The Unlikely Hole: Blazers 98, Kings 87

The means justify the ends – Tyreke getting his points should results in a Kings win. Tyreke not scoring was not Tyreke not shooting against the Blazers, If he had finiished with 20 points last night it would not have hindered the sweet strokes of Jason Thompson and Beno Udrih.

Tyreke, already impressively consistent this season faces his biggest challenge. He has a lot riding on his shoulders. Groan, his cross to bear. All of those T-Shirts, four months of non stop 20-5-5,banter the Blueprint, the campaigning of the Kings organziation, and his semming justification for RoY, almost ignoring the skill of the young LayUp King. So much paranoia, so little time.

Evans had his already bandaged knee nailed last night. He is struggling with his wind – it is a bee in his bonnet. He must overcome it, and of course, he will.
Will Tyreke wear the crown of thorns, shrouded in shame or be raised up for all to praise?

I understand that the thickness of the mouthguard is a factor in preventing concussions; however, if the construction of the mouthguard significantly impacts user performance, then that is a problem for the elite athlete to play effectively. I hope that the dentists are looking into having a different one made for Tyreke that doesn’t hinder his playing performance to the extent that his current one seems to.

Tyreke gets gaurded by every teams ace defensive small forward & no one covers Brandon Roy. Problem is we don’t have a small forward who can gaurd opposing teams best player on a consistent basis & is consistent enough offensively who needs to be gaurded. Everyone always focuses on the need for a big man & maybe a 2 gaurd but I believe we have one more hole & that’s at the SF.
I’m not saying Donte or Omri won’t become that because I believe they will one day but for the next year or two this is something we will have to deal with unless we land a stud SF to replace them which probably isn’t our most pressing need but a need nonetheless.

we have seen battier, mbah a moute (i have no idea how thats spelled), and batum give evans a hard time

BUT the good news is that when evans works on that outside shot and can hit that consistently, those long defenders cant defend evans only for the drive as they have been doing

Athletes of this caliber can get most of the oxygen they need by inhaling through their noses. I was taught that in order to utilize oxygen best for athletics, one should inhale through the nose, and exhale through the mouth. Any dental guard is not going to interfere with exhalation, and truth be told, it shouldn’t be making any significant difference even if Tyreke Evans is, for lack of a more useful term, a mouth-breather.

If a tiny piece of polymerized plastic is what keeps him from getting his 20/5/5, he wasn’t going to get it anyway.

That kid is worn the fuck out. He can refuse to call it a “rookie wall” if he wants, but this late in his first season, any team committed to chasing him around with a Batum-caliber defender is going to have their way, for the most part.

I hope he gets it. It won’t be the mouth guard that stops him.

as much as his effort and attitude did. I won’t lie, I left Arco pissed at him, thinking that if he would’ve done just a little bit more on other areas of the game we would’ve won. Forget about scoring the ball, help your team on defense and help your other guys attle for the tough rebounds.

He continues to jog back after missing layups and leaving his teammates to be 4-5 on defense. He patiently gets back on D and then decides to pick up the guy that’s closer to him without thinking about rotations or mismatches. Watch the wide open 3 Rudy Fernandez launched amost at the end of the third and you’ll see who’s fault that is.

This has been going on all season and just because he’s our “superstar in the making” I’m, personally, not going to give him the pass. If this was Spencer, JT, Donte, Beno, or any other player, we would be killing them. Omri’s tired too, I don’t see him not running back to pick up his man on D after missing shots.

I’m not overly worried about this right now, but I’ll be watching closely to see if it continues next season. Just because the Kings org has annointed him as ‘our savior’ doesn’t mean he’s getting a pass (at least from me).

Fire away, I can take it.

It’s delayed a day because of the Easter holiday. I hope you guys all have a great Easter, whether you celebrate or not, and I’ll see you all tomorrow.