As nice as it was for the Kings to win....the fact that Travis Outlaw had a few good moments means that Keith Smart will go to him more often....which is a loss for the Kings. I have many mixed feelings now.
Well the Kings starters = bench players so it does make sense. Brooks is more of a bench player these days. Thornton is more of a please trade him kind of guy. Cisco starting is lol. JT is a pseudo starter, and Cousins is legit....who doesn't play like he is half the time. So yeah there isn't much of a tradeoff.
I'm happy for Outlaw.
He scored against his old team. His teammates are happy for him too.
I just feel bad, because many of us predict that Smart will use this as a gateway for more PT.
Robinson, Thompson, Hayes, and Cousins should still get most of the frontcourt minutes, barring foul trouble or Cousins going 4/19.
I think Cisco is starting, so that the 2nd unit doesn't get shuffled around.
On the Clippers, whenever Billups is out, they start Willie Green. When Billups is healthy, Green barely plays.
That could be what Smart is thinking. If Evans is out, have a 3rd stringer start so that the 2nd unit doesn't get messed up, and they still can try to gel together. Play the bench more though unless Cisco is on fire.
When Evans is healthy, Cisco will probably get DNPs 1/2 the time.
It might be his thinking...but based on everything he has done over the past year this might be giving him too much credit. In truth though the way Thornton has been playing the team might be off with Cisco starting. The guy has no patience or thought process at all. See ball, get ball, shoot ball in under 1 full second.
I missed the game.
Kings fans, what went well tonight, specifically?
How were we able to beat Portland by 19?
John Salmons shot over 50%, and had 11 assists.
I wasn't aware that this was 2008-2009
Yes, coincidence.
Evans played in the Toronto game, so he was a part of the winning streak.
These 3 games were also against lottery teams.
The Kings also shot poorly on offense in all of the games.
.463 against Toronto.
.405 against Orlando
.419 against Portland.
They played passable defense and rebounded well in the first two games. That's why they won.
But it's not like the offense was clicking. It wasn't.
Turnovers were 15, 18, and 10.
Again, all of these games were just bad teams playing each other, exhibiting bad play, and somebody had to win.
As for the road win, they were due, they were going to win one eventually. It just happened to be Portland.
I could also say that Evans had good personal performances in 3/5 of his most recent games, and the Kings won those. Coincidence? I can say when Tyreke plays well, they'll win 1/2 of those games (rounding down).
Rk G Date Age Tm Opp GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS GmSc 1 1 2012-10-31 23-042 SAC @ CHI L 1 39:05 8 13 .615 1 2 .500 4 4 1.000 1 7 8 3 0 1 2 3 21 17.5 2 2 2012-11-02 23-044 SAC @ MIN L 1 29:35 3 14 .214 0 1 .000 0 0 2 5 7 4 1 0 2 4 6 0.5 3 3 2012-11-03 23-045 SAC @ IND L 1 44:27 5 15 .333 0 0 4 4 1.000 2 7 9 4 3 2 4 3 14 11.0 4 4 2012-11-05 23-047 SAC GSW W 1 29:14 1 9 .111 0 2 .000 1 2 .500 0 3 3 2 0 0 2 3 3 -4.2 5 5 2012-11-07 23-049 SAC DET W 1 31:13 5 11 .455 0 1 .000 5 6 .833 2 5 7 3 3 0 2 4 15 13.3 6 6 2012-11-09 23-051 SAC SAS L 1 33:23 5 13 .385 0 2 .000 2 2 1.000 0 6 6 3 1 0 1 0 12 8.8 7 7 2012-11-11 23-053 SAC @ LAL L 1 25:58 4 9 .444 0 1 .000 1 2 .500 0 4 4 4 2 0 1 0 9 8.9 8 8 2012-11-13 23-055 SAC POR L 1 29:38 4 8 .500 0 2 .000 2 4 .500 0 1 1 4 1 0 2 2 10 6.5 9 9 2012-11-16 23-058 SAC ATL L 1 27:19 5 11 .455 1 2 .500 3 4 .750 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 14 7.2 10 10 2012-11-18 23-060 SAC BRK L 1 31:34 8 14 .571 1 2 .500 4 6 .667 1 6 7 2 1 2 2 3 21 16.7 11
11 2012-11-21 23-063 SAC LAL W 1 28:47 7 11 .636 0 0 4 4 1.000 1 3 4 6 0 1 5 3 18 13.4 12 12 2012-11-23 23-065 SAC @ UTA L 1 30:37 7 17 .412 1 3 .333 4 4 1.000 1 3 4 5 2 0 1 4 19 14.4 13 13 2012-11-24 23-066 SAC UTA W 1 36:35 9 17 .529 0 1 .000 9 9 1.000 1 4 5 5 2 0 2 2 27 23.3 14 14 2012-11-27 23-069 SAC MIN L 1 36:00 9 14 .643 2 3 .667 0 0 0 7 7 6 2 2 2 1 20 21.1 15 15 2012-12-05 23-077 SAC TOR W 1 34:08 7 16 .438 2 4 .500 7 12 .583 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 1 23 15.0
Portland had 8 more turnovers, shot 3.2% worse.
Also, I'm not sure how to explain all of this, but the Kings had 86 FGAs to Portland's 75. Kings just got more shots, and I don't think it's all because of the turnover differential.
I'm a little surprised Portland hit 8 3's. It didn't seem like they hit many. But then I see the Kings hit 9.
Maybe a key was that Portland didn't win the 3-point battle.
And Lillard was average, 12 points, 9 assists, 4 turnovers.
I didn't even notice Aldridge was in the game. He went 5-14.
Batum was also hurt and only played a little bit.
And, the Travis Outlaw explosion in the 4th.
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