Turnover Tuesdays with Mr. Taylor

As I predicted, the Kings went 2-2 last week bringing their record for the season to 7-12.

2-2 isn’t bad considering that they were without DeMarcus Cousins for all but one of the games, but it is disappointing considering their lackadaisical effort in a 10-point loss to Minnesota on Friday night.

But it wasn’t all bad as the Kings showed some road grit against the Milwaukee Bucks and arguably their best effort of the year in a 112-98 drubbing of the Mavericks last night.

Let’s have a look at the week that was by the numbers.

• Omri Casspi’s excellent early play off the bench is beginning to translate into some extended run on the court. Last week, he played 30 minutes a night and scored nearly 14 a game on 51 percent from the floor and 50 percent from deep.
• Rudy Gay had a strange week as he sandwiched two terrible games between two 2 very productive ones. He had one of his best games of the year on the road versus Milwaukee, putting up 36 points on 13-21 from the field but struggled mightily the next 2 games, averaging only 11 a game on an atrocious 24 percent from the field. He finished solidly with 20 points and seven boards last night against Dallas.
• The Kings jumped 11 slots to number 9 in offensive rating this week, but slid 4 spots on defense to 26^th.
• Turnovers and foul shooting continue to haunt the Kings as they rank 29th and 26th respectively. For a team that’s 7^th in FG percentage, 5^th in 3PT percentage, and 3^rd in assists, just imagine where they’d be offensively if they were even just middle-of-the-road in those other categories.
• Dallas employed the hack-a-Rondo and it resulted in more FT attempts for the veteran lead guard with a broken FT stroke. He shot 7 of 14 against Dallas alone. He’s now shooting 42 percent on the season, which is actually up from the 36 percent he was shooting going into last week.
• Don’t be surprised to see Seth Curry begin to cut into Ben McLemore and Marco Belinelli’s minutes at the shooting guard position. Steph’s kid brother played in the last three games, including 19 minutes versus the Mavericks. He made 5 of 6 3-pointers last week and 6 of 8 overall.
• Speaking of McLemore, he regressed a bit last week shooting 37 percent from the field and an abysmal 25 percent from deep putting up 7.0 points in 24.6 minutes of play in his four starts.
• James Anderson still isn’t very good. But he did play in 2 consecutive games last week, registering zero points and two rebounds in his seven minutes.

The week ahead:

12/3 versus the Boston Celtics (in Mexico City, Mexico)

12/5 versus the Houston Rockets (in Houston, TX)

12/6 versus the Oklahoma City Thunder (in Oklahoma City, OK)

I think the Kings manage 2 out of 3 this week to bring their record to 9-13 for the year. Again, this could easily be an 0-3 week and if it is…Karl is firmly on the hot seat….again.