Post Game Thread: Kings at Jazz

but at the same, phenominal relevant youtube linkage

Kings began the game with great D (and really maintained it) until that awful second quarter by the second unit. I can’t emphasize how impressed that defense was in the first quarter though. If it wasn’t for some ill timed turnovers after some good defensive stops, we could’ve been able to build a decent lead.

Unfortunately, the bench just didn’t have it today. Beno had a bad game and was, fair or not, a big reason why we went down by 10 points in that second quarter. It just seemed that he was rushing things and couldn’t really run the team. CJ Miles, Ronnie Price, and Earl Watson took advantage and helped the Jazz build the lead. It wasn’t the starters that won the game for Utah, IMO, it was the bench in the second.

As a good team would, they came out playing well in the 3rd and the Kings just couldn’t catch up. Just a good team executing and beating a team who’s still finding their rhythm. With the improved defense, the Kings will be competitive in more games, but the new lineup needs to get better at running the O. It was a very encouraging first quarter, but unfortunately the bench just couldn’t maintain the intensity. It just shows how to beat really good teams, more than one or two quarters of basketball is needed.

Looking forward to maintaining the defensive intensity in games to come. Once the offense comes around, things will look better.

Should be interestin

Start Cousins/JT

Make Landry our 6th man, you know the role that he was more than comfortable last year.

the pace he needs to be playing at to be effective through out an NBA game. Minus a few blackhole moments he had a great game tonight, though most of his points did came late in the forth when the Jazz had stopped playing. It is reliving to see he can go 80% from the line.

but it would appear to me that this team is not listening to their coaches. There is no way Westphal or Elie is sending these guys out there and saying; “Dont pass the ball and take only perimeter shots”. I dont want to see Westphal fired but something needs to get straightened out here because this is getting embarrassing.

I feel that it would be pointless. The Kings are just a bad team right now, enough said. Paul Westphal needs to rally the troops, because from what I’ve seen, the Kings will be lucky to win 20+ games.

Because I could not watch this shit.

they are boring. I have not seen an offense this boring since Motta.

I was in the nosebleeds so I couldnt see the team close up or anything, but they just seemed like they didnt care. They had lots of fouls called on them and they would just throw their hands up rather than get pissed off and play tough, there was NO heart and NO energy at all

I thought the Kings played good defense – they played sloppily with the ball, but the effort was there on D, just no execution on O. There were lapses – a few times where there were 5 Jazz on rebounds and 1 or 2 Kings. Cousins was very good as well.

Cohesion – no. Some of that I attribute to the Jazz D and their ease of power on Offense.

I thought this was more of the style I expect and hope the Kings to play (defensively)

This team isn’t worth two shits right now, let alone my $119.95. What a joke.

is that PW is repeating the same mistake over and over. With this young team you cannot substite 3 / 4 players at onve and expect them to hit their stride. He has to substitute more gradually in order to avoid meltdowns like just now in the 2nd quarter.

Yes, the offense is still terrible, and lacks identity. I’ll just stay positive for now and expect PW to focus his attention to it once the defense is fully established. But these kind of games won’t fill the seats at Arco.

Also, I’m getting a bit apprehensive about Tyreke. Not all of his play can be attributed to his injury. Also, if he’s reallly hurt, he should either sit a few games to heal, or get significant rest during games. Most importantly, he should play smarter and know when to give up the ball. He may understand the game instinctively, but right now I wonder about his basketball IQ.

I can’t figure out if it’s the coaching or the players. The team has shown a lot more firepower in the past, but these guys look like they just signed up for Junior Cagers.

Lots of new faces and guys trying to figure out where they fit, I guess.

I don’t expect the team to beat Utah in Utah, although if I recall right, they did it last year.

This just isn’t going to cut it for long.

I taped the game and caught a little bit of the stretch where CJ Miles and his friends Earl Watson and Ronnie Price were lighting us up. I’m not really sure I want to see that again, but I guess watching the first quarter could be harmless.

I’m following Donte on Twitter, and apparently there are some people upset that Donte posted some tweets laughing and joking around following the game. One guy actually tweeted Peaches about it. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about it soon…

I mean it’s obvious we have talent on this team, as well as big men who can pass the ball. Why can’t we run some Princeton with lots of passing, and some back door cutting? I mean if anyone could help fix this it would would be Carril..!

and I for one am ecstatic. Our starters held 2 or Utah’s top 3 scorers to around half of their normal production. We held them right at their team average of 33% from 3’s. What we didn’t do is run our offense efficiently. The bad shots and turnovers lead to 24 fast break points. Which was 14 more than our fast break points (10), and more than the difference in the score.

