It was clear the New Orleans Hornets weren’t going to let Tyreke Evans beat them. In the first matchup between these two teams, Evans carried the Kings on a night in which Kevin Martin couldn’t find his shot. Evans took Chris Paul mano-y-mano and played him to a virtual standstill. He got to the paint when he needed to and took away the playmaking ability of arguably the best playmaking point guard in basketball.

With Chris Paul shelved due to the bad ankle, this was not going to happen in game number two against these two teams. The Hornets took away the middle of the floor, packed in the paint and shifted everything towards Tyreke’s direction on the court. So it was up to somebody else to take over this game and Sergio Rodriguez was more than happy to oblige.

“The way Jason (Thompson), Kenny (Thomas) and (Jon) Brockman were rebounding the ball it let us have that kind of lineup and kind of unleash Sergio,” said Coach Westphal. “He’s very, very quck and creative; guys love playing with him.”

And that’s kind of what happened tonight; the Kings unleashed Sergio. Sergio has long been lauded as a fantastic playmaker, who was stuck in the tight reigns of Nate McMillan’s offense. He was never really allowed to be himself and get the game to his tempo. But under Paul Westphal, they’re trying more and more to find ways to use him.

“Sergio has just been playing better and better all the time. For a while there, we were trying to figure out a way to get him into the game. Lately, we’ve been playing two small guards together because Beno has been playing great, and obviously Tyreke has been playing great.”

By giving Sergio weapons on the wings and big men who can score and rebound the ball, it allows him to channel his inner-Jason Williams. This was probably the most efficient game of his career. It certainly was the best scoring game he’s ever head in the NBA. He scored a career-high 24 points on 9/14 shooting and matched that brilliance with five assists and zero turnovers. He did all of this in just 24 minutes off the bench.

But it wasn’t just all Sergio, although he did lead the way. Jason Thompson took on two very tough frontcourt players and with the help of Jon Brockman and Kenny Thomas, played them to a standstill. JT had his sixth double-double of the season with 22 points and 14 rebounds. More impressively, he only had two fouls in this game. In fact, he played 46 minutes tonight and gave the All-Star Hornets’ big men, Emeka Okafor and David West, someone to constantly worry about on the floor on a night in which Spencer Hawes rested his banged up knee.

Brockman (who is averaging 12.5 rebounds per 36-minutes on the court) had arguably his best game as a pro with eight rebounds and five points with very solid defense in 17 minutes. He hit the offensive boards for four of his eight rebounds and provided strong resistance against West and Okafor whenever they tried to bully their way into the paint (Okafor more than West, since West isn’t exactly the toughest guy in the league). This now gives him 18 rebounds and 10 points in 36 minutes in two games against ‘NOLA this season.

On a night in which the Kings kept their turnovers below 15 (13 total, 28^th in the league at 16.5 per game), they also shared the ball extremely well. In fact, when the Kings have five or more players scoring in double figures this season, they’re 7-3. They’re 1-5 when they don’t get five players in double figures scoring with the one win coming against Houston on November 13^th.  A lot of that tonight should be attributed to the energy and attitude Rodriguez brought to the court.

“The most important thing, and what makes me so happy, is when I get to play. That is all that I ask. When I didn’t play a few games ago, it was tough. I knew that when I got in (Coach Westphal) would let me play and that is the whole thing. I am enjoying playing here and I am enjoying playing for him,” said Sergio after the game.

The Kings will face Indiana (6-8) on Wednesday to close out this four-game home stand. A win puts them back over .500 once again and gives them their second four-game winning streak of the season.

Be sure to subscribe to the Kingsflix YouTube feed.

Be sure to check out the view from the other side at Hornets247.

My favorite line from Super Troopers is “Desperation is a stinky cologne.”

And we saw Lawrence Frank’s desperation tonight when with 2:29 left in the fourth quarter and the Nets needing to surmount a seven-point lead to avoid starting the season 0-16, the Nets resorted to the “Hack-a-Two-Guard” as Spencer Hawes called it after the game.

The Nets treated Omri Casspi like his name was Shaq by grabbing him before the two-minute cut-off for away from the ball fouls leading to free points plus retaining possession. They grabbed him twice to send him to the line where he was shooting 46% (13/28) on the year after starting the season 2/12. He stepped to the line and made one of two before stepping to the line 20 seconds later and knocking them both down. It was a last-ditch effort by Frank and the Nets to avoid being one game from tying historic futility to start an NBA season.

