NBA Recap of Wednesday's Win

Notebook: Kings 115, Wizards 107 Posted Wednesday February 22, 2012 11:29PM
By Rich Dubroff, for NBA.com
THE FACTS: Marcus Thornton and Isaiah Thomas combined for 34 of their 40 points in the second half, and the Sacramento Kings broke a six-game losing streak with a come-from-behind 115-107 win over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night.

The Kings trailed by eight at halftime, but outscored Washington 55-39 in the second half. Sacramento took a 102-101 lead with 5:01 to play on Thomas' driving banker. The Kings closed the game with a 15-6 run.

Thornton ended with 22, and Thomas with 18. Tyreke Evans had 20 of his 22 points in the first half for Sacramento.

Jordan Crawford led the Wizards with a season-high 32 points. John Wall narrowly missed a triple-double with 21 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds. Washington ended the first half of the season with a four-game losing streak.

QUOTABLE: "There was no defense out there. It was terrible."

-- Kings' DeMarcus Cousins.


THE STAT: Thornton and Thomas had six points in the first half -- 34 in the second. Evans and Cousins had 34 in the first half -- four in the second.
TURNING POINT: In the fourth quarter, Cousins and Evans didn't play at all. Sacramento coach Keith Smart played just five players in the fourth quarter: Thornton, Thomas, Jason Thompson, Chuck Hayes and Francisco Garcia.

QUOTABLE II: "They need to introduce themselves to some of the bigs that they never throw the ball to." -- Washington coach Randy Wittman.


HOT: Evans was 8-for-10 from the field, but watched his team's rally from the bench.

NOT: Nick Young was 6-for-23 and was criticized by Wittman for missing a reverse 360' layup in the first half. "Crowd oohed and aahed. We didn't get any points out of it," Wittman said. "Until we're committed to making winning basketball plays the whole game, it's going to look like that."

GOOD MOVE: Smart keeping Jimmer Fredette off the court in the second half. Crawford scored 15 points with Fredette guarding him in the second quarter.

BAD MOVE: Young kept firing up ill-advised shots in the second half. He was 2-for-11. "I didn't know I had that many shots," Young said. "I was just trying to get things going for my teammates."

NOTABLE: Both teams reached the All-Star break having played exactly half their schedule. Sacramento is 11-22 and Washington is 7-26.

IN THE ARENA: Many devotees of Fredette swelled the crowd to 17.085. It was Fredette's first game -- college or professional -- in Washington. He scored eight points in 12 minutes.

NEXT: For the Kings, Tuesday vs. Utah, Mar. 1 vs. L.A. Clippers, Mar. 2 @ L.A. Lakers. For the Wizards, Tuesday @ Milwaukee, Wednesday vs. Orlando, Mar. 3 vs. Cleveland.

Heat Beat Sacramento, Keep Streak Alive

(Getty Images)

MIAMI (AP)—The Miami Heat knew what was coming from Sacramento. Eventually, they handled the Kings’ challenge.

Dwyane Wade had 30 points and 10 assists, Mario Chalmers and Chris Bosh each scored 20 points and the NBA-leading Heat stretched their winning streak to seven games with a 120-108 win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night.

“It was a good game for me, just trying to be aggressive and was able to get my teammates some shots,” said Wade, who shot 11 for 16 and has tied his career-best with 11 straight games of shooting 50 percent or better, matching a run from his rookie season. “And I was also able to continue do what I’ve been doing the last couple games, just taking high-percentage shots and making them.”

Miami Heat head coach Erik Spo…
AP - Feb 21, 11:14 pm EST
1 of 31Sac-Mia Gallery

LeBron James scored 18 points, Norris Cole had 12 and Udonis Haslem added 10 for Miami (26-7), which has won each of its games during this streak by at least 12 points.

Next up for Miami: The New York Knicks and Jeremy Lin come to town Thursday.

“It’s going to be fun,” James said. “It’s going to be electrifying. … It could be one of the most-watched games that we’ve had in a long time.”

(GETTY IMAGES)
Isaiah Thomas scored 20 of his 24 points in the third quarter for Sacramento, which dropped its sixth straight. Marcus Thornton scored 23, Tyreke Evans finished with 21 points and 10 assists, and Jason Thompson had 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Kings.

The Kings were without guard John Salmons, a late scratch with a sore right hip.

