyed or determined to take over, except he didn't. Gets a little credit for some defensive hustle plays on the break, he was on the glass, and Barnes/Iggy didn't do anything against him the other way. But this was a flat bad and worrisome performance because of how/why it was bad. Important he buys in and clicks into gear here pretty quick.

Stats: 21min 2pts (1-3, 0-0, 0-0) 7reb 0ast 2stl 1blk 4TO
Thompson ( C ) -- if it hadn't have been for the sloppiness (there is no excuse for notching 4 TOs when you only take 3 FGAs) this would have been an ok little roleplaying effort. Offensively he got an early post move, and then that was it. He was done and gone and contributed nothing but turnovers and clumsy offensive fouls thereafter as he appeared to be sort of fighting his offensive irrelevancy and wanting to do something he could not. One particular clumsy drive into a defender for an offensive foul on the break particularly stood out as fitting in with the general theme of the night that guys weren't making the extra pass. Had some trouble with Draymond Green's stretchiness, but he was active on defense and on the glass, and at a time when Cuz was not winning the battle of the big bodies inside JT was often the guy cleaning up in there and being physical. He was less settled when he returned, and we were treated to DeMarcus Cousins, level head, coming over to counsel him when JT picked up a technical. Came up with some good open court rim protection when Cousins went out in the third with foul trouble, but with us completely unable to score after half Malone went away from him while searching for more offensive punch.

Stats: 31min 20pts (4-14, 0-0, 12-18) 11reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 6TO
Cousins ( C- ) -- well, if you know the history of the Boogie/Bogut matchup you were worried about something like this. because Andrew Bogut has been bar none the most frustrating center opponent in the league for Boogie. He's taller than Cuz, physical to the point of dirty, can hold his position, block shots up top, and damage his calm with cheap little elbows and chucks, and for all his physicality Boogie still likes to dish it out more than he likes to absorb it. So anyway, fast forward to tonight and in the early going you had DeMarcus not taking his time and throwing up too quick junk reminiscent of his rookie season, looking like he just wanted to get his shot up before something bad happened. He was 0-6 by the mid first quarter. But this wasn't just about Bogut. Bogut only played 18 min on the night. This was about a Steve Kerr strategy that appeared to involve instructions for every one of his bigs to hack and foul and bang Boogie with reckless abandon all night long. Bogut had 4 fouls in 18min, Ezili 4 fouls in 8 minutes, something called Kuzmic had 4 fouls in 6 minutes, and the result was Cousins living at the line, where unfortunately he has been a little off all preseason. Tonight it was frequently 1 of 2 for him as he hit 12 of 18 from the line to account for the bulk of his offense. And the physicality and early Bogut fright appeared to have Cuz just off offensively until late in the game. He made several nice moves but just lacked the touch around the hoop he normally has, on one play he held his hands in fornt of them and looked at them like they were betraying him. He missed his jumpers. He just was not comfortable/himself. And even on the glass the first half was a frustration as guys were banging him and getting over his back and double teaming him and the rest. So why was this not a complete disaster? Well, because this is the new and improved more mature Boogie now. This game was very physical, but he didn't lose his cool in an outrageous way. He wasn't perfect, he almost went for a derisive arm wave that would have got him teched up, but pulled it back. There was some aggressive swiping of the I'm going to get a foul now variety after several plays, and a back and forth hard foul sequence with Ezili. But in a game where he hit the floor a lot and a couple of years ago absolutely would have taken himself out of it, he hung tough for the most part, continued to display the defensive improvements, took charges, cut off penetration (several times allowing his man to step in behind him for a dunk -- was trying to figure out if it was his responsibility to get back or if somebody (Gay?) was supposed to rotate) and in general made contributions. After the 0-6 start, and despite the terrible touch he had on the night, he shot 4-8 the rest of the way. Despite losing the early board battles, he eventually notched 10 on the night. When he finally was out there with a "shooting guard" who can actually shoot (i.e. not Ben) he zipped a crosscourt pass to Stauskas for an open three. He made a loose foul to get himself back into foul trouble again, but there was still focus therafter, and while it sometimes hurt us when he let Speights go around him to avoid picking up more fouls, that was smarts he didn't used to have to stay on the floor. And you looked up and at the end of the game he had fuglied his way into a 20-11 night with some defense. Late in the game he finally seemed to start clicking into gear and making a series of Cuz plays, but it was too little too late. This was obviously a poor performance, but there was something of grit about it, of hanging in there and finding ways to contribute, that was nonetheless encouraging. He didn't quit and he didn't give in. He just wasn't very good.

