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Reaction to Kings Second Summer League Game: Kings vs Warriors

The win/loss really isn’t important in Summer League games.

And it isn’t really even about the way that this team lost the game, either. It doesn’t matter that they were up 14 with about five minutes to go. This Kings team seemed a lot more fluid offensively than they did Friday against the Pistons.

The problem is that these guys proved to be either errant or lazy at the free throw line. The 20 turnovers were ugly. There were missed alley-oop passes with some of them flying off of the court. There were more outside shots that weren’t contested with most of them coming at the end of regulation when the Warriors made their run.

The Kings players for the most part got complacent towards the end of the game, played sloppy offense, and lazy defense. Sure, it’s just Summer League but at the same time, you want to see more competitive fire with them.

Now let’s get to the players on the floor and how they looked because Summer League is much more about individual performance and growth than overall team record.

Donte Greene
DG had a terrible shooting game. He finished 5/17 from the floor and 1/3 from the free throw line. His 12 points were woven in a slew of bad pull-up jumpers off the dribble. It isn’t so much that he missed the shots; it’s the way he missed them. He tried to do too much to make up for the fact that Anthony Randolph was torching him on the other end. His rebounding was still pretty good with seven (three offensive) but nothing made up for the fact that he couldn’t cover Randolph (24 points, 10/13 FG).

Omri Casspi
Omri had just a terrible game from start to finish. He wasn’t fluid with the ball, he missed easy lay-ups, and he turned the ball over. He was forced to play with some adversity because of his terrible play and the crowd getting on him because they were restless and siding with everything Stephen Curry. But he did bounce back a little bit with a couple of threes to finish with 11 points. It will be interesting to see how he responds, now that he’s had such a potentially disheartening performance.

Jason Thompson
Jason Thompson thinks that he isn’t rebounding because he’s being doubled when shots go up and that the scouting report says he’s the Kings rebounder. Everybody else thinks that it’s because he’s playing slow and not being active on the boards. On a pretty key play late in the game, he was slow to a board that bounced on the ground. The Warriors scooped it up and the Kings second chance points opportunity was gone. But he did score pretty efficiently and forced the smaller Golden State squad to get into team foul trouble early with being more physical in fighting for post-position. He was pretty impressive being a face-up offensive weapon and knocked down a couple of shots. He finished with 17 points but missed five of his 12 free throw attempts.

Jerel McNeal
McNeal played great defense on Curry and helped force him into a 0/8 effort in the first half. He knocked down all four of his shots and even blocked a lay-up attempt. He didn’t have a statistically impressive game but did a lot of those cliché intangibles that don’t show up in the box score. This was a great game towards getting him a final roster spot on some roster.

Jon Brockman

He’s always the most active guy on the boards, no matter who is on the floor. He grabbed seven rebounds in just nine minutes, including a tip-in off a missed Evans lay-up. If he doesn’t find a way into the Kings’ rotation this year, it’s going to be a travesty. He’s a great backup option at the power forward position for 15 to 20 minutes (max). His height is obviously a concern but he makes up for it with instincts, work ethic, and his surprising leaping ability.

Marcus Landry
Landry has proven to be the best shooter on the floor from three for the Kings. He made four of his seven attempts from long range and finished with 14 points. He might be an option to make the team if they feel they need a reliable shooter. He probably isn’t a guy you can play for extended minutes but maybe he’s best served in a Steve Novak-type of role.

Brian Roberts
Roberts played extended minutes (20) for the first time this summer and had a couple of nice moments. He finished with four assists and forced a miss from Curry at the end of regulation to send it to overtime. He could find a place in the D-League with more performances like that.

And now for your daily Tyreke Evans fix:

The jumper is still very suspect. He took a lot more in today’s game than most people would have liked but a lot of that had to do with the Warriors trying to clog the middle. When he did attempt to drive, he often got where he needed to go. He made a couple of threes in five attempts and looked comfortable on four of the shots. He once again wasn’t able to finish many lay-ups in which he got fouled, which took away three-point play opportunities. And his free throws were very poor with hitting seven of 12.

He did a fantastic job on the boards with 10 and racked up five assists with basic passes to his teammates coming off of screens for open jumpers. He wasn’t nearly as controlled going to the basket as he was in the first game. He fell down while dribbling a couple of times. He threw some sloppy passes to go with his basic assists.

