Game #1: Portland at Sacramento, October 19, 7:00

[LightTheBeam]

Too early over reaction

Sabonis will bounce back. Bad game

Davion sucks (I laughed last year when everyone said he could replace fox)

Monk dribbled like he was buddy tonight

Huerter has room to grow. Hot game, but he has more levels that we didn't see

Holmes is useless without Hali. That's going to be a bad contract on this team

Need to trade Barnes in a deal for crowder asap

Davis (said this last year) is a true rotation level player. He has 6th man potential. He is a difference maker when he plays. Effort and hustle.

Fox will take a leap without Hali.

Brown had terrible rotations, doesn't understand he can't bench fox/huerter/sabonis all together and we get crushed. Hopefully he can learn from this.

So excited to get murray back. Okpala should be cut out of the rotation. Lyles at least shoots, and davis needs a role all season.


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[euphorbus]

Second team really missed Murray. They looked out of sync--all effort but little polish. He should be back for Saturday night.

The Kings wasted a brilliant shooting night from Fox and Huerter. They also missed some crucial plays in the last two minutes that sealed their fate. It did not help that Portland had 33 free throw attempts to 19 for the Kings.

[Silver Man]

33 FT's for the Blazers, sure you could take 4 away because we had to foul. BS refs

Really disheartening, I'm not sure how much better the Kings can play.

Maybe their best player (Domas) was garbage and so was the bench, they can be better.

Sabonis worst game as a King and no Keegan Murray. If we can't play any better than that with one playing horribly and our fourth overall pick not playing then we are in trouble.

[TyFrekey]

My general thoughts are that there are a lot of positive signs from last night's game, but still some remnants of the old, low IQ, immature style of play that reared their ugly head.

More specifically:

1. Let's get this out of the way: yes, the refs were very bad. They managed the game abysmally, and made a lot of questionable to downright bad calls. That said, the Kings were still in a great position to win this game and could have been a lot better down the stretch to seal the win.

2. In terms of overall team ball, there were very few periods of the game in which the team put it all together: the first minute or two, second half of the 2nd quarter, much of the 3rd quarter. The rest of the game including most of the 1st and 4th quarters there was always something they were doing poorly. Some combination of too many turnovers, too many fouls, poor rebounding, poor shot selection, insufficient ball movement, bad/lazy defense. They have to tighten up a lot of those things.

3. I know the team is trying to play with a lot of pace, but they need to learn how to play with a lot of pace while remaining under control. It felt like when the pace got too fast, they just got sped up too fast and played sloppy, which led to a lot of turnovers.

4. With Keegan inactive, the lack of wing depth on the team was devastating. Barnes was really our only true wing that isn't a zero or negative on one side of the ball. This team cannot sustain an extended Barnes or Keegan absence.

5. Speaking of Barnes, the dude just needs to be more of a stabilizing force for the team. He needs to kind of act as the floor general because Fox just doesn't have game managing skills, which isn't a slight at him but it's not his game. When the Kings started to fall behind in the first or give up that lead in the second half, I want Barnes to be the type of person to use his old man post/slow-mo euro step driving game to settle things down get us a bucket.

6. Speaking of players that are a zero or negative on one side of the ball, guys like KZ, Davion, Richaun, etc. are simply too one dimensional. KZ and Davion are such negatives on offense that I think we'll start to see their minutes decreased in favor of players who can provide value offensively and defensively (i.e. less Davion and more Terence Davis; less KZ and more Keegan...but obviously that couldn't happen last night. Richaun is too dependent on others to get him involved. Hopefully Brown figures out how to get people in the right spots to succeed, but I feel like Richaun needs to play with other players that can set him up. That just isn't gonna happen with the second unit. I think he needs to get run next to Fox as part of the first set of subs off the bench around the 6 minute mark of the first so he can get a good 3-5 minutes playing with Fox. Fox's attacking style will open a lot for him, and he's our best roller in the PnR.

7. TD, Fox, and Huerter were incredible. I'm particularly pleased with their defensive effort. Fox when engaged on defense and hitting his threes would be a perennial all star. The team definitely is night and day when it comes to shooting and effort. Even though they sometimes fell into some bad habits, it seemed like they stayed committed and energized and fought their way back. Hopefully we won't see as many blowouts and start to finish uncompetitive losses as we're used to seeing.

That's all that I got right now, which is probably too much as it is.

[TyFrekey]

have I said Davion is going to be no more than an average backup yet? he might not get there

Below average backup*

Guy sucks at basketball

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I'm not quite at the point where I'm ready to give up on Davion...but he just doesn't fit this team. Defensively, he's obviously great. But offensively he is like a homeless man's very early career Westbrook: he provides no value without acting as a primary ball handler since he can't shoot, and even as a primary ball handler his only strength is his explosiveness to blow past people and get into the paint where he isn't that great of a finisher.

And again, even if he improves in that Westbrook mold, it just doesn't fit the identity of this team. This isn't the early 2010 OKC Thunder with two stars that just take turns dominating opposing defenses. I want to see Davion's minutes decrease until he improves as an off-ball mover and spot up shooter, particularly if Terence Davis continues to impress the way he did last night.

[Lost in LA]

The Trail Blazers beat the Suns, too early to know if that means anything....I do enjoy the Lakers losing

[euphorbus]

The Trail Blazers beat the Suns, too early to know if that means anything....I do enjoy the Lakers losing.

And in similar fashion. I happened to catch the end of the game. The Trail Blazers took it to overtime and managed to get the buckets over a very experienced team.