Stats: 26min 0pts (0-5, 0-2, 0-0) 2reb 1ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( D+ ) -- last year Ben was a disaster. He was terrible on offense AND terrible on defense. You don't see that very often because most guys who pair those two traits don't play, but we were determined. Well this game...Ben was not terrible on defense, and he was...well, pretty terrible on offense. First the good, or at least ok: Ben stuck with Klay, did nto directly stop him so much as stayed in his area and challenged most of his shots. He was still out saavied by Klay on several occasions and baited into fouls, but on a night when bad defense would easily have thrown his opening night grade straight into F territory, Ben was at least competitive. Now for everything else...there was no everything else. Ben simply cannot shoot. A waste of perfect shooting form, but then again you have to be careful about perfect shooting form. Peja Stojakovic threw the ball up with a funky twist, Kevin Martin looked like he was taking every ball off a ball rack, but things went in. Ben looks like a textbook, and then he shoots like me. Incredibly frustrating when Cuz draws a tripel team, kicks it right to your "shooting" guard wide open with nobody with 10 feet and clank. Just kills you. Once mysteriously just decided to come down and quickshoot a long three off his own dribble. He never does that. Frustration with himself or the offense? His handle is less keystone cops at this point, but when they put Iggy on him it was no match and I did not understand why we even bothered to let Ben touch the ball at that point. Perhaps his most egregious play happened on the final play of the half while we were somehow still ahead. Speghts threw up one of his long jumpers, Ben was right underneath the hoop on the left side where the ball came off, and yet he barely moved for the ball and didn't get his hands above his waist as Speights lumbered on in in front of him, grabbed the ball away and laid it in for a free hoop he never should have had if Ben chases that ball aggressively. So, less disastrous defense, but come on here, another year of Ben having flame outs at SG? Really? On a night when you cannot score getting 0 points out of a scoring wing spot isn't helping.

Stats: 36min 13pts (4-12, 1-4, 4-6) 4reb 8ast 5stl 1blk 1TO
Collison ( B ) -- finally a good grade. Despite joining in the teamwide shooting woes looked good. But also looked like what he is: a good support player who isn't going to step up and carry you when the main guys aren't clicking. Was using his speed to make plays on both ends in the early going, and throughout the game made a series of nice smart dropoff and pocket passes to Cousins that if Cuz had been on should have led to more points. Was basically the only player on the roster who really looked like he got this whole passing thing. Which you should just expect out of your PG, but obviously its been a while for us. Like the rest of the team never did get his own offense really going, continued his preseason FT struggles, and could not hit his threes from his spots until finally breaking through with a a side/corner three in the late third as we were fading. Didn't lead anywhere though, and attempts to join the 1 on 1 party and carry us in the early 4th while Cuz and Gay were both out proved futile. He's just not that guy. What he was though was 13pts 4reb 8ast 5stl with only 1TO and most definitely not the problem on this particular evening.
 
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Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#2
Bench

Stats: 26min 9pts (3-10, 2-7, 1-1) 0reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Stauskas ( C ) -- for a half things went pretty swimmingly and we got an unfamiliar taste of what its like to have a shooting guard, you know, actually shoot. He nailed the first shot of his pro career, a three pointer from the right side, came back in the early 2nd and made a conventional 3pt play on the break, and then wonder of wonders actually drained a three from that same right angle (note he was a left angle player in college) when Cuz kicked it to him in the final minutes of the half. Think he was 3-4 or 3-5 then, and looking like one of the few Kings able to help on a rough night. But as they say, all good things.... Returned in the 3rd quarter and began to look the rook. Came up short on jumpers and layups, began to really get punished on defense, not so much due to footspeed as due to strength as the Warriors were posting him up and banging him back inside. Airballed a three in the early 4th on which he claimed he was fouled. It looked like maybe he was, but AFTER the shot was off, and hence not an excuse why a great shooter would airball one. And I think played himself out of the game when he started coming down and randomly launching quickshot threes off his own dribble early in the shotclock. That's no better a shot when Nik does it than when IT or Jimmer would do it. So, for a half it looked like hey, at least we had Jodie Meeks or something, somebody who could contribute at SG. Then for a half we just had a struggling rookie.

