Kings Beat Bulls. But Then Lose. Bad.

I’m pretty sure I just got done watching two games. The Kings won the first one and then promptly got trampled in the second. That’s the only way I can explain that debacle. Sweet Jesus in a cornfield.

The Kings played their best half of the year to start this game, unfortunately, as you probably predicted – they couldn’t continue it.

After a scorching hot first quarter, the Kings were able to take a 13 point lead into half (it was up to 16 at a point), which would be the first time the Kings went to the break with a lead this season. Yeah, I know…….

The Kings had a fantastic first half taking care of the ball, only turning it over twice – both coming off of offensive fouls. Frankly, it was beautiful, on both sides of the court. The Kings hadn’t played better basketball all year. Yet, through it all, there was still an annoying little voice in the back of my head going, “you know they’re going to blow this, right”. I tried to ignore him. That didn’t work. So I tried to kill him. That didn’t work either. Then the second half began, and well, if he ended up watching the second half….I’m sure he killed himself.

When the third quarter broke, the Kings held a 13 point lead and had only two turnovers to their name. When the final buzzer sounded, the Kings lost by 11 points and has 12 turnovers. Even more impressive was the fact that they blasted out 57 first half points but could only manage 28 in the second half with a paltry 9 (as in, the number after 8 and before 10) in the fourth quarter.

It took everything I had to prevent myself from jamming a pen in my eye. Though that might have been the smarter move.

I’m really at a loss for words. The effort and desire was clearly there in the first half. Why it dissipated so quickly in the second, your guess is as good as mine. The execution was just awful. The youth will continue to be thrown out as an excuse and while there is some validity to that, it’ll be over-used as it’s clearly not all youthful issues harming this team right now. I’m not calling for Westphal’s head but watching Tyreke walk the ball up the court and not get into the offense (oxymoron?) until the shot clock is pushing 10 seconds or watching Evans shoot a random contested jumper makes me want to steal candy from children. Not to mention, watching players not be put in positions to succeed (DMC on the top of the key late? Really?) or seeing guys like Donte Greene, Beno Udrih, and Omri Casspi watch while everybody else goes for rebounds is just not acceptable.

Frankly, the blame game deserves to be thrown around to the squad as a collective unit, players and staff.

Talented as the Bulls are, they shouldn’t have won this game tonight. Period.

Anybody see what I did with the battery acid?