[grndmstr_c]

I'm going to come to Carroll's defense a little bit here. His shot wasn't falling, he was unsuccessful when he tried to shake his man off of picks, and there were a few plays that just didn't go his way out there, but I still felt like I saw a guy who did a decent job staying in front of his man on defense (and lets not forget that if there's one thing the Kings don't lack its offensively gifted 2/3s, so they present a challenge in that respect), and who did a pretty good job recovering to his man on rotations, as well. I'm more than willing to give him more chances to see if he can get his stroke going.

As for his +/-, a few qualifiers on the reliability of this particular sample. One is that 7 of those -17 came in the last 5 minutes of the game, and only meant the difference between a 25 point win and an 18 point win. A second thing to note is that the Kings had some stretches tonight where they were flinging fairly ill-advised three point attempts that were nonetheless going in. It's possible (likely) that Carroll had the misfortune of being out there while some of that was going on. Finally, it's been discussed that Kidd's +/- was pretty sick tonight. It's worth pointing out, then, that Carroll was +2 in the 6 or so minutes he played with Kidd, and -19 in the 12 minutes he played without him. Considering he wasn't playing backup pg, perhaps we should exercise some caution before getting carried away with this particular one-game sample.

At any rate, the bottom line on this topic is, I think, the same as the bottom line on the game as a whole: Kidd was the dominant force. It's really quite extraordinary that a guy who's neither a gifted scorer nor an explosive athlete could have that kind of impact.

Props to Wright for a very strong effort, and to Josh for showing some hustle and fire out there, too.