Stats: 17min 8pts (3-5, 0-0, 2-2) 7reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Landry ( B- ) -- reminiscent of a game he had 2 or 3 games ago in preseason. Not a great game, but a productive one. 5 of those 7 boards were on the offensive glass, and they were boards of opportunism. Worked well with Reggie Evans on offense this time, largely because Evans was crashing around causing havoc on the glass, and then Carl would step in and scoop up whatever popped loose for a tip or lay in. Not ever going to be a factor on the defensive glass, continued to have problems with faceup jumpshooters as Speights shot over him, and put up his traditional 0-0-0 ast/stl/blk line. But he was one of the few guys to find a way to be productive offensively on the evening, and the fact that he didn't do it himself so much as just clean things up was actually a good thing on a night when there was too much 1 on 1 was it was.

Stats: 13min 2pts (1-4, 0-2, 0-0) 2reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Williams ( D+ ) -- well, we tried DWill for a while, nothing happened, and so we quit trying DWill. In the first half actually sort of had a part in the Evans/Landry minutes as Derrick also used his athleticism to knock a few balls loose on the boards. But he blew a drive that led to a score the other way, missed his threes, and was generally invisible. It was worse as a smallball PF, and Casspi took over as the backup SF by the late 3rd. And why not. Just going to give him an irrelevancy grade as much as anything. Hello #2 pick, do something. Your choice, but SOMETHING.

Stats: 7min 0pts (0-3, 0-0, 0-0) 5reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Evans ( B ) -- I understood why Malone did not go back to Reggie in the second half with us having such extreme problems scoring, but I disagreed with it. In the first half he came in like a wild wrecking ball causing havoc all over, indirectly helping Landry to score effectively by repeatedly knocking balls free to be scooped up, and did Cuz a solid getting into a physical chippee shoving match with Bogut. In short he did his job, and we may have showed more life in his minutes out there than we did all game. Of course he was wildly ineffective on offense etc. etc., but that's a bit like saying Darren Collison wasn't very good with his postups.

Stats: 10min 3pts (1-3, 0-0, 1-1) 0reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 4TO
Sessions ( F ) -- well, during most of the preseason we were treated to Good Sessiosn the scoring 6th man, and he and Collison were running an almost platoon at PG while Sessions also shifted to SG part time to help cover that gaping hole. We come out in our season opener...and we get bad Sessions, the out of control defenseless turnover machine. He forced a bad drive to close the first quarter, had his only good play of the night with a strong +1 drive in the early 2nd, and then played a major role in our 3rd quarter collapse with turnover, turnover, turnover, oh and look Curry is heating up too. End result = he had to be yanked before he finished us off, and our preseason platoon PG/6th man only got 10 wild stinky minutes on the night. Not remotely, at all, and even a little bit what we needed.

Stats: 15min 4pts (1-3, 0-1, 2-2) 2reb 1ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Casspi ( C ) -- got in for the first time in the late 3rd and...I dunno. This was neither the punch of preseason or the sadsack. Basically he came out and scrapped ineffectively, looking a little slow and unathletic. one time he uncharacteristically did not go after a rebound in front of him and Curry darted in front of him for it and went the other way -- Curry collected several of those on the night as our guys seemed in a fog. His best play came after it was all over, with a nice drive and dish to Hollins for a dunk in the final 2min of garbagetime. This grade is a little curious because you let like there was effort and maybe the right attitude that we could have used more of, but there was no production. So it felt better than some other guys, but you can't really give much of a grade for 4pts 2reb 2TO on 1-3 shooting.

Stats: 2min 2pts (1-1, 0-0, 0-0) 1reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Hollins ( INC ) -- got a dunk on a nice feed from Casspi after entering for the final minute and a half of garbageitme, that was it.