What I found interesting was, when Jeter entered the game, Beno continued to run the offense, and so did Head for a while. Jeter is the only pure PG on the team and you’d think the other guards would let him run the offense for a while.

And, eventually he did, but he did the same things that all the other guards did. Give up the dribble to a big, and run into the corner while the big goes one on one. When Jeter wasn’t in the half court offense, he was very good at setting other up. He actually had 4 assists (tied with Reke & Luther) for top assist honors, only Jeter did it in 12 mins instead of the 30 and 26 that Reke & Head needed.

I’m extremely happy that DeMarcus found his outside shot. Maybe when the guards get the ball to him, so far from the basket that he needs to slash to the basket to get off a shot, he’ll give up that stupid idea and either repost or take the outside shot.

I’ve been waiting for the Kings to run some kind of plays , so they can get the ball deeper into the paint for Cuz and Carl. But, it doesn’t look like that is ever going to happen. Whether it’s not in the offense or it’s because we don’t have a guard that can get the ball to them deep, I don’t know. What I do know is that we are getting outscored in the paint by much smaller teams. Our size on the frontcourt doesn’t seem to be as big of an advantage as we were lead to believe after the draft.

Head & Evans, one of them is going to have to step up and take over running the offense, as predictable as it is. But, maybe it’s time to see what Jeter can do with the 2nd team.

Things I didn’t like:

• Beno had me encouraged after the last game that he could actually stay focused on defense and stay in front of his man. This game, he looked like he pounded a few shots of Slivovitz right before tipoff. Holy crap, are his defensive reactions bad. Dude tries, I guess, it just looks like the ballhandler can make Beno do whatever they want him to.

• Tyreke Evans is broken. He has absolutely no interest and/or ability to run this team right now. I missed the first quarter of this game, which apparently wasn’t so bad on offense, but what I saw the rest of the game was ‘Reke giving up the ball as soon as he got to the arc, then wandering around for a bit with seemingly no effort to ever get the ball back. This usually resulted in Head or Landry trying to create some kind of offense from the perimeter, which usually resulted in a bad shot. If Evans is really hurt, he needs to take a couple of games off and get right. If Westphal is taking the ball out of his hands and telling him to give it up, he needs to stop that. If Tyreke is giving up the ball without being told to and it’s not because he’s hurt, then that young man needs a stern lecture. The bottom line is, this team will continue to be abysmal on offense until ‘Reke decides to take it over. That doesn’t mean that the other guys shouldn’t be involved, just that Tyreke needs to be the one involving them. Drive the damn ball to the rim, ‘Reke, and shoot a layup because that’s what you’re good at, or pass to Dally because he’s probably wide open and should be crashing to the hoop, or pass to Landry because he should be open for a mid-range jumper, or pass out to Donte or Head, because they’re probably open for three. In other words, there’s no reason why this year’s offense shouldn’t be a slightly upgraded version of last year’s offense, to go along with our new-found defense.

Things I liked:

• The only really fun part of this game was watching Cuz in the 4th quarter. I loved that, after a rough start to the game, Coach left him in for the rest of it and seemed to make sure he got the ball. I don’t know if it was the fact that there was no pressure since it was a blowout, but DeMarcus seemed more comfortable out there in the 4th quarter than I’ve seen him all year. It was like watching him in the preseason again. If Cuz can get into that kind of groove earlier on in the game, this team will start to be a whole lot more exciting to watch. Dude can ball, that’s for sure.

Either way, I am under the impression that people actually believed this was a .500 team or a team that was guaranteed to have a better record this year than last even though pretty much every single bottom feeder improved quite a bit in the offseason. Never been a huge PW supporter but I just hope people don’t buy into the idea that this team should actually be around a .500 ball club because if he is gone in the next couple of weeks this team will continue to suck. Maybe the suck won’t be as bad but it will suck.

FIRE WESTPHAL>>>>
His job was to get these young CATS to click. instead it has gotten worse….He cant find minutes for Jason Thompson and Omri casspi… He is experimenting with Mr. (Atrocious Pump Fake) Luther Head and Darnell Jackson… Demarcuz Clearly deserves way more minutes then he is getting.
Combined season avg for points for Dalember, Green, Luther: 24 pts
Combined seson avg for points for Casspi, JT, Cuz: 42 pts