Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, before tonight, was really consistent in his shot-taking. Almost every game, between 10 and 13 shots, good for about 13 points per game. Not too many, not taking any away from “more deserving” players. Just playing his role like he did in Detroit, except more efficiently. There’s a lot of messed up things about the Lakers (like the fact that Vander Blue doesn’t get any playing time #wiscompton), but KCP is not one of them.
He got off to a great start tonight, scoring 16 in the first quarter. Lakers fans hadn’t yet gotten to see the heated-up version of KCP that appears every couple weeks, but they didn’t get to see it for long, as he kept up the shooting but decided to stop with the making as the game went on. He’s traditionally been a streaky player. Again, nothing new.
After bricking a bunch of shots in the fourth, he managed to hit one to put the Lakers down by 1 with 45 seconds left. They didn’t win, but it was a really nice shot, a good bit of improvisation. I was feeling a lack of excitement from the Lakers commentators, though. Is there any way they can adopt some George Blaha-isms? Watching KCP isn’t the same without “long guns” and “turn and guns” and “fires it up fills it up”.