Tyreke Evans Won't Play Against Rockets; Luther Head to Start

The current malady plaguing Tyreke is what the team has termed mild plantar fasciitis.

Forgot to add SOFT!!

should guard him. Also, Kevin can’t just shoot right over Cisco, unlike Head.

After all he’s starting the 11th or 12th man on the roster at SF.

I had Cisco starting because I thought that PW might trust a veteran with size. But, Casspi would have been my choice.

I think Omri would get thru screens better than Cisco, and Omri’s quicker. Plus the added heigth might affect Martins jumper. I also think that Omri would work Martin harder on the offensive end and that could take some of his energy out of his jump shot.

I like Head as a good matchup for Lee and Taylor who are 6-5 and 6-4. While Cisco might be better at defending Budinger who’s 6-7, Plus I’m guessing that Jeter has had more time working with Head in practice, so the two might be more comfortable together off the bench.

But, like PW likes to say, starting doesn’t mean your going to finish. And, how Beno does against Lowry may be more critical. If we can stop him, Martin isn’t going to beat us on his own and he just never gets others involved.

PW feels that he likes Pooh’s energy coming off the bench, or some similar line like he used on Omri.

As you may remember, PW is not interested in keeping his players happy. They should be interested in keeping PW happy.

I thought Cisco or Pooh would be more logical picks. But at least Head is well-rested.

By the way, I’m pretty sure Beno is starting. So why he shouldn’t be encouraged, I don’t know.

In spite of how PW has been using him and what he said about him, Luther has the best TS% of anyone on the team. And, that’s what you want at the SG. True he doesn’t take many shots but he’s always been on the floor with Tyreke and I think the let Evans have the spotlight. I think if he puts up Beno’s quantity of shots he can be just as productive as a starter.

Head is pretty good going to the basket, and he’s a good spot up shooter. He doesn’t shot well off the dribble, and that’s always hurt when he plays PG. But, he is a better ball handler than Garcia.

When it comes down to it, you need to be able to run and get thru screens when you defend Martin. So, I’m guessing by the end of the game we may see several players getting a chance to defend Martin. And, almost nobody ever blocks a 3pt shooter, so his heigth won’t hurt him there.

Martin has only scored over 30 pts 3 times this season, he hit 31 twice and 40 in his last game against Cleveland. The Kings are one of the better teams at defending the 3pt shot. Where teams usually hurt us is away from the rim and inside 3pt range.

An interesting note: Teams take the 2nd fewest attempts at the rim against the KIngs. And, they take the most attempts inside 10ft than any other team. So, it would seem that our interior defense and shotblocking at the rim, is forcing teams to pull up and take the short jumper rather than try and take it to the rim. And, the total attempts at the rim and inside 10ft is just 0.8 attempts above the league average.

So, it will be interesting to see how well Martin does against Dalembert when he tries to take it to the rim. I’m guessing we’ll see a lot of those pull up jumpers from 10-12 ft that he was so good at when he was with the KIngs.