There were some real airwaves let out into the atmosphere when David Stern broke the league's hermetic seal on its role in Sacramento arena negotations and the Kings' future. NBA.com's excellent David Aldridge interviewed the commissioner on Tuesday, and the Bee's Tony Bizjak transcripted a seriously important quote:

"The team has agreed to a substantial contribution, both directly from itself, but also by catalyzing AEG to be interested. In effect, whatever money AEG puts in is because of give-backs by the team ... so we see that as a team contribution," Stern said.

This is a negotiating point. "We see that as a team contribution" doesn't come straight out and say that "the city does not see that as a team contribution" ... but it's a far cry from "we and the city agree that AEG's contribution constitutes a team contribution." I suspect that this is one of the area's where the city and league are still negotiating; in my estimation, the city needs an upfront contribution from AEG in exchange for the rights to run the facility, and an upfront contribution from the Kings to ensure they have a suitable place to play in Sacramento within a couple of years.

I see Stern's point, and I note to myself that if the Maloofs don't pony up in advance, their annual lease payment could go toward ensuring that the $9 million in parking revenue is covered for the next 30 years. That said, Stern's position doesn't appear to be tenable. Kansas City provides an example of AEG investing in the construction of a facility without team or league involvement. Given the work that Kevin Johnson and Sacramento have done to get AEG involved from the outset, I don't understand how that can be counted toward the Maloofs' responsibility to get this built.

As with all things arena, stay tuned.

Coming into this game, I fully expected this to be one of the uglier games of the season. The Heat are really, really good, and the Kings are really, really bad on the road. So I was pleasantly surprised by the play of the team tonight in what might have been one of the best offensive performances of the season for Sacramento.

The Kings got off to a great start against the Heat, starting out with a 17-9 lead. Miami would come roaring back, but the Kings remained competitive through three quarters, thanks to some of the best ball movement of the season. The Kings finished with 24 assists, and would have had several more if players had caught the ball cleanly on fast breaks. The best part of the ball movement was how well the Kings were cutting off the ball, particularly Marcus Thornton, who finished with 23 points on 16 shots.

Isaiah Thomas, in his 3rd start, led the Kings in scoring with a career-high 24 points, of which 20 came in the 3rd quarter alone. That is the most points the Heat have allowed by an individual player in a quarter this season. Isaiah hit 5 threes in the quarter, as well as being fouled on another one. The 5 threes in the quarter ties a Sacramento-era record set by Jason Williams in 1999. The Kings as a team shot very well from three point range, making 13-27 overall, with Thomas, Thornton and Francisco Garcia hitting at least 3 each.

Despite the slow start for Miami, they turned it up big time from the 2nd quarter on. This team was clicking on all cylinders and answered every Kings run with one of their own. The team as a whole shot a ridiculous 55.6% from the field, and answered the Kings great three point shooting with a 10-23 performance of their own. Sacramento knew they couldn't guard the Heat one-on-one and resorted to a zone for much of the game, which stymied the Heat a bit at first. The thing about zones though is that they can easily be broken by good outside shooting and good slashing and passing, and the Heat have those two things in spades. Mario Chalmers took full advantage of the zone to the tune of 20 points, 18 of which came off his 6 three pointers.

Dwyane Wade could not be stopped no matter what defense the Kings threw at him, as he scored 30 points to go with 10 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 blocks in just 30 minutes of play. Chris Bosh (20 points, 10 rebounds) and LeBron James (18 points, 8 assists) played second and third fiddle to Wade, but were still hugely instrumental to Miami's victory, particularly on defense.

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I like to think that fans of Sacramento Kings basketball have learned over the past <checks calendar> six years to excuse losses and losing. We learned long ago that Rebuilding has a best friend named Defeat, and that they hang out all of the fricking time. Most of us accepted in 2007 that the team faced a dark future and needed to get worse in order to get better. So we hung on as the expensive pieces were pawned for basically nothing -- Mike Bibby and Brad Miller literally got the team nothing in return -- and the first set of building blocks (Kevin Martin, Quincy Douby, Spencer Hawes) were cast aside for newer, 'better' ones. We survived 2008-09, somehow. We came to terms with a long twilight, and prayed hard for a forthcoming dawn.

But one thing that's proven more difficult is excusing mistakes. It popped up Sunday when Tyreke Evans made a bad foul that essentially cost the Kings the game against Cleveland. Evans rapped Kyrie Irving with Sacramento up one and just seconds left. Irving hit his free throws, and the Kings didn't get a shot off on the other end. It was a bad, bad play from Tyreke.

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