His defense was questionable as well. He gave up quite a few scores to Cartier Martin, who finished with 27 points. There didn’t seem to be an urgency to close out on shooters like there was the previous day.

Overall, the numbers were impressive and the actual play was pretty close to justifying them. As a young combo guard being asked to run the point (especially in such a sloppy, Summer League environment), the turnovers are going to happen. And I’d actually be shocked if he kept it to fewer than four in any of these games. But the important thing to remember is the outside jumper looked a little bit better despite the poor mechanics. He gets to the basket whenever he needs to. And his performance on the glass was nice to see in case his supposed-rebounding teammates (JT) don’t make the concerted effort to clean the boards.

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  • Aykis16

    I don’t think Evans was guarding Martin. Martin was playing Small Forward. That was Casspi’s man.

  • Aykis16

    Evans spent most of the time guarding Ingles (1-7 fg). I thought his defense was quite good. I would have liked to see him defend Stephen Curry but they kept McNeal on him. We’ll get to see him defend points in preseason.

  • http://www.cowbellkingdom.com Zach Harper

    @Aykis16
    He was switched on Martin often in that big run and OT if I’m not mistaken. Could be wrong about that but it seemed like he was the guy near Martin whenever he scored late.

  • Aykis16

    @Zach Harper
    Nope. I’ll re-watch the game, but I don’t think he was on Martin very much, if at all.

  • Aykis16

    Rewatched it. On Overtime he was on Martin sort of. It looked like they were running a zone. But most of the time he was on Ingles.

  • pookeyguru

    I think your first line is the most important thing. I wish JT’s effort improved on the boards, but that’s a small wish.

    It also makes me wonder how much Summer League really matters at this point. Meh, either way, great stuff Zach.

  • http://www.cowbellkingdom.com Zach Harper

    @Aykis16
    I think with such little sleep and so much Vegas influence, I must have just blended the fourth quarter and overtime together and remembered things that I didn’t actually see with Evans defense. He did a great job on Joe Ingles but you and I could do a great against Ingles. It makes me wonder if they were hiding him or trying to save him defensively. It would be one thing if he was flying off of his man to create turnovers but that didn’t happen. Would’ve loved to see him against Curry and he even said something to that affect after the game.

  • http://www.cowbellkingdom.com Zach Harper

    @pookeyguru
    That’s the weird thing about being there. You’re trying to find things in the games that probably don’t matter. I mean, if JT comes out and kills it on the boards in pre-season and in the regular season, who cares if he wasn’t busting his ass in Summer League? I guess it’s just a way to keep tabs on certain things and see if they become trends so you have a point of reference to the origin of the problems.

    But it was pretty fun to be around the players and media in such a relaxed environment.

  • Aykis16

    @Zach Harper
    Unfortunately, a side effect of starting McNeal as our shooting guard (an obvious choice because he’s the most likely, after Brockman of course, to make the team at this point) means that McNeal guards the opponent point and Evans guards the 2. I don’t think Curry would have exploded like he did in the 2nd half if Evans was guarding him, whenever Evans was guarding a point, (see Acie Law), he didn’t shut him down per se, but he stopped him from doing or going where he wanted.

    I sort of hope they start a taller guard like Landry to put Evans at the point on the defensive end. He’s going to be guarding point guards in the season (unless we’re playing the teams with superstar SGs) so it makes sense to see what he does to point guards in summer league. But I think we’ll see more of that in preseason when he’s matched with Kevin Martin.

    I fully expect Evans to have a much better game than Brandon Jennings tonight though.

  • http://www.cowbellkingdom.com Zach Harper

    @Aykis16
    Ya, I didn’t mind them starting McNeal there and he did a good job on Curry in the first 25 minutes of the game but I find it hard to believe he couldn’t have guarded Joe Ingles despite the size advantage. I wonder if that decision-making came from Coachie or Westphal?

    As for Evans vs. Jennings tonight, here’s my prediction:
    Jennings makes one spectacular play or maybe two early and gets a swagger that gets him into trouble with his decision-making. And Evans dominates him for the next 38 minutes. I’d be shocked if Jennings outplayed Evans after what I saw from the two players this past weekend.

  • Aykis16

    @Zach Harper
    Ya. Jennings hasn’t impressed me at all. Tyreke has. As for why McNeal wasn’t guarding Ingles I think it was based on size. Ingles is like 6-6, 6-7, and McNeal is like 6-1. Makes more sense to put Evans on him.