Kings notes: Pacer has warm Arco reunion

#1
http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/11654411p-12543344c.html

Kings notes: Pacer has warm Arco reunion



By Joe Davidson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Saturday, December 4, 2004


Anthony Johnson played just one season with the Kings - 1997-98 - but statistically, it remains his best campaign. The 6-foot-3 guard averaged 7.5 points, 4.3 assists and 29.4 minutes, all career highs.



Now with the Indiana Pacers, Johnson was a second-round pick of the Kings, 40th overall, out of the College of Charleston - a long shot in every sense. He received his baptism during the last real gruesome stretch the Kings have endured - they lost 19 of their last 20 games to finish 27-55 - before wholesale changes brought in new faces and a new era.



Still, Johnson said that season remains "special," pointing out that he especially enjoyed working with assistant coach Pete Carril and strength and conditioning coach Al Biancani, both of whom he sought out to embrace before Friday's game at Arco Arena.

Johnson, typically, was all grins before the tipoff, but this has been his most trying season. He sat out the first 10 games with a broken bone in his right hand after a solid preseason. He then was slapped with a five-game suspension for his role in the fight with the Detroit Pistons. In his first action of the season Friday, Johnson scored five points in 19 minutes.

"It's good to be back," said Johnson, still wearing a protective pad on his hand and also expressing remorse for his role in the fracas. "I'm ready to put all of that behind me and start playing and helping this team."

Debris protector - Arco officials put in makeshift tunnels to cover the player exits from the arena floor, all the better to prevent projectiles or garbage from pelting players.

It was an internal move prompted by the Indiana-Detroit fiasco in which Detroit fans hurled all sorts of debris onto the heads of the Pacers when they tried to leave the floor. Arco officials said the tunnels would remain for the rest of the season.

Image is everything - Scot Pollard said the Pacers can't do much about perception now, except to prevent history from repeating itself.

The ex-Kings center now with Indiana said his suspended teammates from the Detroit melee - primarily Ron Artest for the season, Stephen Jackson for 30 games and Jermaine O'Neal for 25 - have work to do upon their return to patch their images and that of their franchise.

"Everyone has their own crosses to bear," Pollard said. "Everyone makes mistakes, and we all agree there were mistakes (from that fight). I would hope one incident doesn't define a person. We're all human."

One back, one going - The Pacers, already a merry-go-round with bodies coming and going, have two more to add to the list.

They activated Reggie Miller from the injured list before the Kings game and placed Pollard on the injured list with a sore lower back.

Miller served his one-game suspension for his role in the Detroit fracas - he left the bench when NBA rules prohibit players from doing so - against the Kings, and he will be in uniform tonight at Golden State. The swingman, the Pacers' all-time-leading scorer and the NBA's all-time-leading three-point shoot-er, has not played this season. He missed the first eight games of the season with a broken bone in his left hand.

Miller has had good moments against the Kings over the years, averaging 17.4 points in 31 career games.

Pollard, meanwhile, feared he would be placed on the injured list. Friday marked the third successive game he has missed. His back has limited him to six games this season. "Backs are backs," he said. "You can't put a time limit on it. You get a broken bone, and you know it's so many weeks. You get an ACL injury, you know it's a few months. Backs? You never know. It's very frustrating."
 
#3
Scot was hilarious on the pre-game show last night, he's a true stand-up person. It must have been frustrating for him to watch his already depleted team disintigrate on the court and not be able to help out.