[5]Blazers @ SAC Game Preview (10/31):[/5]
Our Last game: Opening Night v. OKC was nerve-racking for 3 quarters before the Blazers started playing like Blazers, overcame Russell Westbrook’s 38 points and pulled away for a 106-89 win. LaMarcus Aldridge led the way with 27 points, Wesley Matthews scored 22 on 8-12 shooting (including 5-7 from 3) and Robin Lopez had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds (7 offensive). The Blazers initiated the newly-laid Court of the Future at Moda Center with a win and have now tied Boston’s NBA record of consecutive Home Opening victories at 14.
Their Last game: 10/29 v. GSW. The Kings lost their home opener Wednesday night against Golden State, hanging tough with the Warriors for a half before falling apart into a morass of turnovers and bricks, scoring 28 points in the second half of a 95-77 loss. DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins went for 20 points and 11 rebounds in a game in which a) David Lee and Andrew Bogut combined for 18 minutes and b) he was in foul trouble regardless. Newly-arrive Darren Collison made his Kings debut with 14 points and 8 assists and Rudy Gay scored 17. Don’t let the smooth stats fool you, though, as the team committed 26 turnovers shot 31% from the field (16% from 3) and everyone not named Nik Stauskas went 1-11 from 3-Point-Land.
Our last game vs. other team (season series):4/1/14, W 100-99 Series 3-1 Dorell Wright’s 3-pointer with
SAC Last year + Changes to their roster: The Kings played around .500 ball when all three of Rudy Gay, DeMarcus Cousins, and Isaiah Thomas were healthy, but Thomas is gone, and the Kings have not been good on defense since before Rick Adelman showed up. Cousins has made huge strides on that end, but he’s never going to be an elite rim protector, and Mike Malone faces a huge challenge in getting these guys to play a coherent system.
Good news, though: The Kings are hoping to be entertaining! Multiple outlets report that owner Vivek Ranadivé
has pitched the idea to the team’s brain trust of playing 4-on-5 defense and leaving one player to cherry-pick
The Kings aren’t actually going to do that, (though if they keep giving up 95 points to short-handed teams while shooting 31% they might) but it shows Ranadivé is committed to pushing boundaries in his search for an offbeat brand of “position-less” ball.
They’ve been active in trade rumors already, and some think they’ll either move Jason Thompson or use him as a backup center. In Gay, Derrick Williams, and even Omri Casspi, the Kings have the tools to play small-ball lineups, but that will be a tiny feature of their rotation as long as Malone starts the Cousins-Thompson duo. The potential of a rising cap has renewed interest in Thompson as a bench big, according to several sources across the league.
Ben McLemore is hitting his second year as a SG, but the Kings drafted Nik Stauskas as well with their lotto pick this year. Both should get 25mpg-plus.
Injury Updates: Meyers Leonard (illness) did not make the trip for Portland. Sacramento doesn’t have injuries or illnesses as an excuse tonight.
Matchups:
PG: Darren Collison vs. Damian Lillard. Nice young player vs. All-Star. Collison is small, quick, handsy and likes distributing the ball around the court. Not necessarily a shooter (a decent 36% on 3 on about 2 shots a game), but can get to the rim if the defense breaks down.
SG: Wesley Matthews vs. Ben McLemore/Nik Stauskas. McLemore right now is a shooting guard that’s not shooting well, and Stauskas just played his first 26 NBA minutes after spending his college life in the Big 10. They were a combined 3-15 against GSW, and with neither known for their D (something that could be said for most Kings) Wes could have a big night.
SF: Nic Batum v. Rudy Gay. Probably the most interesting matchup. Gay is still a good volume scorer at about 20ppg—not particularly efficient but someone that can go off. Nic can definitely hang with him on the defensive side of the ball, and it’s only a matter of whether or not we get “Aggro Nic” on whether Batum can keep him occupied while Gay’s on D.
PF: LaMarcus Aldridge v. Jason Thompson. Again, All-Star v. decent young guy. When LMA’s mixing it up between shooting the silky long-range J and banging down low, he’s pert-near unstoppable for anyone—and that includes the likes of Jason Thompson. Thompson is a serviceable scorer—he shoots the longer jumper at about a 37% clip but he’s pretty money near the hoop (55% on shots 10ft and in). He knows his role, and while he won’t be going off, you can’t just leave him alone.
