the kings played an absolutely abysmal lakers squad last night, but i am still very, very encouraged by what i saw. i particularly enjoyed seeing willie cauley-stein impacting the game on defense and playing as if he was a veteran out there, and i definitely loved both the rebounding advantage and those 80 points in the paint. the three-pointers weren't falling like they were in the first game of the season, and the lakers had no answers down low, so the kings punished them at the rim time and again. that is an important development. i won't get ahead of myself, but it's just one of the marks of a good team; you must assert your dominance and thrash opponents that are well beneath you on a scale of quality. throughout the course of a long regular season, i'm sure there will be lesser opponents that this team occasionally folds to, but for one night, the kings loudly claimed that they were no longer willing to be lumped in with the other basement-dwellers in the western conference...
