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http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/12813329p-13663607c.html
Mark Kreidler: Kings try a return to old ways - and win
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 30, 2005
The Kings scored 38 points in the third quarter of a playoff game on Friday night, and thank goodness. They finally went old school. You remember old school; the local group used to call that number all the time.
Old school was Jason Williams bouncing a pass off Gavin Maloof's ballcap, taking the carom and jacking up a three-pointer from, oh, the airport.
http://ads.sacbee.com/RealMedia/ads...l/64313865323634663432353434663530?_RM_EMPTY_ Old school was up and down the court, basically daring the other team to swap bucket for bucket. It was Williams to Webber to Divac and back out to, you name it, Vernon Maxwell or some other designated blaster. It almost always got ugly somewhere along the way, in the really classic, car-wreck sense of the word, but that was an acceptable part of the deal, because the upside was this hilarious, nonstop, breakneck race to score. First team to 110 wins. And it was good. And it worked more often than not. And absent any really reasonable alternative, it'll do just fine.
Old school, around here, equals a puncher's chance. And that's what the Kings are onto right now.
The team that still ought to be sending itself greeting cards got back in the postseason picture on Friday. It was 116-104 over the Seattle SuperSonics, and it was old school in the best possible sense.
That whole group-gathering thing? It's over. Rick Adelman, returning to his coaching roots, screwed down that playing rotation to a tight seven guys, with no other player logging more than Corliss Williamson's important eight minutes.
And briefly: Thank you. Because that's the old Adelman, straight down the line, and that's the right approach here. Pick some horses and run.
Adelman played Mike Bibby 46 minutes and never blinked, and he will do it again. Absolutely. The Kings have finally decided on the plan of attack against the Sonics, and it calls for rainbow jumper after stutter-step move to the hoop, and it's about using the offense to create that defensive pressure by scoring and scoring and scoring again.
It happened in the first quarter, when Bibby and Kenny Thomas popped up jumpers and then used the ensuing defensive latitude to drive the lane, combining for 18 points and a 31-19 lead. It happened in that third quarter, when Cuttino Mobley and Bibby got hot outside and again opened up alleys for Thomas to the hoop on his way to a 12-point period.
And right: Somebody has to make a shot, or the whole thing falls apart. But consider this: The Kings saw Peja Stojakovic turn in another ice-cold performance from the field, and they still bombed and sliced their way to 116 points. What happens if Stojakovic ever finds his lost stroke?
"Not as tentative," Bibby said afterward, and all together now: You think?
Bibby and Mobley and Bobby Jackson, forming the guard-play unit for the group, cranked up 42 shots and had 61 points to show, 31 by Bibby alone. They took a page from the J-Will handbook and decided not to let any particular miss bother them, which is par for Mobley but not so much for Bibby, who said he backed off in Seattle after his opening-game disaster.
"We have to be active," said Adelman. "We have not been active. We've been reacting to what they were doing."
And it's a horror show that way, of course. The only way to deal with the Sonics in this series is to continue applying the offensive pressure and hope some pipe somewhere eventually bursts.
There's nothing good that can come from this Kings team trying to play nicely and under control. There is quite obviously no way to try to post up and go to work, since Jerome James (22 points, nine rebounds) has emerged as the unsolvable problem.
Nope. Considering that Adelman has had less than a week to integrate Jackson and Brad Miller into a roster mix that essentially had operated without either of them since the Webber trade, full-court chaos is the best bet.
You can tell everything about how good Seattle really is by the fact that the Sonics, given about 40 chances to hang it up during Game 3, accepted none of them. Sacramento led by a dozen with barely two minutes to play, and nobody got too terribly comfortable with it.
Beyond that, Adelman is the first to say that his team isn't out of the woods.
The Sonics stayed in this game, really, without Rashard Lewis, whose sore knee had to have something to do with the 2-for-10 shiner he had to show for his 40 minutes grinding against Stojakovic, and Ray Allen was a beast all night long.
No, at this point the Kings are still a team down 2-1 in a best-of-seven series. But as of this moment, they've regained their puncher's chance. The time is almost perfect for another bunch of wild swings.
