Sacramento Kings: Game 10 Preview vs Los Angeles Lakers
By Tyler Watts
What to Watch for?
Point Guard Rotation
Darren Collison returned from his eight-game suspension on Tuesday. He played 28 minutes and Ty Lawson started and played 21 minutes. Take a look at Ty Lawson’s game log for this season found here. He is just not producing any stats except assists. I expect the Kings to continue to ramp up the minutes for Collison, but do not be surprised if Lawson drops out of the rotation completely at some point if he does not start producing more in the near future.
If you care to read more about who I think is going get the minutes and production in tonight’s contest for the Sacramento Kings, please check out my predicting the box score column found here. It is filled with some great nuggets about the Lakers defense and how the Kings should and could take advantage. Thank you.
Who’s Getting Minutes at the Three and Four?
Coach Joerger has been inconsistent in who is getting the minutes at these two positions. Luckily, the Kings have a plethora of options to choose from, but it would be nice to see Coach Joerger sure things up a little bit. I can never figure out if Willie Cauley-Stein or Omri Casspi is going to get off the bench in a given contest. The coach will even sprinkle in some Anthony Tolliver on certain occasions to throw me further off his scent.
I have been monitoring the minutes and players on a game by game basis to see if it is match-up driven, but even that has not worked out. I have figured out that Cauley-Stein pretty much only plays when the opponent is playing two traditional big men, but I cannot figure out the Casspi situation. Tonight will be yet another data point against a Lakers team that will start with two traditional big men, but go small in their forthcoming units playing Deng and Ingram at the nominal four. Something I am keeping an eye for certain in tonight’s contest.
DeMarcus Cousins Owns LA
If you checked out my predicting the box score column earlier, you already know I projected a big game for Boogie. I do think the Lakers have anyone who can match-up on Cousins. It is worth mentioning, Cousins destroyed the Lakers last season. In four games, he averaged 27.0 points, 11.3 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.3 steals, and 2.0 blocks on 50.8% from the field and 83.3% from the free throw line. Expect another big DeMarcus Cousins game tonight, the only question is how big it will be.