You know, the haters are just never happy.
Take this road trip.
So the Kings suffer yet another close loss, this one perhaps more agonizing than any other because of the shotclock-gate surrounding John Salmons' too-late jumper against Washington, and the talk begins again about how these almost-wins have got to stop. So they go ahead and get blown away the next night at New Jersey, and there's still complaining. Geesh.
But seriously, this group needs to find a way to come home 2-2 from this trip. Tonight should be interesting with Ron Artest coming back to Indy again, with the key question whether he tries to do too much and make some sort of personal statement. Tomorrow night at Philadelphia is winnable, of course, because the Sixers are just 18-38. But it doesn't help that the Kings will be playing for the fourth time in five nights, not to mention dealing with the backward travel that had them going nearly three hours by plane to the West only to go back East again. OK, so maybe that's a personal complaint more than anything else.
Observations: There was loads of love for former Kings assistant Pete Carril in the Kings locker room on Saturday night. Mike Bibby was just about to beginning a postgame interview session by his locker when he put it on hold to give a hug to "Coachie," with some 15 reporters wondering if Mike would come back or use the moment as his getaway. He did indeed return, although he didn't say anything as interesting as the quote he gave Liz Robbins of the New York Times before the game when asked about the climate in Sacramento and the relationship with frustrated Kings fans. "They are still the same fans, but a lot of them scream at us now, instead of scream for us," he said.
Other interesting tidbits from Robbins' piece … Joe Maloof on close losses: "He (Kings coach Eric Musselman) needs to address those close losses ... I think he's a little inexperienced, to be honest. Nobody is going to work harder than Eric Musselman.”
More assessing of Musselman from Robbins: When asked to describe Musselman's style, Shareef Abdur-Rahim looked over to Bibby for an assist, but Bibby said, "You got to answer that for yourself, dude."
Abdur-Rahim answered, "Intense."
– Sam Amick
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