If Friday night’s home win against the Celtics represented the coronation of George Karl era in Sacramento, then Saturday night’s 126-99 blowout loss to the Los Angeles Clippers signified the hangover. J.J. Redick scored 24 points, hitting four 3-pointers and making eight of his free throws, as the Clippers routed the Kings for their fourth straight victory.
DeMarcus Cousins finished with 21 points on the night and Rudy Gay added 15 for the Kings, who now have lost their last 8 of 11 games. George Karl was pinned with his first loss after winning against Boston on Friday in his debut.
February 21, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Sacramento Kings forward Rudy Gay (8) moves to the basket against the Los Angeles Clippers during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
The Clippers opened the second quarter on a 23-4 run to take a 47-33 lead. They had six 3-pointers in the period, with Redick hitting their last one for a 66-47 lead going into halftime. Sacramento was held to 36 percent shooting in the quarter. Head Coach George Karl spoke to the media afterwards and harped on the team’s inability to work to find good shots.
"” I feel sometimes some guys out there feel they care about whose doing it [scoring] and we’ve got to let that go.” said Karl” Good teams don’t care who scores.”"
Kings Center Demarcus Cousins said the team stopped passing the ball like they had earlier when they built their early lead, and had reverted back to the style of play that resulted in many of their losses in previous games. Yet he remained in a positive mood and still showed high levels of optimism in his postgame statements.
"” We just stopped passing the ball and trusting the system.” Cousins stated” But I mean hey this is only, what? Day 3? So this is still way new to all of us.”"
The loss to the Clippers Saturday night signified a coming down to earth type of feeling for both the Kings organization and its fans. Was the hiring of George Karl as Head Coach a good move for the Organization? Yes, no question about it.
As the old saying goes, Rome was not built in a day. There will be bumps in the road for Karl and the Kings, and it will take time for old, bad habits to be erased from their play on the court.
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Everyone knows this and understands this.
There will be trips and stumbles on the road to victories and glory for the Kings, but nights like tonight must happen for the good of the franchise as they begin the long journey of purifying themselves of bad basketball.
Sacramento has played sloppy, lackluster basketball nearly the entire year. George Karl was hired on the premise that he knows what good basketball looks like and is played like, but before the Kings walk, they must learn to crawl.
This is going to be like starting all over again. In order to build the new statue, the old one must have a sledgehammer taken to it so that the new one can be built from the ground up. Karl knew when he took this job he and this team would first have to come to grips with games like this. Having to go through the growing pains in order to get better as a basketball team was given, and tonight only proved the Kings still have a long road to travel in their pursuit of good basketball.
The Kings know it, Karl knows it, and their fan base knows it. So that’s what makes tonight a step in the right direction for the Sacramento Kings.
In order to take the good you must first learn to rid yourself of the bad.