Sacramento (15-23) @ Washington (12-26)

[JSrose115]

Kings lost their swag.

[a-rod]

Flip saunders is a great coach, He's an offensive genius.he knew the kings has a bad defensive rotation and kept running the corner series, so pick your poison, wide open shot or clear path to the basket...

[cuad]

Is Hilton Armstrong with the team? I want to see him play while we're struggling (or down 20). Just to see what's going on with him.

[OGSactownballer]

I am starting to have a REAL problem seeing Spencer on the floor in the fourth quarter when he keeps shooting bad long range shots and getting manhandled on both ends in the post. It's very tiring to watch.

[rpa]

But seriously, these last two games have made me physically ill. I just don't understand how we can take Cleveland to OT. SHOULD HAVE beat the lakers TWICE (w/2 OT's) Beat Denver twice. Take Phoenix to the wire. Yet, the same team cannot beat Golden State, Philly or Washington (w/out Arenas) I just don't understand it anymore.

Road games vs. home games (with the exception of that 2nd Laker game). Even when this team was playing well they still couldn't win on the road. Consider our road wins on the year: Utah, Milwaukee, Chicago. Three wins--even when this team was playing well. And that Chicago game the Bulls just flat out fell apart. We played well but there's no way we should have won that game.

I guess my point is: young teams in general play absolutely DREADFUL on the road.

Also, back when the Kings were playing their "best basketball" they had a pretty easy schedule overall. They had a handful of easy games @ home (NYK, GSW, MIN, NJ, IND, etc.) that were almost sure-wins. Problem is that NOW (or at least the last few weeks) the tables have been reversed: we're playing good teams at home (Cavs, Lakers, Nuggets, etc.) and bad teams on the road (Wiz, Sixers, etc.) and it ain't going so well.

[Wolfay]

Kings lost their swag.

That's it exactly. We have the talent and skill to beat these guys, but all of these close losses we've had against tough competition has really screwed us up in the head.

[villatrynity154]

But seriously, these last two games have made me physically ill. I just don't understand how we can take Cleveland to OT. SHOULD HAVE beat the lakers TWICE (w/2 OT's) Beat Denver twice. Take Phoenix to the wire. Yet, the same team cannot beat Golden State, Philly or Washington (w/out Arenas) I just don't understand it anymore.

Road games vs. home games (with the exception of that 2nd Laker game). Even when this team was playing well they still couldn't win on the road. Consider our road wins on the year: Utah, Milwaukee, Chicago. Three wins--even when this team was playing well. And that Chicago game the Bulls just flat out fell apart. We played well but there's no way we should have won that game.

I guess my point is: young teams in general play absolutely DREADFUL on the road.

Also, back when the Kings were playing their "best basketball" they had a pretty easy schedule overall. They had a handful of easy games @ home (NYK, GSW, MIN, NJ, IND, etc.) that were almost sure-wins. Problem is that NOW (or at least the last few weeks) the tables have been reversed: we're playing good teams at home (Cavs, Lakers, Nuggets, etc.) and bad teams on the road (Wiz, Sixers, etc.) and it ain't going so well.

got to agree w/ rpa here...i think i mentioned it before about the schedule......come on guys.....seriously what did you expect? teams aren't stupid....they'll make adjustments and we are a young team....that doesn't mean our guys aren't playing without heart and passion....it just means other BETTER teams (ok philly isn't better....but we are younger than them) don't want to get beat on by us so they make the adjustments....that plus we are on the road and also the thing about guys getting used to their new minutes.....this is a season to figure stuff out......i don't think for one second was there a line drawn up that said win 30+ games, or seed 8th in the playoffs.....i bet our expectations to this season were purely observatinal....see if we can't get this franchise to start looking like a team again.....and we've been acomplishing that....some of yous just got a little overexcited about our early success and figured if we can take the top teams to the wire then its a given we win against the rest of the league.....given that mentality we should have won all the games after the 2nd laker game cause cleveland the lakers and the nuggets are 3 of top 4 in the league....but we haven't......this team is gonna show sparks troughout the season.....but don't be so quick to confuse sparks with expecting them to win...the truth!!!

[OGSactownballer]

It's a good point. We also need to realize that some of these "bad teams" are actually teams - like Philly - that were expected to be playoff teams but have dealt with injury problems until recently. We have not only that issue, but the added difficulty of being VERY young AND lacking a legit third and fourth big to counter some of the bigger athletic teams out there. It's just starting to show more. I think that some of that will even out as Kevin and later on Cisco come back and start to stretch defenses and make them play honest single-teams on Jason in the post. It will also help to have vet defenders with speed (Cisco/Kevin) so that we don't leave the perimeter shooters alone for easy open threes.