A mixed bag during this game.  Despite a horrible second quarter we stayed competitive.  Some thoughts, reflections, and break down by quarters.

OK guys…  First of all the questions is answered about whether or not Tyreke can guard Deron Williams.  Not only can get guard him, but CAN he guard him.  We have a premier defender here.  He stuffed, STUFFED Williams in the first quarter and then he turned on a dime at the other end and smoked him.  That was pretty much the last one on one guarding of Evans tonight.  There were usually two people between him and the basket after that. 

So, Tyreke really did well defensively, but the prize for best defense goes to Omri.  He was all over the place and in people’s faces (sorry for the rhyming, left over limerickitis).  He also had the most surprising and versatile ability to defend everybody from the PG, SG, and SF.  This included doing a good job on Maynor, Williams, and Boozer.  I was also pretty surprise to see that Noc and Omri play very well together.  They were passing to each other and pretty in sync.  I really liked it when Sergio and these two guys were on the floor.  Sergio really sets up the 3 for Noc very well.  He did it within second of being in the game and the scoring rate shot way up, but more on that in a few.  Also, it should be no surprise that Noc can guard Kirilenko, Boozer, and Milsap.

The starting bigs were JT and May.  This actually worked pretty well.  JT has come so far along.  He is a much, MUCH more complete player.  He did really well and May did OK.  He cleaned up some nice rebounds, but I would not say that he is an impact player…  He did, however, play much better than Hawes who came off the bench to miss just about every shot.  He missed so many free throws I couldn’t believe it.  Pretty terrible actually.

OK, some thoughts by the quarters of play…

The first quarter our guys started off strong and stayed right with the Jazz scoring wise.  But then the second quarter happened.  I was frustrated.  I know that some of it was Beno because he ran the game at PG most of the second quarter, but it could have been more than just that.  I hope that PW was running outside play sets cause the Kings had NO inside game going on.  It was 3 point shot after shot and they only made less than 20%.  When Beno took over the score was Kings 24 and Jazz 28.  I kept track of the score and while Beno ran the game, in just a few minutes, the Jazz went up 9 points to 37 while the Kings only hit 4 points for 28.  Right at the end of the half Evan took the ball, just took it and drove, and scored 4 fast points driving to the hole.  Another two points and the half ended up with Kings 34 and the Jazz 48.  Beno really did awful… It was pretty brutal to watch.  I am pretty sure he sat the rest of the game.

The third quarter was interesting…  This quarter started with Evans, Omri, Noc Brockman, and JT.  This line up stayed even in scoring with the Jazz, but then Evans got hurt and sat for a while.  Man the Jazz are physical.  Sergio came in and while in the Kings scored twice as many points as the Jazz, 11 points to their 6.  He really sets up shooters really well.  Noc really benefited from some nice 3 point shots setup by Sergio.  Evans came back in toward the last part of the quarter with  Mason Omri, Noc, and JT.  That line up worked pretty well.  We scored 13 to their 12 points, but could not stop Milsap.  He kept hitting shots from the top of the key. We came back from our really BAD second quarter and ended the quarter at 65 to their 71 points. 

The fourth quarter things got big and physical.  We had Evan, Mason, May, JT, and Hawes.  Brockman also came in for a while.  This was to match up with Maynor, Williams, Fesenko, Koufos, and Milsap.    I think Okur was also in for a while.  The Jazz banged away and it got tough.  Brockman took a hit to the face and was pretty hurt, but this was after he drove the ball like linebacker into the paint.  It was a pretty slow game.  Not very much transition. PW tried to go small against these bigs with Sergio, and Casspi coming in, but it really didn’t work.  Not like earlier.  I think that Sergio plays better without Evans on the floor.  As weird as that may sound, but then maybe not.  He needs shooter to set up and is damned good at it.  Sergio came back out and things ground to a finish.  Omri drove for some points and then hit a 3, but it wasn’t enough in the end.  We lost.

All in all I have a lot of mixed feelings about this game.  Watching it showed that we really have some big gaps in our roster and some of the players really need to step up.  Evans and Omri get a passing grade and I liked Sergio early in the game.  The latter part wasn’t as good for him.

It seemed like PW didn’t want Evans to drive as much.  He just didn’t try to break down the defense like he has in the past.  It was much more set plays and a half court passing game from outside in and not inside out.  Kind of disappointing to me as it did not really take advantage of Evans abilities, IMHO.