Kings - Grizzlies - Defensive tracking

Welcome to the first game recap for Rebuilding the Kingdom. The focus for last night’s game was on the defensive performance of the team. As I explained in my last post, I am tracking some new defensive statistics for the team. If you want detailed explanations, go read that post now. For a quick recap, I will be tracking Heavily Contest Shots (HC), Lightly Contested Shots (LC), Altered/Blocked Shots (ABS), Forced Turnovers (FTO), and times a player was beaten 1 on 1 into the lane (BL).

Last night’s win was the second competitive game the Kings have played since trading our two biggest cancers. Brad Miller stopped caring about the team this season and Salmons was only concerned with his own statistics. Offensively, there was a lot more ball movement. However defensively, the new statistics were very telling.

Let’s start with our defensive players of the game:

Francisco Garcia – Anyone who has watched the Kings knows that we are much better defensively with Cisco on the floor, even though he lacks the ideal lateral speed to be a shut down man defender. However, his long arms let him contest a lot of shots and his help defense is superb. Garcia finished tied for second on the team with 4 Altered/Blocked shots. He also was able to heavily contest 12 shots and lightly contest 3 more, mostly by closing out hard on a number of three point shooters. He was largely responsible for the Grizzlies 29% 3-point shooting. On top of that, Garcia was able to force 2 turnovers and was only beaten into the lane once, despite covering Gay and Mayo for most of the night.

Donte Greene – The Kings 6’10’’ rookie had his best overall game of the season. However, he really stood out on the defensive end. In just 18 minutes, Greene was able to alter or block an outstanding 6 shots. He had 0 heavy contests and only 1 light contest. He was a much better defender in the lane than out on the perimeter. However, for a 20 year old rookie, this was an outstanding effort and he was a defensive game changer for his time on the court.

Unfortunately, we also have our defensive goat of the game:

Kevin Martin – Not only did he fail to register a single ABS or HC, but he only lightly contested 4 shots. At least 3 of those were very weak close outs on 3 point shooters. In all three cases, Martin gave minimal effort heading towards the perimeter shooter, raised his hand up only half way, and then started sprinting down the court to cherry pick. The Grizzlies made all three attempts. Martin also got beaten into the lane twice, second worst on our team behind Udrih. The only positive for Martin was 3 FTO.

Other notes:

- Beno Udrih was serviceable defensively, mostly because Mike Conley still can’t shoot the ball well. Udrih was beaten into the lane 4 times, which is low for him; however, this is mostly because he was able to play 3 steps off of Conley at all times, which allowed him to stop Conley’s penetration. When Conley learns how to shoot, Udrih will be in trouble.

- Jason Thompson > Spencer Hawes – JT actually had a very bad first quarter defensively, but still finished the game with 3 ABS, 5 HC and 5 LC. As the game went on he did a better job controlling the paint and forcing the Grizzlies into tough shots. Hawes on the other hand does try hard, but still lacks judgment on when/how to contest shots. HE did get 3 ABS, but had 0 HC and 4 LC. He also got abused in the post by Darko Milic without offering much resistance and picking up several silly fouls.

- Bobby Jackson forced 4 turnovers and had 7 LCs, but he has clearly lost a step and was only able to record 3 HC. Something tells me that in 2002, those numbers would be reversed.

Statistics – Min – ABS – HC – LC – BL – FTO

Beno Udrih – 34 – 0 - 0 – 2 – 0 – 4
Kevin Martin – 39 – 0 - 0 – 4 – 2 – 3
Jason Thompson – 39 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 1 – 2
Francisco Garcia – 45 – 4 – 12 – 3 – 1 – 2
Spencer Hawes – 23 – 3 – 0 – 4 – 0 – 0
Bobby Jackson – 35 - 0 – 2 – 7 – 0 – 4
Donte Greene – 18 – 6 – 0 – 1 – 0 – 0
Kenny Thomas – 5 – 0 – 1 – 0 – 0 - 0