Mark Kreidler: Attention, starters: Play like it matters
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 28, 2005
There was a great moment of clarity for the Kings late Tuesday night in Seattle, the kind of clarity that often occurs after one has had his eyeballs taken out of their sockets, slapped into a golf-ball washer for a few minutes and returned to him for safekeeping.
Asked why he left his increasingly exhausted reserves in the game down the stretch rather than going back to his starting crew for a final push, coach Rick Adelman got that look on his face that signals something in between dyspepsia and full-blown organ failure.
"They weren't going back in," Adelman immediately replied of the starters. "I mean, why should I (play them)? The other group was doing all the work."
You know what? It's the only good to come out of Game 2.
Hustle or get off the court. Play like it matters or let somebody else do the heavy lifting. That's all Adelman was saying. It's all he needed to say.
If you're Peja Stojakovic, maybe that means get your guts up, start demanding the ball and cut hard off whatever screens are offered you. If you're Cuttino Mobley, maybe it means defend Ray Allen viciously and to the point of pure fatigue rather than simply hoping to more or less match him basket for basket, which sure isn't working.
Mike Bibby? Don't tell me the man who held his own against Steve Nash all those years can't figure out Luke Ridnour. Brad Miller? Terrible time to be trying to come all the way back from a broken bone, but he's either in or he's out.
Halfway, in the playoffs, is nowhere.
Adelman in Game 2 benched the unit that was jacking up the one-pass jumpers and stayed with the unit that whipped the ball around and looked for the open man. He benched the unit that played defense with its head down and stayed with the one that at least got a hand in the Sonics' collective face.
He benched the unit mostly responsible for a 26-point deficit and stayed with the one that cut the Seattle lead to eight points before running out of air.
Adelman didn't suddenly go insane or decide to commit professional suicide. He wants his best group on the floor just like everybody else.
But Seattle can't really be beaten casually, can it?
And now that we mention it: Define "best."
What some of these Kings don't seem to understand is that they aren't just in the playoffs; they're in an open audition. Because this, right now, is not a Kings team. It is a collection of players from which Adelman and in-house guru Geoff Petrie and all the others over at Camp Swampy have to find a core for the years to come.
Either that or agree the core isn't here and has to be found elsewhere - not all that implausible a development, considering how this roster has been roiled by change over the past year.
It is a Kings team returning just four players from last season's playoff roster. It is a Kings team coming off injury (Miller, Bobby Jackson), incorporating those returning players, and dealing with wild unknowns as playoff properties (Kenny Thomas, Brian Skinner, Mobley).
It's a Kings team without an identity, and currently it is a team without floor leadership. We are being forced to admit that Bibby's past playoff successes came with Chris Webber and Vlade Divac and others on the court, when the guard couldn't be keyed on so easily. We are coming face to face with the possibility (ignored for so long) that Stojakovic may always be a regular-season star and a playoff frustration.
If that's the truth, so be it. But when did effort and focus become negotiable?
I've never seen a best-of-seven series actually decided after two games, so let's proceed on the assumption that anything is possible. And by "anything," I mean the Kings winning Friday and Sunday at Arco Arena, where they famously feed off the energy of the place, where the emotion generally comes to them, not the other way around.
If that happens, then a road win comes swinging back into play. And a road win, especially during the postseason, is significantly about hustle and presence.
If this were any previous season, Adelman would pare his rotation to seven or eight players and let it rip - because in previous seasons, Adelman knew what he had. Right now, he is a coach unsure whether he can even count on his starting five for a full-blown playoff effort. Things change. But the effort shouldn't. So declare this thing an open tryout, and be done with it. There is nothing about these Kings, after the way they lost in Seattle and down 2-0, that ought to be written in permanent ink.
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 28, 2005
There was a great moment of clarity for the Kings late Tuesday night in Seattle, the kind of clarity that often occurs after one has had his eyeballs taken out of their sockets, slapped into a golf-ball washer for a few minutes and returned to him for safekeeping.
Asked why he left his increasingly exhausted reserves in the game down the stretch rather than going back to his starting crew for a final push, coach Rick Adelman got that look on his face that signals something in between dyspepsia and full-blown organ failure.
"They weren't going back in," Adelman immediately replied of the starters. "I mean, why should I (play them)? The other group was doing all the work."
You know what? It's the only good to come out of Game 2.
Hustle or get off the court. Play like it matters or let somebody else do the heavy lifting. That's all Adelman was saying. It's all he needed to say.
If you're Peja Stojakovic, maybe that means get your guts up, start demanding the ball and cut hard off whatever screens are offered you. If you're Cuttino Mobley, maybe it means defend Ray Allen viciously and to the point of pure fatigue rather than simply hoping to more or less match him basket for basket, which sure isn't working.
Mike Bibby? Don't tell me the man who held his own against Steve Nash all those years can't figure out Luke Ridnour. Brad Miller? Terrible time to be trying to come all the way back from a broken bone, but he's either in or he's out.
Halfway, in the playoffs, is nowhere.
Adelman in Game 2 benched the unit that was jacking up the one-pass jumpers and stayed with the unit that whipped the ball around and looked for the open man. He benched the unit that played defense with its head down and stayed with the one that at least got a hand in the Sonics' collective face.
He benched the unit mostly responsible for a 26-point deficit and stayed with the one that cut the Seattle lead to eight points before running out of air.
Adelman didn't suddenly go insane or decide to commit professional suicide. He wants his best group on the floor just like everybody else.
But Seattle can't really be beaten casually, can it?
And now that we mention it: Define "best."
What some of these Kings don't seem to understand is that they aren't just in the playoffs; they're in an open audition. Because this, right now, is not a Kings team. It is a collection of players from which Adelman and in-house guru Geoff Petrie and all the others over at Camp Swampy have to find a core for the years to come.
Either that or agree the core isn't here and has to be found elsewhere - not all that implausible a development, considering how this roster has been roiled by change over the past year.
It is a Kings team returning just four players from last season's playoff roster. It is a Kings team coming off injury (Miller, Bobby Jackson), incorporating those returning players, and dealing with wild unknowns as playoff properties (Kenny Thomas, Brian Skinner, Mobley).
It's a Kings team without an identity, and currently it is a team without floor leadership. We are being forced to admit that Bibby's past playoff successes came with Chris Webber and Vlade Divac and others on the court, when the guard couldn't be keyed on so easily. We are coming face to face with the possibility (ignored for so long) that Stojakovic may always be a regular-season star and a playoff frustration.
If that's the truth, so be it. But when did effort and focus become negotiable?
I've never seen a best-of-seven series actually decided after two games, so let's proceed on the assumption that anything is possible. And by "anything," I mean the Kings winning Friday and Sunday at Arco Arena, where they famously feed off the energy of the place, where the emotion generally comes to them, not the other way around.
If that happens, then a road win comes swinging back into play. And a road win, especially during the postseason, is significantly about hustle and presence.
If this were any previous season, Adelman would pare his rotation to seven or eight players and let it rip - because in previous seasons, Adelman knew what he had. Right now, he is a coach unsure whether he can even count on his starting five for a full-blown playoff effort. Things change. But the effort shouldn't. So declare this thing an open tryout, and be done with it. There is nothing about these Kings, after the way they lost in Seattle and down 2-0, that ought to be written in permanent ink.
