When Spence helped, Green passed the ball off to Krstic for the dunk, and afterwards Spence glared at Beno for not rotating. I wonder whose more wrong there: Beno for not rotating or Spence for expecting a 6’3 guy to be effective in that rotation.

My friend and I comment often how many long rebounds the opposing team gets against us. I am not sure it is our bigs fault for Sefolosha and Westbrook, how come they were able to get in the key without a body on them? Hawes, Landry, and JT cant defend bigs and block out guards.

StR greatly disappointed me last night.

Has anyone explained to Tyreke to average 20, 5 and 5, he has to get rebounds? Maybe he could beat Westbrook to the ball a couple times last night.

If Westphal is gonna play Hawes, the guards need to crash the boards. Evans can get 8 rebounds every night. Cisco can get 5. Beno, well, he can get a couple.

he’s got some attitude issues that I’d prefer to steer clear of, but he’s tough as hell too

Here is the difference between Cuz, DC, and Eddy Curry.

DC had expectations that were incredible for any person not LeBron James to reach. Even now, people talk about how he could have been the best power forward ever. Cousins does not have that pressure.

Curry was part of the post-Jordan Bulls, called baby Shaq, and was part of the teen towers with Chandler. He was too young to be the future of a franchise. We know that now.

If, and it is a big if, the Kings draft Cousins, he would have to work hard to even crack the rotation. This wouldn’t be his team, because it is Tyreke’s. He basically would have a no pressure situation. I think he could learn the ropes, focus on what this team needs, and become very good in the future for us.

because his teammates boxed out and he crashed for the board, then there is your fastbreak right there. He already has the ball. Run with it.

Westphal has acknowledged a couple of times in his post-game interviews. I have faith that after last night’s loss, the coaching staff will take this issue seriously.

I won’t comment on the fastbreaks, as I haven’t really focused on that issue. For the most part, I have just been happy to see somebody, anybody, start a fast break. But, you might have a valid point.

It might work for a couple possessions in a zone defense, but not for long.

Now, I have been wondering if Landry could play the 3 with Dorsey and Thompson. That would be a formidable front line. I think Landry is quick enough to play the 3 on occasion. Kinda like Corliss.

just sayin again

I really do, and he’s got to get better at it.

But I do see a lot of defensive possessions where he’s helping someone that got beat, and you’re not going to get a lot of defensive rebounds when that happens.

Hawes is not a great athlete. That was more apparent on that particular play than anything else. (Hawes was not under the hoop.) I also think you’re ignoring the fact that Tyreke did a poor job of boxing out Beno Udrih on that play.

Why was it a problem? Beno was just standing there lost on that particular play after Barea curled around on the baseline into the corner. Hawes wasn’t expecting Barea to be there, and the reason he wasn’t expecting Barea to be there was because he was expecting Barea to be checked by Beno.

The problem there, mostly, is that Hawes physical limitations was a problem. But, if you told me that kind of play happened without a players name involved, I would have likely thought you were talking about Hawes and a blown assignment by a Kings G.

Hell, why not try Landry at the 3 along with them? Maybe between the 3 of them, someone can get a rebound.

No rebounds = no minutes.

Is that the offense runs much better when he’s on the floor, he is able to do things that don’t show up on the stat sheets. Not last night maybe but . . .

OKL has Thabo playing 30 minutes and the guy doesn’t score for crap, plenty of other teams who have rebounding / defensive specialists who are starters or 6th men.

Give it a try.
(but OK, I do know the fascination – I just don’t think its a necessity)

And Landry was a definite upgrade to the frontcourt, however his own weaknesses are similar to the existing problems.

The question is whether Geoff ever looks at a soft, non-defending, non-rebounding frontcourt and sees a problem. I’ve kind of lost faith on that front.

The team is no worse without Kevin, regardless of how he performs for the Rockets.

So the trade did address that weakness.

we badly needed someone who can create offense around the basket, and Landry is proving to be really, really good at that. (I thought Ron-Ron was gonna be that kind of player for the Kings but for some reason he decided he was Ray Allen with muscles and stepped back trying to drain threes).

Landry’s not a great rebounder or defender but he’s considerably stronger than K-Mart in those areas. Plus he’s younger and cheaper than Kevin, and just as fun to watch play.

Landry was a great pick-up for the Kings looking forward. His game will work way better with Tyreke’s, who, let’s face it, is The Future.

for the most part he’s seldom in position to rebound because of the Kings offense and how other teams attack us.

On offense Spencer is the only big that goes away from the basket to set screens out high. And, the Kings offense is set to have Tyreke and Landry go one on one and attack the basket. This means that Hawes has to move away from the basket to draw the center away from the rim and open the lane for his teammates.

On defense, teams run the high pick & roll against Tyreke because he’s bad an getting thru the screens, and since they use their center to set the screens, Spencer is again pulled away from the rim.

JR made several comments during the game about Spencer’s good plays and how they don’t show up in the box scores. I thought there were about 4 or 5 times where he didn’t fight for good position or just watched and didn’t try to get into the battle. But, it was debateable whether it would have made a difference, because OKC always seemed to have 4 players in the paint going for the ball.

Early in the season, we were one of the top rebounding teams in the league. It wasn’t a drop off on Spencer’s part that changed that. The Kings as a team need to step up their rebounding.