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Mark Kreidler: Kings go poof, right before your very eyes
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, May 2, 2005
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The Seattle SuperSonics had a star. The Kings had a wing and two prayers.
The Sonics had a fourth-quarter presence. The Kings hid in plain sight.
The Sonics can win this playoff series Tuesday night in Seattle because they have an insanely good player, Ray Allen, who understands exactly what it means to step up and grab the moment.
But the Sacramento Kings, here in 2005, have magic. And here it is: They can vanish into thin air, even while you're looking right at them.
Peja Stojakovic, quarters one through three: 10 of 15 field goals, 27 points. stojakovic in the fourth period: Three misses.
Mike Bibby, quarters one through three: 4 of 11 field goals, 12 points, six assists.
Bibby in the fourth: Six
misses.
"They got physical," Kings coach Rick Adelman said of the Sonics on defense in the second half, when Sacramento scored, let's see here, 34 points in 24 minutes. "And we got tunnel vision."
And there's a light at the end of that tunnel. Mounted. Along with a clanging bell and steam whistle.
Also, and not to put too fine a point on it: railroad tracks.
The thing about the 115-102 shiner that Seattle hung on the Kings on Sunday night at Arco Arena isn't that it sealed the fate of this first-round series, although it probably did. Stranger things have happened than Bibby and Stojakovic and the crew storming back to win three straight games and advance to the second round, but the truth is that the Kings have played maybe six good quarters out of 16 so far. You can get better odds playing a decent hand of Texas Hold 'Em at the Palms.
But that's not the thing, really, unless you were one of those people who looked at the self-induced scramble that was this season in Sacramento and concluded that the newly sewn-together roster was about to make a deep playoff push. Unless you thought these Kings were a two or three seed in a sixth seed's clothing, what's happening doesn't constitute the world's biggest shock.
No, the thing is this: Where is that core?
Where is it? Where does it go around this time of year? How come you can't find it with any dependability just now?
And beyond that, how do the Kings go forward? What is the nucleus of this team as it tries to figure out how to make the next four or five years remotely as competitive as the last five?
If the point is regular-season victories, the answer is pretty clear. The Kings go forward with Stojakovic and Bibby and Brad Miller, make very few changes, keep Bobby Jackson and re-sign Darius Songaila and grind for those 50-plus victories that will usually follow.
But in this first playoff season without Vlade Divac, without Chris Webber, without Doug Christie, there looms another question, and that's the one about who can really lead this team. And there's just no happy answer coming out of this series.
Bibby now is exposed in ways he never was with Divac and Webber on the floor.
He'll be better with Miller healthy and around all the time, you bet; but Bibby is also now the player who opponents already know will look for the shot in the fourth quarter of playoff games. They see him coming now.
Sunday, as the Kings watched Allen destroy them by getting his shot all over the court and at every conceivable angle, Bibby repeatedly tried to crash into the lane and get up a shot among three or four collapsing Seattle defenders. It was just painful to watch, purely forced. You'd hold him in contempt of court if not for the fact that no one else on the roster, save perhaps sure-to-get-his-shot Cuttino Mobley, was doing anything, either.
Stojakovic almost couldn't be seen out there. He had 21 points at the half, was so integral to the Kings running up 68 points over the first 24 minutes. And then he just vanished. Seattle changed almost nothing about its defense.
Rashard Lewis played Stojakovic more physically, was about all.
"I wanted to be more aggressive from the beginning," said Stojakovic, who has made just 25 field goals in these four playoff games, 10 of them in quarters one through three Sunday. "But obviously we lost our concentration." There's a lot of that going around lately. The Kings went out Sunday night with a four-point lead to begin the fourth quarter and found, perhaps to their surprise, that they had no one on the roster who knew exactly what to do about it. Seattle had the player who did. Just like magic. Kings go poof.
Mark Kreidler: Kings go poof, right before your very eyes
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, May 2, 2005
Get the latest news in sacbee.com's Kings Alert newsletter. Sign up here.
The Seattle SuperSonics had a star. The Kings had a wing and two prayers.
The Sonics had a fourth-quarter presence. The Kings hid in plain sight.
The Sonics can win this playoff series Tuesday night in Seattle because they have an insanely good player, Ray Allen, who understands exactly what it means to step up and grab the moment.
But the Sacramento Kings, here in 2005, have magic. And here it is: They can vanish into thin air, even while you're looking right at them.
Peja Stojakovic, quarters one through three: 10 of 15 field goals, 27 points. stojakovic in the fourth period: Three misses.
Mike Bibby, quarters one through three: 4 of 11 field goals, 12 points, six assists.
Bibby in the fourth: Six
misses.
"They got physical," Kings coach Rick Adelman said of the Sonics on defense in the second half, when Sacramento scored, let's see here, 34 points in 24 minutes. "And we got tunnel vision."
And there's a light at the end of that tunnel. Mounted. Along with a clanging bell and steam whistle.
Also, and not to put too fine a point on it: railroad tracks.
The thing about the 115-102 shiner that Seattle hung on the Kings on Sunday night at Arco Arena isn't that it sealed the fate of this first-round series, although it probably did. Stranger things have happened than Bibby and Stojakovic and the crew storming back to win three straight games and advance to the second round, but the truth is that the Kings have played maybe six good quarters out of 16 so far. You can get better odds playing a decent hand of Texas Hold 'Em at the Palms.
But that's not the thing, really, unless you were one of those people who looked at the self-induced scramble that was this season in Sacramento and concluded that the newly sewn-together roster was about to make a deep playoff push. Unless you thought these Kings were a two or three seed in a sixth seed's clothing, what's happening doesn't constitute the world's biggest shock.
No, the thing is this: Where is that core?
Where is it? Where does it go around this time of year? How come you can't find it with any dependability just now?
And beyond that, how do the Kings go forward? What is the nucleus of this team as it tries to figure out how to make the next four or five years remotely as competitive as the last five?
If the point is regular-season victories, the answer is pretty clear. The Kings go forward with Stojakovic and Bibby and Brad Miller, make very few changes, keep Bobby Jackson and re-sign Darius Songaila and grind for those 50-plus victories that will usually follow.
But in this first playoff season without Vlade Divac, without Chris Webber, without Doug Christie, there looms another question, and that's the one about who can really lead this team. And there's just no happy answer coming out of this series.
Bibby now is exposed in ways he never was with Divac and Webber on the floor.
He'll be better with Miller healthy and around all the time, you bet; but Bibby is also now the player who opponents already know will look for the shot in the fourth quarter of playoff games. They see him coming now.
Sunday, as the Kings watched Allen destroy them by getting his shot all over the court and at every conceivable angle, Bibby repeatedly tried to crash into the lane and get up a shot among three or four collapsing Seattle defenders. It was just painful to watch, purely forced. You'd hold him in contempt of court if not for the fact that no one else on the roster, save perhaps sure-to-get-his-shot Cuttino Mobley, was doing anything, either.
Stojakovic almost couldn't be seen out there. He had 21 points at the half, was so integral to the Kings running up 68 points over the first 24 minutes. And then he just vanished. Seattle changed almost nothing about its defense.
Rashard Lewis played Stojakovic more physically, was about all.
"I wanted to be more aggressive from the beginning," said Stojakovic, who has made just 25 field goals in these four playoff games, 10 of them in quarters one through three Sunday. "But obviously we lost our concentration." There's a lot of that going around lately. The Kings went out Sunday night with a four-point lead to begin the fourth quarter and found, perhaps to their surprise, that they had no one on the roster who knew exactly what to do about it. Seattle had the player who did. Just like magic. Kings go poof.