Stats: 2min 0pts (0-0, 0-0, 0-0) 0reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
McCallum ( INC ) -- just out there for the final minute and a half. Was on court, you didn't notice.
 
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#6
I will go totally against my norm and point out the positives.

Defense was good with the starters. Collison and McLemore played pretty good defense on the Warriors all-star backcourt. Any coach would be happy with the percentages Klay and Curry shot.

Collison was good overall and filled up the stat sheet. Stauskas had a decent first game for a rookie despite his defensive struggles. JT had his dumb plays, but was a positive overall. Cousins fought through a terrible shooting night.




and that's it

I'm probably most concerned and bothered by the way Rudy played. He looked disinterested in what the rest of the team was doing.
 
#11
Cuz- C. He struggled overall, but he never quit. He didn't get upset or bark at the refs. That's really encouraging to see.

Collision- C+. He didn't have a great scoring night, but a lot of his missed shots came from the end. He played great D against Curry and facilitated the offense whenever he could.

Ben- C-. He struggled on offense, but did great on defense. Him and Collision did a great job containing the splash brothers.

Rudy-D-. Not much there. Horrible overall game. Maybe F+?

JT- C-. He didn't have a huge role tonight, but he did great when he was with our 2nd unit.

Nik-D. He had a rookie game, was bad on offense, but his D actually wasn't terrible. On a scale 1-10, 10 being the worst, he was probably a 7.

Landry-B-. He had a pretty good game. Played well on both sides of the floor and contributed a lot to our mini run.

Sessions-F---------------. No words.
 
#12
Cousins D+ They played him pretty well tonight, credit to the Warriors, had to earn it from the line. 6 turnovers, or else I would have gave him a C- for grit
Gay D He had 9 boards, played too much hero ball there overall and forced too much
JT C- Just 2 points, played ok defensively
Collison B+ 8 assits, 5 steals, 13 points with just 1 turnover....He needed to direct traffic a little more, but not a bad game at all
McLemore D- Scored nada, nothing zilch. Played some defense as a saving grace.
Stauskas C- Got burned, looked good for awhile though on offense, ended poorly.
Landry B+ 8 points, 7 boards off the bench. Good solid game
Sessions F Just terrible
 
#14
We were actually competitive during the 1st half even though Cousins and Gay had an off night.

Poor coaching on the second half costs us the game.

Malone shouldn't have let Sessions run the team too long during that 3rd quarter GS burst. Too many errors during that first few minutes Sessions was in. It was surprising instead of pulling out Sessions, Malone's answer was to replace Gay with Casspi on the game.

What the f**k can a stiff and awkward Casspi do during that time other than look mean and get knocked down like a log?

Dwill/Landry/Casspi midget frontcourt plus a no-defense Stauskas/error-prown Sessions back court to stop the suddenly surging GSW?

And then follow it up with a McLemore and Stauskas in at the same time?

Our coach is a big joke!
 
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#15
-Ball-movement sucked, even with the new ball moving savior PG's on the team.

-Cuz and Gay can't ever both take a night off being good offensively. Other than 18 FTA's from DeMarcus, which is nuts, he was decidedly poor on the night. Simply can't have our best player with 6 TO's, 5 PFs, and taking himself out of the game with dumb fouls TWICE when we needed him on the floor to stave of a GSW run.

-while DC was our best player the night, he also showed one of his big limitations; he's not a guy who can take over a game. He's not the 3rd bullet when we need someone to step up when Cuz and Gay struggle.

-Tonight was a shining example of what happens when we ask Gay to be a primary ball-handler. Hero ball, Hero ball, bad shot, bad shot. If he makes them, it's one thing, but a lot of his looks tonight were just cringe worthy.

-Role guys all chipped in decently in different ways. DC, Landry played well, JT and Ben were good defensively and Nik had an ok rookie debut. One of the stars show up for real in this one and I think this game was winnable from what we got from the supporting cast.

-Defensive effort was there for most of the night from the team. We caught GSW on a bad shooting night, but we also had something to do with that. Certainly a lot better than we saw for most of last season.
 
#16
Just got back from game.... Here's some observations

- we hung with Warriors for 2.5 quarters. Then things fell apart in third quarter when Demarcus got in foul trouble.

