Category: Sacramento Kings

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

By Robert Steward

SACRAMENTO–

The Sacramento Kings dropped their 5th straight game, including their 4th in a row at home, tonight against the Brooklyn Nets, 103-100. The Kings were looking to begin the second half of the NBA season on a positive note but aside from an early 5-4 lead with barely one minute gone, they trailed the entire game. The Nets had the hot hand early, making their first 6 shots, consistently getting and making shots in the paint, while the Kings were content to fire away from 3-point range with some success, making 3 of their first 6 from beyond the arc. Sacramento trailed, 24-22, following a Brooklyn timeout with 2:40 left in the quarter. However, the Nets went on a 12-2 run to finish the quarter with a 36-24 lead. Brooklyn hit 14 of 20 from the floor for a 70% clip, while the Kings were only 8 of 21, to the tune of 38%. The Nets had 22 points in the paint.

Brooklyn continued to score inside repeatedly in the 2nd quarter, while the Kings shooting woes continued. With 7-0 foot center Brook Lopez coming off the bench to score 11 points, the Nets continued to build on their lead, 47-31 with 8:19 left in the half. Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins struggled to hit anything, missing both inside and outside shots, making only 2 of his first 12 shots in the half. The Nets eventually led by as many as 23, at 60-37, with 3:57 following a 3-pointer by Alan Anderson. The Kings did make a late 9-2 run to cut into the deficit and trailed, 62-46, at the half. Lopez was certainly a thorn in Sacramento’s side, ending the half with 13 points on 6 of 9 from the floor, to go with 5 blocks, and consistently frustrating Cousins. The disparity in the low post game was obvious as the Nets outscored the Kings, 38-16, in the paint. Brooklyn shot 55% from the floor, while the Kings shot only 41% for the half.

Sacramento closed the gap to 12 points on three separate occasions early in the 3rd quarter but Brooklyn answered each time with a basket of their own. Finally, after the Kings’ Darren Collison hit a jumper and Rudy Gay knocked an errant pass away, Gay then hit Ben McLemore for a layup to reduce the lead to 70-60, forcing the Nets to call a timeout with 5:52 to go in the quarter. It was the closest that they had been since trailing, 36-26, early in the 2nd quarter. The rally was short-lived, however, as Collison missed a wide-open three-pointer, which would have cut the lead to 7. Following the miss at the other end, Lopez got fouled by Cousins going to the basket, making the shot and converting the free throw for a nice 3-point play, bumping the lead back up to 73-60. Brooklyn extended the lead to as much as 16, at 79-63, before the Kings trimmed it slightly and trailed by 13 at the end of the quarter, 82-69. Lopez had 20 points at the end of the 3rd, while Cousins started to come alive, hitting 4 of 5 shots in the quarter, giving him 15 points heading into the 4th.

The 4th quarter turned out to be the Rudy Gay show for Sacramento. With the Nets leading 86-73, Gay made a driving layup and drew a foul, converting a 3-point play. He then hit a 3-point shot on the following possession. The Nets called timeout with 6:54 left, leading 88-79. Following the timeout, Gay hit a runner off the glass. A short time later, following a Nets turnover, Gay raced down for an uncontested dunk to cut the deficit to 91-85, forcing the Nets to call another timeout with 4:39 left. Gay single-handedly was keeping the Kings in the game, scoring 12 straight points. Sacramento kept coming and following a Collison tip-in after a Cousins miss, the Kings only trailed, 96-92, with 2:01 left. They drew closer after Cousins was fouled by Lopez and hit both free throws to make it 96-94. However, Brooklyn’s Joe Johnson hit a 3-pointer with 1:11 left to push the lead back to 99-94. Sacramento drew within three, following a Cousins dunk with 19 seconds left to make it 101-98, but after the Nets hit 1 of 2 free throws Ben McLemore missed a trey with 12 seconds left that would’ve cut the deficit to one.

After a slow start, Cousins eventually got it going, finishing with a game-high 28 points for the Kings on 10 of 24 from the floor, along with 14 rebounds. With a strong showing in the 4th, Gay, who hit 6 of 8 from the floor in the quarter, scored 14 points to finish with 25. Collison chipped in with 16 points, while Omri Casspi came off the bench to score 10, all in the second quarter. Brooklyn was lead by Lopez, who finished with 22 points, along with 6 blocks. Johnson and Jarrett Jack both added 16 points each, while Alan Anderson came off the bench with 14. The Nets went cold in the 4th and finished at 47% from the floor for the game, including hitting only 5 of 20 from three-point range. Sacramento finished at 46% from the floor and narrowed the gap in the paint in the 4th. The Nets outscored the Kings, 48-44, in the paint, in the end. Brooklyn improved to 18-24 on the season, while the Kings fell to 16-26.

The Kings hit the road for the next five games, beginning down in Oakland against the Warriors on Saturday night at 7:30pm.

by Charlie O Mallonee

SACRAMENTO–The fight over the Macy’s Men’s store property at Downtown Plaza that the Sacramento Kings want to purchase will not settle fast as this fight has been going on for almost more than a year. CalPERS says the property value that is underneath the building is worth $12.85, the C-III investor group says the property quote is undervalued and worth $31.5 million and the Kings and the City says it’s $6.3 million.

The good news about all of this fighting it’s not going to hold up construction of the downtown arena, the arena is going to continue and the building is going on and everything else. This is one of those paper suits that is going on that ultimately the city will win because they’ll wind up going eminent domain and they’ll get what they want.

The one group of people I would put money on and that’s going to get their money out of it are CalPERS because CalPERS is a gigantic organization they own a lot of property and they have a lot of attorneys. They’re going to do very well and moneywise what their asking for the property it’s not crazy.

The part that’s really out of whack is what C-III is asking for the building and that building is absolutely not worth that because the entire center was going to close up sooner or later and probably sooner. Virtually no one was shopping in those stores and they were closing just as rapidly as they were trying to open. I actually have a friend who had a store in that center and they finally had to move out and move to a different location.

The foot traffic was down so low, C-III doesn’t have a real good case they’re just going to play it out to get as much money as they can. The good news is everyday construction goes on at the arena. Whatever that land is worth, whatever the Macy’s building is worth became worth a lot more because of the arena not because someone was clamoring to move into that building.

Everybody was waiting to move out of that center for quite sometime as a matter of fact I’m really amazed that they were still there which leads me to believe they were locked into a leasing contract and not let them out because frankly there’s not enough traffic to support a store in that spot. This is financial posturing and it could go on for quite sometime the danger would be if it was holding up construction. As of right now their on schedule to get the project done on time.

Charlie O does commentary on the Sacramento Kings each week listen to his podcast below on http://www.sportsradioservice.com