Mark Kreidler: Kings try a return to old ways - and win
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 30, 2005
The Kings scored 38 points in the third quarter of a playoff game on Friday night, and thank goodness. They finally went old school. You remember old school; the local group used to call that number all the time.
Old school was Jason Williams bouncing a pass off Gavin Maloof's ballcap, taking the carom and jacking up a three-pointer from, oh, the airport.
http://ads.sacbee.com/RealMedia/ads...l/64313865323634663432353434663530?_RM_EMPTY_ Old school was up and down the court, basically daring the other team to swap bucket for bucket. It was Williams to Webber to Divac and back out to, you name it, Vernon Maxwell or some other designated blaster. It almost always got ugly somewhere along the way, in the really classic, car-wreck sense of the word, but that was an acceptable part of the deal, because the upside was this hilarious, nonstop, breakneck race to score. First team to 110 wins. And it was good. And it worked more often than not. And absent any really reasonable alternative, it'll do just fine.
Old school, around here, equals a puncher's chance. And that's what the Kings are onto right now.
The team that still ought to be sending itself greeting cards got back in the postseason picture on Friday. It was 116-104 over the Seattle SuperSonics, and it was old school in the best possible sense.
That whole group-gathering thing? It's over. Rick Adelman, returning to his coaching roots, screwed down that playing rotation to a tight seven guys, with no other player logging more than Corliss Williamson's important eight minutes.
And briefly: Thank you. Because that's the old Adelman, straight down the line, and that's the right approach here. Pick some horses and run.
Adelman played Mike Bibby 46 minutes and never blinked, and he will do it again. Absolutely. The Kings have finally decided on the plan of attack against the Sonics, and it calls for rainbow jumper after stutter-step move to the hoop, and it's about using the offense to create that defensive pressure by scoring and scoring and scoring again.
It happened in the first quarter, when Bibby and Kenny Thomas popped up jumpers and then used the ensuing defensive latitude to drive the lane, combining for 18 points and a 31-19 lead. It happened in that third quarter, when Cuttino Mobley and Bibby got hot outside and again opened up alleys for Thomas to the hoop on his way to a 12-point period.
And right: Somebody has to make a shot, or the whole thing falls apart. But consider this: The Kings saw Peja Stojakovic turn in another ice-cold performance from the field, and they still bombed and sliced their way to 116 points. What happens if Stojakovic ever finds his lost stroke?
"Not as tentative," Bibby said afterward, and all together now: You think?
Bibby and Mobley and Bobby Jackson, forming the guard-play unit for the group, cranked up 42 shots and had 61 points to show, 31 by Bibby alone. They took a page from the J-Will handbook and decided not to let any particular miss bother them, which is par for Mobley but not so much for Bibby, who said he backed off in Seattle after his opening-game disaster.
"We have to be active," said Adelman. "We have not been active. We've been reacting to what they were doing."
And it's a horror show that way, of course. The only way to deal with the Sonics in this series is to continue applying the offensive pressure and hope some pipe somewhere eventually bursts.
There's nothing good that can come from this Kings team trying to play nicely and under control. There is quite obviously no way to try to post up and go to work, since Jerome James (22 points, nine rebounds) has emerged as the unsolvable problem.
Nope. Considering that Adelman has had less than a week to integrate Jackson and Brad Miller into a roster mix that essentially had operated without either of them since the Webber trade, full-court chaos is the best bet.
You can tell everything about how good Seattle really is by the fact that the Sonics, given about 40 chances to hang it up during Game 3, accepted none of them. Sacramento led by a dozen with barely two minutes to play, and nobody got too terribly comfortable with it.
Beyond that, Adelman is the first to say that his team isn't out of the woods.
The Sonics stayed in this game, really, without Rashard Lewis, whose sore knee had to have something to do with the 2-for-10 shiner he had to show for his 40 minutes grinding against Stojakovic, and Ray Allen was a beast all night long.
No, at this point the Kings are still a team down 2-1 in a best-of-seven series. But as of this moment, they've regained their puncher's chance. The time is almost perfect for another bunch of wild swings.
About the writer:
- Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/kreidler