- Kings defense looks good considering they played a stellar offensive team

- Nik Staukas will be starting soon, unless Malone wants to get fired. He already looks way better than McLemore and it was his rookie debut game. With the loss of Isiah Thomas, we really need to get something from the SG position and Ben didnt do anything today as usual.

- Collison played well...in particular his defense on Curry . Defensively he is an upgrade over Isaiah.

- offense stunk . 27 turnovers! We still in preseason mode. Coaches' fault ? China trip?

- Gay looks horrible out there... iso ball all day.
 
#18
We were actually competitive during the 1st half even though Cousins and Gay had an off night.

Poor coaching on the second half costs us the game.

Malone shouldn't have let Sessions run the team too long during that 3rd quarter GS burst. Too many errors during that first few minutes Sessions was in. It was surprising instead of pulling out Sessions, Malone's answer was to replace Gay with Casspi on the game.

What the f**k can an awkward Casspi do during that time other than look mean and get knocked down like a log?

Dwill/Landry/Casspi midget frontcourt plus a no-defense Stauskas/error-prown Sessions back court to stop the suddenly surging GSW?

And then follow it up with a McLemore and Stauskas in at the same time?

Our coach is a big joke!
Glad I'm not the only one who sees Malone as a sucky coach. He basically threw Casspi into the game in the middle of the 3rd quarter after not playing him the entire game.. He had Casspi play the 2, 3, and 4 at different times. What the hell was Casspi supposed to do out there?

I hope Malone really toughens it up. We were simply out coached.
 
#21
2 1/2 Quarters of competitive basketball. Then Cousins gets in foul trouble along with a couple of poor calls and the game gets out of hand.

I'm still waiting for the passing we sometimes saw in preseason. It was nonexistent tonight.

Lots of turnovers due to dribbling into the teeth of the defense, Iggy, Klay and Green.

My grades are a C+ for 2 1/2 quarters and a D- for the last 1 1/2. Collison gets a B, everyone else gets an incomplete:)
 
#25
Cousins - Couldn't make a shot, was getting hacked, looked pissed off alot but he stayed fighting and still managed a 20/10 game. Had some stupid reach in fouls though

McLemore - WTF. Stauskas will be starting soon

JT - :confused:

Sessions - :confused::confused::confused:

Collison - the biggest positive in my opinion. He somehow managed to get 8 assists in a game where the Kings shot 30% and had 12 total assists. Also only turned the ball over ONE time in a game where the Kings had 27 TOs
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#27
What made that lose even worse was you could tell GS was not even going hard against us, they knew we were garbage and played like it and still managed to blow us out which is the sad part without one of there best scorers.

# Sessions was beyond awful there is no words to explain how bad he was
# Cousins rushed and really stopped us from gaining momentum in the first half than in the 2nd when he got it somewhat going committed 3 just beyond dumb fouls to take himself out after he was getting into it.
# Rudy Gay.....just trade him for whatever honestly, I don't want to watch him in a Kings uniform.
# Collison easily our best player contributed both ends without ruining the flow of the game and was ALWAYS in excellent position weather it be on Curry or helping
# Casspi I thought was our best SF out there tonight while I'm not a fan at least he looks to pass and has in this game and preseason been aggressive and sure in what he's doing.
# The SG duo, Nik was good in the first and Ben well tried I will give him that but yeah.
# Landry scored a bit but got smashed by Speights and gave up more rebounds than Patrick Patterson
#Reggie Evans I thought was excellent when he was out there causing havoc and coach Malone's reward was well not playing him.........Reggie make us better when he's the floor.
# JT had a couple nice moments, had a JT game
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
#29
Our starting frontline accounted for 13 TOs and just 1 assist. If you make ball movement a priority in summer league, training camp, and pre-season and then come out in game 1 and put up a 13:26 assist to turnover ratio, something has gone horribly wrong. If any one area from last season needed improvement, that was it. That was the reason you swapped out IT for Collison and he did what he was supposed to do tonight -- keep the shots and turnovers down while contributing across the board and playing defense. Rudy and DeMarcus in particular have to do a better job of taking care of the ball this year. If we can't get a positive A/TO ratio out of those two, the team as a whole is going to struggle.