Kings 92, Pacers 88: Despite Their Best Efforts, Kings Win

of his 2 dunk attempts. especially the first one, flying from the free throw line

Play Salmons, Hickson, and Jimmer as little as possible.

The place was rocking in the 4th.
Felt good for Cisco.

Isaiah has definitely earned his stripes to be the leading guard off the bench unless of course jimmer starts actually hitting his shots and showing confidence out there. What is his deal?? He was brought to the kings because of his shooting ability which is the worse part of his game right now. Makes no sense. A lot of these are wide open. Unless he wakes up he’ll be seeing more and more bench time. Please don’t become the next Adam Morrison. With that said props to Isaiah again for stepping up. Just wish he wasn’t so short damnit.

Shave that mustache off Marcus. It’s holding you back.

Tonight, JT started and played extremely well. IT finished and played brilliantly. Zone D worked wonders in the 4th (credit to Smart?). 12 offensive boards for DMC, 12 total team turnovers. This will work.

Apparently you can shoot 30% and win, if you play hard enough. Great effort, great win.

were gushing on how IT can run the offense as a rookie, but they said he had 4 years experience with it at Washington. He actually only played 3 years at UW and only played PG for 2/3 of a season after our PG tore an ACL. The other 2 1/3 years he played SG.

Saw the 6 assists and only 1 turnover despite 30% shooting from the team. Looks impressive on paper.

Very enjoyable.

Cousins is really coming in to his own. He is gobbling up so many rebounds , it is truly remarkable.

Loved JT’s hustle the first two quarters diving for every loose ball, going up strong to the basket, passing to the open man.

IT running the show in the second half. Great to see him be the floor general out there. Tyreke was even giving it to him to run the show.

We still have an incredibly young team. It’s games like this that make you feel so optimistic.

I’d sure like to see more than one properly run fast break from a coach who is supposed to specialize in that.

Players; sometimes you actually ave to slow the ball down just a mite so that the break works properly(?).

Anyway, relieved to see a win. The crowd was on it’s feet much of the last three to five minutes.

We almost pulled a defeat from the jaws of victory! But, a W is a W. If memory serves, we actually started out 3-10 from the free throw line, so going 25-31 (81%) the rest of the way is pretty good.

Man we struggle to get good shots. That’s a general problem, but it’s even more glaring in crunch time. After successive bricks, air balls, etc., I was pleading with my tv: please run the offense and get a good look! please!!

I thought we should have gone to DMC more mid/late in the 4th when he had Amundson or Hansbrough on him. With the exception of Hibbert, whose size and length were challenging, I think DMC would’ve had an advantage over any of the other guys who guarded him. Plus, our perimeter guys were busy building a large chimney out there, so why not press your inside advantage. The counter argument to that is that DMC was struggling to finish around the rim, which is true, but I still think you exploit whatever advantages you have.

Kudos to coach Smart for going zone and sticking with the small lineup. All in all, good W and I hope we have some positive momentum going out on the road.

while I’m tired of being in the lottery I think its clear we need another top 5 pick and ideally grab a SF in this years draft.

I really pains me to say that, I thought we were further along, but no one of value is coming via free agency, so draft is the only way to acquire talent right now.

Was the final inbound play to Cisco.

Westphal’s inbound sets often seemed overly complicated and ineffective. With the Kings up 2, the Pacers were sure to foul. It was important to get the ball into the hands of someone who was making their free throws. The play they ran was simple, but it spaced the floor and the ball ended up in Cisco’s hands, as it was clearly designed to do.

It’s a small thing, but it’s a huge thing.

but I do know one thing … when Isaiah Thomas is on the court …. good things happen.

Just do it. Four smalls and Cousins or JT in crunch time is a winning formula.

Tyreke should stop shooting 3s unless the alternative is a shot clock violation. He’s shooting 20% out there, so those are bad shots.

I assume you were at the game. What was it like? How was the crowd, especially in the 4th quarter? In watching it, I was surprised people weren’t standing up a little bit earlier, but hard to know the feeling when you are watching at home.

Maybe i am just a negative Nancy, but the sentence structure and grammar is pretty rough. Love the quick write-up, but almost hard to read.

They’ll need to bring the same kind of energy they displayed in tonight’s 4th quarter for an entire game as well as shoot much better if they hope to have even a slight chance of winning any of their upcoming games.

Marcus Thornton does not care about his assist rate. At least 3 fast breaks with numbers and he takes it to the hole. Only once did it show on the scoreboard with a free throw made after a foul. The other 2 I saw – turnovers.
Tyreke looked like a point guard for the first game ever. And he gets criticized for it. Sometimes we fans are insatiable. And retarded. I would take 100 games like he played last night than any of his games as first option scorer. This team needs the Tyreke from last night (with a little more scoring mixed in,) and we can open up the game planning. He could have had around 20 assists last night.
JT – what a game from The Kid. You definitely know what you’re gonna get from JT night in and night out. Leave him in the starting lineup.
Nice contributions from Donte, Thomas, and Garcia. Garcia!
Fredette looks lost right now. Not sure if I like what’s going on here. Not sure who / what to blame or how to fix it. Not sure I care.
David West looks fully recovered from last year’s knee injury and played well, but he also played fairly chippy last night. I used to like him, but I saw a few overly rough / borderline dirty moves from him. Curious where that stuff is coming from.
Demarcus FREAKING Cousins is a beast. Not quite immortal kill beast yet, but that guy peeked at us a few times during the game. He man-handled Hibbert and the Pacer’s front court when he wanted to and couldn’t be kept off the glass at either end. The Pacers had no answer for him.
Nice D, solid coaching moves (haven’t seen that in a while,) and a good job Kings….!!!

Steve Yeater of AP news took some really awesome pictures. Not the photo caption contest type necessarily but just really good pics.

Since he got picked #60. Wear it with a badge of pride, IT.