Rookie Blog - November 23, 2008
Its been a couple weeks since I last posted, but I've been busy. We suffered our first defeat
of the season rightafter that last post to the 76ers, but then went on another little winning
streak of 7 or 8 games, never imagined we'd be this good or something. Again I can't say enough
of Kevin Martin, he's playing like the league MVP right now. In our November 9th game versus
the Golden States Warriors at home, he dropped a league high 61 points! I think that is like a
team single game record or something. Brad Miller also had a triple-double that game with 10
points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists. It just shows that when Kevin is hot, the rest of the team
is usually performing well too.
I had a breakout game against the Clippers couple days later with 15 points, and to end to end
the week we played the West powerhouse Phoenix Suns and two time MVP Steve Nash. Not to sound
cocky or anything but I thought they were just average. We easily handed them a 40 point defeat,
and they didn't lead at any point in the game. Kevin was on fire as usual, pouring in 41 points,
while Donte won POTG honors with 21 points and 14 rebounds, absolutely owning Shaq and Amare. So
at the end of 10 games we were sitting atop the league with a 9-1 record. The biggest suprised
after us would probably be the Oklahoma City Thunder; everyone expected them to be horrible, but
they're 7-2 and second in the West, how about that.
After this though a string of injuries hit us. Beno went out for 2 weeks with a broken toe,
while Kevin twisted his ankle (he was playable though), and Salmons went out for 4 weeks with
a strained MCL. Right after these string of injuries we had our 7 game winning streak come to
an end against Rudy Gay and the Griz, we allowed 142 points, wow. Despite his injury, Kevin was
still lighting it up from the field, keeping his average about 32 points per game, and I was
getting more playing time too due to the injuries, and my production rose.
So now that we're caught up to the present, we're flying back from Los Angeles right now after
playing the Lakers. Such a cool atmosphere to play there, with all the famous movie stars
cheering (and jeering at us) from the sidelines. Right away Kobe exerted his dominance by driving
into the lane again and again, drawing multiple fouls. Kevin and Donte both had 3 fouls by the
end of the first quarter, severely limiting their playing time. Carrying all those fouls Kevin
still managed to get 31 points by half, but after picking 2 more for his 5th he was pretty much
done for the night. There were 27 fouls called on us and 21 on the Lakers. Kevin, Franciso, Donte,
and Jason Thompson all had 5 fouls, we couldn't even get a body on the other team without having
the whistles blow. Anyways because we pretty much played our second unit the entire second half,
the Lakers slowly caught up.
We held on to a slim lead of 130-129 and just 10.1 ticks left when Kevin was intentionally
fouled, and of course he's automatic from the line and we sealed the deal on this game. We had a
easy time in the first half but were seriously pushed in the second, but our team showed it's
depth by being able to hold on to the lead and pull out the win. Kevin ended with 35 points overall
and I 22 points and 6 boards. On the opposing side Andrew Bynum had 20 points and 17 boards, very
impressive.
On another note, I think Kevin had one of the players of the year during this game. I threw an
outlet pass to him and he took it against Kobe and Fisher. The next thing I knew Kevin was laying
the ball into the hoop while Kobe was lying on the ground. The stadium replys showed Kevin faking
Kobe into going the wrong way and trip over his own ankles, nice. That gets my vote for a Top 10
play of the season.
So up to this point I think I've had a pretty good and supportative adjustment to the League. I'm
about 6th or 7th on the team in scoring with just over 10 boards and also grabbing 3 or 4 rebounds
here or there. Hopefully I can make the rookie team and we keep up this great pace.