C: DeMarcus Cousins v. Robin Lopez. Last year Boogie went off on us for an average of 33/11 in 4 games, so it’s not like he’s a discountable scrub. He made the Team USA squad this summer by impressing Coach K with his improvement in game and attitude. Lopez has a propensity for foul trouble as well, so it’s something to watch for. If this becomes Boogie-v-Kaman in crunch time, you might see LMA playing D on him. But going it, you’re probably going to have to prepare yourself that he’s going to have a decent night.
Give-a-Rip (City) Factor—a.k.a. why you should watch: First, it’s a Blazers game. But if you have more of a life than I do and need a reason to cut trick-or-treating short, the Blazers first road game has some potential entertainment factor. Boogie Cousins can be a beast down low. He, along with Kevin Love, LMA and no one else in the entire league, was in the Top 10 of both scoring and rebounding last year. He also abused Portland last season, averaging 33.3 points and 11.5 boards, and the Kings stole a win from the Blazers and would’ve had another without Dorell Wright’s heroics. (And yes, that may be the only time all season I use the phrase “Dorell Wright’s heroics”. I hope not, but you have a track record now, DW). Darren Collison is the new PG for SAC, and is a thief in the Chris Paul mold (not the “Ocean’s 11” mold). He had 5 against Steph Curry and KlayKlay Thompson on Wednesday night, so if he’s in while Butters McCollum (head nod to Julius) is bringing the ball up, it could get scary. Looking for a bounce-back game from Damian. In games following his worst three games last year (by game score), he averaged 29ppg and shot 60% on 8 3’s a game. So he’s got that going for him, which is nice.
Current Power Rankings:
RipCityTwo (PtldPlatypus): I still can't believe that the Gay/Cousins pairing wasn't more dysfunctional last year. But I don't think they've done enough to get out of the conference's bottom 3.
ESPN: (23) The Kings are still in the honeymoon phase after DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay made a 12-man Team USA. The fear here, though, is that nothing in these next six months will match that high. An All-Star berth for Boogie, or maybe a renewed trade push for Rajon Rondo or Josh Smith, are the only hopes.
CBSSports: (25) When I was just a few months out of college, I got a job as a manager for a startup company's branch in Austin, Texas. As part of this job, I had to manage the financial books for this branch that had 17 clients and a dozen employees. Attention to detail is not my strong suit. I wound up so perplexed and confused my Excel spreadsheets would have annotations on top of their annotations. It was a disaster. And that process still made more sense to me than what the Kings did this summer. But they have DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay, so maybe they'll win a few games
Covers: (23) The Kings remain a mish-mash of pieces that don't fit very well together. This is where we get to the teams that will win 30 games or fewer.
Grantland: (Just Plain Bad) If these guys were in the East, you could talk yourself into a world in which they edge toward 38 wins and chase the no. 8 spot. Alas, they play in the West, and there’s no real sign of a decent team lurking here.
GrandpaBlaze’s Prediction Game link
MediocreMan’s Over/Under Game link
Links to other team’s site(s):
Kings’ Official Site
http://www.nba.com/kings/
Cowbell Kingdom:
http://cowbellkingdom.com/
Final Thoughts: Should be fun. In a world that is right, LMA and Dame go off in the first half, allowing Coach Stotts to use more of the bench combos in game situations and resting the starters a bit. Looking for Damian to recover from Wednesday Night’s horror show and give SAC fans something to cry over. Potential for copious amounts of garbage time for Truck Robinson to exact his revenge on the monsters who traded him away 7 months after using the #5 pick in the draft on him (and not Lillard. Suuuuuxxx). But this is the NBA, and there’s significant potential of LMA and Cousins going off on each other for some kind of 30/20 game as the rest of the building lays the ball on the deck and drops bricks all around them. But I don’t think so…not this time and not after the goose-egg first half Wednesday night. Blazers going away…115-85.
Follow the game thread on RipCityTwo.com (linked on the Blazers.com site), and look for RC2 PostGame Analysis threads and the Forensic Fan follow-up. Happy Halloween.
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BLAZERS' GAME NOTES 
