This was probably the most fun I've had at a Kings game, and no, it wasn't because of the dollar beer.  The game was exciting, ARCO was bringing the noise, our young guys played awesome, and the finish was epic.

Some randomness before the recap:

• I would not be surprised to see a few more dollar beer nights this year.  There didn't seem to be any alcohol related problems, other than the drunk guy who sat next to me after halftime and started dancing.  It was truly a horrifying sight.
• I was sitting in Section 219, and during the first quarter, when K-9 checked in for the first time, I swear by Jon Brockman's elbows, I heard someone in Section 220 yell "Kenny Thomas has a nice ass!".  I'm proud of you whoever you are.
  
• ARCO was loud.  Like Glory Days loud.  It was awesome.
• Favorite "ESPN" sign of the evening: Evans iS you're Personal Nightmare.  Favorite sign of the night "The person behind me can't see". I kid you not.
  
• At one point the Kings had 5 white guys on the floor, each from a different country. I wonder how many times that has happened before.

Alright, now onto the game.

A bit of a surprise to me when Omri was announced in the starting lineup, and I told my friend "Wow looks like Omri got Donté's starting spot", but then Donté got announced.  It dawned on me that Spencer was the odd man out, and at first I was surprised.  Then I remembered his performance against Portland and it made sense.  I wonder how long this will last.  Again, he wasn't really consistent tonight, although I'm glad he didn't get a DNP-CD.

Kings had no answer for Jamison in the first quarter, but luckily, he was really the only Wiz doing any damage.  Butler was off most of the night, but especially in the first half.  Kings had trouble with the boards in the first half, and despite a far superior FG%, the 2nd chance points were keeping the Wizards in the game.  Kings do grab a lot of rebounds, but they also tend to give up a lot as well, especially on the offensive glass.  JT is an above average rebounder, but I think we need to add an elite rebounder to this squad before we can think playoffs. 

In the 2nd half, Kings came out and played really well on offense, but the defense was somewhat lacking and the Wiz were able to get back in the game.  There followed a time period of about 4 minutes where the Kings spaced the floor beautifully and continually found either Omri, Udoka, or Noc at the 3 point line, and mostly in the corner, wide open.  That's the most efficient shot in basketball.  If just one of those threes had gone in, the game would have pretty much been over, but unfortunately none of them fell.  Omri in particular kept missing from the same spot, but I want Omri taking those shots.  He can make them, and consistently.  He wasn't missing by much either.  Butler and Arenas finally started getting hot too, and luckily the Kings were able to withstand it.  I don't know if I've ever seen a scoring spread like that before, one team with 2 30+ scorers, and the other with 3 20+ (and JT was close).

Omri definitely made the most out of his first start, and he could have had about 30 points tonight if he had hit some of those wide open threes he was getting in the 4th quarter.  I'll have Omri shooting those any day.  They weren't missing by much.  Best part about Omri for me though was his 8-9 from the stripe, and I loved his general hustle and defense.  He was everywhere.

Noc had a really solid offensive game, hitting a few really big shots.  The Arena went crazy on his 4 point play in the 4th.  Defensively he was outclassed by the crafty Jamison, and he really didn't do that great of a job.  Casspi did a much better job on Jamison in the 2nd half.

Donté didn't have a gaudy game, but he played pretty effectively when he was in. 

Udoka was simply wonderful for us.  He seems to have finally kicked his Desmondmasonitis flu, and he was extremely valuable on both ends of the court.  We would not have won this game without Udoka in my opinion.  We almost lost it because of him too, with that bonehead inbound pass near the end.  All is forgiven since we won though.

Beno finally had an off-shooting night, but he still was pretty effective, moving the offense well, and hitting the boards too.  He was actually a bit of a bright spot to me in terms of rebounds, because at least 3 of them he wrested from Wizards players.  Sergio didn't play much, but he ran the offense extremely well when he was in.

JT was great.  His jumper is very Webberesque and he's becoming automatic from out there.  He also had two huge blocks, and even though he had 5 fouls, a couple were sort of absurd.  I remember on one sequence where it looked like JT got elbowed in the face by Jamison and JT was called for the foul.

And finally we come to the man of the hour, Tyreke Evans.  This guy is a monster.  The first quarter he was pretty much unstoppable, whenever he wanted to get to the basket, he did.  Here was my 2nd favorite play of the game:

Absolutely insane. 

Tyreke fell away a little bit in the 2nd half, having a few of his drives stuffed or stripped, and he began to settle for jumpers, one of which was an airball.  He only hit one jumper in the game, and that one was in the 4th quarter where he really shined.  He played pretty good defense on Arenas, at times having to switch on Jamison or Butler, and doing pretty well in both cases.  The foul at the end of the game was unfortunate, but he definitely made amends for it with my favorite play of the game/year:

That my friends is the work of a superstar. Not a rookie. A superstar.  One who we'll hopefully get to see do stuff like this for years to come.