“You needed to play a perfect game to win this game against this team and we were pretty close to the perfect game,” Kings coach Keith Smart said. “We had moments, but when you give up 25 points off turnovers, you’re not going to beat many teams.”

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said he didn’t expect Sacramento to come out and play like a team with one of the NBA’s worst records, and he was right. Thompson had 10 points and six rebounds in the opening quarter and Evans’ buzzer-beating 3-pointer from near midcourt gave Sacramento a 32-26 lead after 12 minutes.

Maybe the biggest surprise of the first half was that it took Miami—a team that had led by 20 points at some time in each of its six previous outings, but never enjoyed better than an 18-point margin Tuesday—nearly a full hour after tipoff to get the highlight reels cranking.

To Finish Reading this Story, Click Here: Yahoo!

KINGS vs HEAT

In less than 1 hour the Sacramento Kings will tip off against the Eastern Conference Champions. The game starts at 7:30 EST, which is 4:30 pacific time. The Kings will have their hands full, but look to leave Miami with a win.

Sacramento Kings arena deal is high-drama, slow motion

By Cosmo Garvin
cosmog@newsreview.com

This article was published on 02.16.12.

It was not—despite what you might have picked up from some breathless Sacramento Bee columnists—a do-or-die moment for a new Sacramento Kings arena. It wasn’t make or break. It wasn’t even put up or shut up.

It was just one more in a seemingly endless series of incremental baby steps. The Sacramento City Council was expected on Tuesday night (after press time) to approve a list of 10 “most qualified” companies bidding to take over the city’s public-parking system. The lucky company would get the city’s parking revenue for the next 20, 30, maybe 50 years, in exchange for a large upfront payment to help build an arena.

The payment could be as large as $200 million, depending on the conditions of the parking deal. Right now, the city gets about $9 million in revenue from its parking operations every year.

Tuesday’s vote marked the end of the city’s request for qualifications from bidders and a pivot to the much more exciting request for proposals phase.

OK, so not “crunch time,” exactly. But there is a more significant council meeting coming up on February 28.
To read the rest of this Article, please visit: NewsReview

KINGS AT PISTONS - 5 Key Points

BY Jason Jones and Ailene Voisin

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - With DeMarcus Cousins (mid back spasms) out the Kings will be without their most consistent player this season.

How will the Kings replace Couins' production (16.3 points, 11.3 rebounds)?

Here are five things the Kings can do to still be productive without Cousins against the Detroit Pistons: 1. More opportunities for J.T.
Jason Thompson is averaging 8.7 points and 7.9 rebounds in 15 starts this season. Now that Thompson has shown an improved post game the Kings could look to Thompson to pick up the scoring slack.

2. Hickson steps up
The Kings had high hopes for J.J. Hickson before the season, but he's averaging just 5.4 points and 5.6 rebounds. Hickson's scoring is at its lowest since his rookie season.

3. Wings on the glass
Without their leading rebounder the Kings need players like Tyreke Evans, John Salmons and Donte' Greene to rebound well.
4. Chuckwagon time
Chuck Hayes will be needed to harass Pistons second-year center Greg Monroe. It's a task Hayes would have had at some point, but he'll be needed more tonight.

5. Make some shots
The Kings are the NBA's worst shooting team and Cousins, who is shooting 44.6 percent, has the second-best percentage among Kings regulars. So the rest of the Kings need to shoot better than 40 percent (or play really good defense) to have a chance tonight. The Pistons have played well of late.

This Is A New Blog to Bring Kings Fans What They Deserve!

Sacramento has been host to the Kings, formerly the Kansas City and Sacramento Royals. Those were the days of available season tickets. Their fictitious brief past here in California's Capital is rich in Tradition and is equaled with perennial fan enthusiasm. The Kings as an organization, was lucky to land in a one-team town. So what if it is Cow Town, This is our cow-town team.

I have been a Die-Hard Kings Fan since the Mitch Richmond days in the Mid-Nineties, and the passion instilled deeply within my family, and family-to-be will know nothing other. There was the stretch of Western Conference Showdowns with our Biggest foes the Lakers. Our Southern Neighbors, who stood us up, and backed us into the wall in the 2002 conference finals. The great team tail-spinned out of the elite teams after re-arranging the whole Roster. For the 2002 Kings team that was one of the best teams, their chemistry created solidity in the Locker Room, as well as on the court.