http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/14252428p-15068548c.html
Marcos Bretón: Game slips away with Artest's injury
By Marcos Bretón -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, May 6, 2006
And to make the wretched picture of dejection complete? A critical Kings injury. It's all that had been missing as the Kings began slumping toward the offseason, missing wide-open looks, throwing blind passes to black-shirted men exacting blood for carelessness.
It's as if a key King had to fall in a game hexed by devils Friday night.
That's just the destructive karma of Sacramento: One-hundred- year floods and annual injuries to indispensable Kings during the playoffs.
One could argue, though, that no postseason injury more debilitated the Kings than when Ron Artest turned his right ankle by inadvertently stepping on Manu Ginobili's foot in the closing moments of the second quarter, precipitating a perilous Kings tumble toward elimination.
Yes, Chris Webber's massive knee blowout in 2003 stripped the Kings of elite-team status.
But Artest's ankle-pop cut the heart out of the Kings, ended local chances of trading blows with the San Antonio Spurs or any other elite unit still surviving at the end of a breathless week of playoff basketball.
Indeed, without Artest, what would the Kings have been this season?
A lottery team? A punchless, uneven, erratic squad of disparate pieces that work in theory, but not in practice - much like the team that lost to the Spurs on Friday night?
Believe it. Or just consider how quickly the Kings lost the game early in the third quarter as Artest gamely limped on that ankle, a shadow of the powerful force he's been since becoming a King.
Who would step up then? Anyone?
Anyone?
Bonzi Wells, the other indispensable King? He never quit, but he too was grimacing with a faltering hamstring he had to stretch in the second half as precious time drained away. Still, he scored 17. Who else? Brad Miller? Invisible.
Same for Kenny Thomas. Shareef Abdur-Rahim was decent, but decent won't cut it against the NBA champions looking to close the deal.
Mike Bibby? He was as brave as ever, and the kids - Kevin Martin and Francisco García - might be great someday, but Friday, it was like this:
No Artest in game shape, no way the Kings win. No Artest able to break defenses down, no Game 7 in San Antonio on Sunday.
No Artest to punish Spurs players? Season over, time to ice that ankle and pat that man on his broad back.
Time for the Maloofs to figure out a way to build on this team by re-signing a stellar coach in Rick Adelman, by keeping Wells and by completing a budding force around Artest.
But before then, maybe an exorcism is in order.
Maybe there needs to be some offering to the basketball gods - or a plea for an explanation why this franchise has been so bitten by the injury bug in the heat of the playoffs.
First it was Peja Stojakovic in 2002, also turning an ankle, missing part of the Western Conference finals and then coming back as damaged goods - blowing a wideopen look in Game 7 that might have sent the Kings to the NBA Finals. Then there was Webber's monstrous knee injury that sank the team and forever altered what might have been a Hall of Fame player.
Then Bobby Jackson broke his face and later tore his abdominal wall.
Is it a curse? Are the Kings cursed?
You had to wonder when, before Friday's game, the burning question was whether the Spurs' Tony Parker would play - and then the tricky Frenchman scored 31, cutting and darting as devastatingly as ever. And nailing big shots every time a hobbled Kings team showed life.
Meanwhile, Artest went down and Wells was hobbling - the symbols of another Kings season ending in disappointment.
Was this the only reason the Kings lost? Of course not. The Kings played horribly, turned the ball over carelessly and were taken out of their beautiful game of ball movement that had knocked the Spurs on their heels.
Maybe with a healthy Artest, the Kings still lose.
But they sure don't win with him at diminished speed and strength. He's the heart of the Kings and at least for this season, that heart flat-lined when Artest turned his ankle.
"God willing, (the Kings and Spurs) will meet each other next year and we'll be injury free," Artest said.
That would be a first.
About the writer: Reach Marcos Bretón at (916) 321-1096 or mbreton@sacbee.com.
Marcos Bretón: Game slips away with Artest's injury
By Marcos Bretón -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, May 6, 2006
And to make the wretched picture of dejection complete? A critical Kings injury. It's all that had been missing as the Kings began slumping toward the offseason, missing wide-open looks, throwing blind passes to black-shirted men exacting blood for carelessness.
It's as if a key King had to fall in a game hexed by devils Friday night.
That's just the destructive karma of Sacramento: One-hundred- year floods and annual injuries to indispensable Kings during the playoffs.
One could argue, though, that no postseason injury more debilitated the Kings than when Ron Artest turned his right ankle by inadvertently stepping on Manu Ginobili's foot in the closing moments of the second quarter, precipitating a perilous Kings tumble toward elimination.
Yes, Chris Webber's massive knee blowout in 2003 stripped the Kings of elite-team status.
But Artest's ankle-pop cut the heart out of the Kings, ended local chances of trading blows with the San Antonio Spurs or any other elite unit still surviving at the end of a breathless week of playoff basketball.
Indeed, without Artest, what would the Kings have been this season?
A lottery team? A punchless, uneven, erratic squad of disparate pieces that work in theory, but not in practice - much like the team that lost to the Spurs on Friday night?
Believe it. Or just consider how quickly the Kings lost the game early in the third quarter as Artest gamely limped on that ankle, a shadow of the powerful force he's been since becoming a King.
Who would step up then? Anyone?
Anyone?
Bonzi Wells, the other indispensable King? He never quit, but he too was grimacing with a faltering hamstring he had to stretch in the second half as precious time drained away. Still, he scored 17. Who else? Brad Miller? Invisible.
Same for Kenny Thomas. Shareef Abdur-Rahim was decent, but decent won't cut it against the NBA champions looking to close the deal.
Mike Bibby? He was as brave as ever, and the kids - Kevin Martin and Francisco García - might be great someday, but Friday, it was like this:
No Artest in game shape, no way the Kings win. No Artest able to break defenses down, no Game 7 in San Antonio on Sunday.
No Artest to punish Spurs players? Season over, time to ice that ankle and pat that man on his broad back.
Time for the Maloofs to figure out a way to build on this team by re-signing a stellar coach in Rick Adelman, by keeping Wells and by completing a budding force around Artest.
But before then, maybe an exorcism is in order.
Maybe there needs to be some offering to the basketball gods - or a plea for an explanation why this franchise has been so bitten by the injury bug in the heat of the playoffs.
First it was Peja Stojakovic in 2002, also turning an ankle, missing part of the Western Conference finals and then coming back as damaged goods - blowing a wideopen look in Game 7 that might have sent the Kings to the NBA Finals. Then there was Webber's monstrous knee injury that sank the team and forever altered what might have been a Hall of Fame player.
Then Bobby Jackson broke his face and later tore his abdominal wall.
Is it a curse? Are the Kings cursed?
You had to wonder when, before Friday's game, the burning question was whether the Spurs' Tony Parker would play - and then the tricky Frenchman scored 31, cutting and darting as devastatingly as ever. And nailing big shots every time a hobbled Kings team showed life.
Meanwhile, Artest went down and Wells was hobbling - the symbols of another Kings season ending in disappointment.
Was this the only reason the Kings lost? Of course not. The Kings played horribly, turned the ball over carelessly and were taken out of their beautiful game of ball movement that had knocked the Spurs on their heels.
Maybe with a healthy Artest, the Kings still lose.
But they sure don't win with him at diminished speed and strength. He's the heart of the Kings and at least for this season, that heart flat-lined when Artest turned his ankle.
"God willing, (the Kings and Spurs) will meet each other next year and we'll be injury free," Artest said.
That would be a first.
About the writer: Reach Marcos Bretón at (916) 321-1096 or mbreton@sacbee.com.
