by Jeff Hall

CLEVELAND–What do you say about fans, callers to talk shows and some critics comparing the wins and loses of the Kings and the firing of ex-coach Mike Malone from old owners the Maloof Family to the Ranadive organization in terms of the way the team is ran? I hope that this is not a comparison, I would hate to see an evenly matched situation if Ranadive starts behaving like the Maloofs. It did have that appearance after Malone was fired and the team started to take a turn for the worst. Everybody is scratching their heads about those arrangements and nobody fully understands the firing but it is what it is and you can’t really change it and the Kings are going forward and it would be up to Kings general manager Pete D’Alessandro.

The game between the Sacramento Kings and the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night saw the Raptors hit 17 three pointers which helped bury the Kings 119-102. DeMarcus Cousins the Kings top player scored only 13 points said that his focus was on defense and part of defense is protecting the ball as the Raptors capitalized on the Kings turnovers all 18 of them so much for defense and the Kings were missing the ball on the offensive end.

The weight of the team is on Cousins shoulders and has been on and there is no doubt about it that Wednesday was probably one of his worst games of the season 13 points, four rebounds, and he was in foul trouble in the third quarter and had to go to the bench. Taking a guy like Cousins out of the game is a big part of the Kings offense and part of their success.

This type of performance was not really shocking as the Kings have been struggling though out the season and they’ve been trying to get ball control and it’s been like that through out most of this season and that’s why they’ve lost a lot of basketball games. They’re a good basketball team they just can’t find a way to win games and turnovers are a big reason.

The big cause of the Kings problems are ball control and the Kings struggled with ball control all season and the other thing is the Kings have struggled in games when games have been close. In a close game they seem to have a way to put a game away and you can almost count on games when they won’t win. The Kings came out flat to begin the game and they were in Toronto after flying in from New York where their game with the Knicks was canceled due to the snow blizzard there.

You would expect the Kings with the extra rest to come out hotter on Wednesday but they didn’t they went 0-6 on their first field goal attempts. The Kings are not really sure what their goal is at this point and in a season like this you want to close on a high note and get ready for next season. As far as picking up the pieces the Kings don’t really know how their going to do that and with the Cleveland Cavaliers as their next opponent it doesn’t help matters. Are the Kings going to be a defensive minded team or are they going to be an offensive fast break team, the Kings haven’t seen success on any side of the ball and the Kings need to figure something out and it’s going to come down to the coaching staff.

Jeff Hall covers Sacramento Kings basketball for http://www.sportsradioservice.com