Kemba finishes with 42 points, shot 15-31, with 7 assists and 2 turnovers. He chucked his brains out in the second half (35 points in second half on 22 shots). There was no way that assist total was getting last 7 - hopefully next game he'll work on those. Today he wasn't pretending to be a point guard, Charlotte was down 10 the whole second half and he was trying to will his team back. Had a late three rattle out that would have cut the Orlando lead to 3 and given him 45. His third quarter was a thing of beauty (19 on 7-9 shooting, with one of the misses sort of a prayer at the buzzer). The 13 shots in the fourth were maybe overdoing it a little (although 5 were in the last minute). Orlando has good defensive guards too (Oladipo and Payton).
Most of his third quarter buckets came on the step back type 18 footers that we know well. He was getting switches and attacking Tobias Harris or Nikola Vucevic, and put a nice step back move on Payton (the rookie who gave him problems last time). He stayed in to start the fourth instead of the usual substitution for Roberts and Charlotte's offense bogged down a bit - the ball kept coming back to him late in the shot clock, so he had a sequence of difficult shot attempts in the last couple seconds. He made a 28-foot three on one of them. When the starters came back in, he rested a bit, but then took 7 shots in the last 3 minutes - two on one possession (back rimmed a runner and forced up a put back after the offensive rebound, a bad air ball). Then I think he took five shots in the last minute - three drives (blew one easy one, and made two tough ones) and missed two threes. Jefferson also was called for basket interference on a shot that might have crawled in for Kemba (Jefferson was forgotten about a little until the very end).
Worth watching the replay (of the second half) for those with League Pass. Ben had a nice day with 11 - and a couple tough threes too.
