Sorry, my notes and quotes are not only late but pretty brief today. As opposed to most evenings where I sit in the media box up stairs, I had the privilege of sitting in row AAA with Sactown Royalty’s BetweenTheEyes last night, which was a great treat. For once this season, I took in the game as a fan which was nice and heaven forbid, I may have even had an adult beverage to wash down the stench of defeat.
Coaches Notes and Quotes
- On the loss: “From 17 wins two years ago, to 25 wins last year, to whatever this year holds in store, nobody ever said this was going to be a straight rocket ship ride to the top. As we try to climb this mountain, we know there are going to be set backs and this certainly was one of them. We think we can play a lot better than we played tonight but we didn’t. The excessive turnovers, the players trying to do things that are not their strengths- we are not playing to our strengths either individually or as a team. And you can see guys trying but as they try, we are pulling apart rather than pulling together. We have to get through that tendency in order to be the team we think we can be and the team that we want to be.”
- On Michael Beasley’s big night: “Obviously Michael Beasley was somebody we didn’t have success at all guarding tonight. We tried pretty much every we could try and he had the answers and when we distorted our defense too much, they had a few other players come in and make shots when they need them.”
- On the turnover issues: “I don’t think there is any one answer. Each individual turnover you can look at as its own world but at the same time, it’s too many. I think that we are impatiently trying to break the offense off too soon and go on our own too often. We have big guys dribbling when they should be passing and letting the little guys dribble up the floor. We’ve got people going one on one into a crowd rather than seeing the defense and passing the extra pass or two. We’re just not playing together, playing to our strengths, the way I see us doing in practice or the way we did it in the first few games so we will keep working.”
- On Tyreke Evans tonight: “Tyreke had one of those games. They were really packing the paint on him and he wasn’t jump stopping properly. Maybe there isn’t that much contact and the guy flopped- I don’t know. He ended up with way too many offensive fouls and then a couple when he was trying to turn the game around offensively, he got caught trying to go for a steal for a couple of cheap fouls that if he gets the steal, great, but in that situation, you can’t.”
- On the struggles of DeMarcus Cousins: “I don’t know that I have all the answers for DeMarcus. He is a very talented player, we love having him on the team. He has a lot of options and I don’t think he’s really playing to the right options right now. He’s having a hard time figuring the rhythm that’s necessary, the intensity and the rhythm at various times. Maybe it’s hard to bring it off the bench but those are the things you have to figure out as a young player. He’ll be fine.”
- On leaving Tyreke with nine minutes left in the game with five fouls: “I just put him in and he played like ten seconds or something and he picked it up. I’ve seen guys essentially foul out because you keep them on the bench the whole game. He’s our guy and it’s time for us to try and win the game. I wanted him to play. I needed him to play.”
- On Dalembert’s big game: “He’s getting in shape. He’s really good at rolling for those lobs and we found him a few times. He’s good on the offensive boards and he can hit an open shot. I think that was not an a-typical game for him, he can have games like that offensively and his defense and enthusiasm was really good for us. It’s nice that he put in that kind of game and I think we’ll see more of that from him.”
- On the struggles of Carl Landry: “Yeah, I am concerned, because I have great in Carl. I said in training camp, I think sometimes that the coaching staff has more confidence in Carl than he does. I think he is a top level offensive player and right now, he seems to be losing his aggressiveness and I think it effects him on both ends of the floor. I think Carl is going to be fine, he’s got too much of a track record but he doesn’t look as aggressive as he needs to be right now.”
- On the strong play of Darnell Jackson: “Darnell has been one of the bright spots on our team every night. Every day at practice and every night. It’s hard for me to justify to myself, when he is sitting on the bench. I like having him in the game.”
Over the last week, we have seen three different sides to Coach Westphal in the post game interview. After the Lakers loss, he was noticeably upset with not only the outcome but the performance of his team. Following the Grizzly loss, we saw an optimistic coach who was very complimentary of both his own and the opposing teams players. Tonight, it was a more toned down, somber Westphal which is to be expected after a loss to a 1-7 team, in the second night of a back to back, for a third consecutive home defeat.
The Kings take on Phoenix on the road Friday night and then come back home to play a matinee against the Detroit Pistons on Sunday. The Kings have released some great prices for Sunday’s game so come on out and cheer on your Kings. If you missed our game recap from earlier, you can find it here and here is a link to yesterdays marathon on Donté Greene.
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