Coach Westphal said after the game, “I don’t even worry about Omri at the free throw line. I think it was a hiccup to start the year. He just couldn’t get anything to fall. But Omri’s a good free throw shooter and a clutch player. I didn’t mind them fouling him at all.”

He added with a smile, “I’m glad they didn’t start fouling Kenny.”

Omri said it was the first time in his life that a team resorted to sending him to the line. But he was glad they fouled him.

The Nets were put in this situation by allowing the Kings to do whatever they pleased during much of the first half of this contest. The Kings led by as much as 22 in the first half thanks to great shooting (58.5%) on really good shot selection (32 of their 59 were points in the paint) and a dominant performance on the boards (27-11). It built up a big enough cushion to keep the Nets at bay and never getting closer than a two-possession game when they cut it to six with 8:10 left in the night.

A big reason for this was Spencer Hawes’ play. He had 16 points in the first half after a strong 10-point first quarter in which he attacked the glass and the basket. Hawes scored from all over the floor early with a three, another outside jumper and some baskets in the paint. He scored once early off the offensive glass and had a big dunk at the end of the first quarter to send another shot of adrenaline through his team and the arena.

He was also given the task of guarding behemoth and fashion connoisseur, Brook Lopez inside. And he did a pretty good job for someone with a reputation for not playing big inside (actually, I don’t know if that’s a reputation or not; it’s just what I’ve observed over the last couple seasons). He used his length to make Brook work for his points and even blocked a hook shot in the third quarter. But his biggest weapon against Lopez was his own offensive game. Spencer’s versatility kept Lopez all over the court and working on both ends. Not to mention, he ran the court extremely effectively.

Spencer made sure that Lopez wouldn’t be able to Shaq (I’m using it as a lazy verb) his way back up the court. He ran the floor with the intention of getting the ball and putting the pressure on the Nets transition defense and a couple of times he either got the bucket, the foul, or got the Nets defensive matchups out of their realm of being comfortable. And it was a conscious effort to attack Lopez on both ends of the floor.

“A guy like that, you can’t let him use all of his energy posting up. You’ve got to beat him up when he’s trying to get to his spot and then go back at him when he’s on defense.”

That’s exactly what the Kings did for most of this game; they went at the Nets when they were on defense. They finished the game with 25 points on the break. With their dominating performance on the boards early and not allowing the Nets to get second chance opportunities, the Kings grabbed the rebound, turned up the floor and let it fly. Tyreke Evans and Beno Udrih did a great job of forcing the issue in transition.

Beno came off the bench due to coming off the DNP-Virus plus Donté Greene’s strong play over the last few games. He used precise strikes off of the pick and roll to kill the Nets defense and moved the ball well when the shots were taken away from him. He finished with 21 points off the bench on 10 shots and five assists.

‘Reke had another superb game. He finished with 21 points and eight rebounds. He got past pretty much every defender the Nets threw at him and split the double team early before it could get established. In the second half, his effectiveness was taken away by quicker, sounder doubles but the damage had already been done.

The Kings ended this one with a whimper rather than a blowout. They should have won this game by 20 points. They were able to do whatever they wanted in the first half of the game and just had to keep working in the second half to weather the initial surge by the Nets. They ended up committing 19 team turnovers, which is becoming more of a staple of this team rather than just a bad night of decision-making.

But a win is still a win and more importantly, they weren’t the first victims to New Jersey ending this losing streak. They send them off to L.A. for that fate as they await the New Orleans Hornets Sunday night for a revenge opportunity. That’s when they’ll have a chance to get back to .500 and improve on their 7-8 record.

Sebastian Pruiti is one of the driving forces behind Nets Are Scorching, the Brooklyn New Jersey Nets blog for the TrueHoop Network. And he does a really good job of covering this Nets team.

Well, he posted a great preview/breakdown of the matchup tonight between the winless Nets (0-15) and the Kings. I definitely recommend checking it out. He’s picking them for a win because it’s their best chance at stealing a victory any time soon.

One thing I would quibble with him about: he previewed a push between Chris Douglas-Roberts and Tyreke Evans. I like CD-R a lot and think he’s a fantastic scorer. But there’s no way he’s matching Evans on both ends of the floor tonight. Should be a good one.

Tried a little something different here. Here’s a little highlight video I put together from Evans’ game against the Jazz on November 7th. As most of you remember, it was his first game without Kevin Martin and he scored 32 points and dished out 7 assists. Enjoy and leave your criticisms in the comments if you don’t mind.

Via NBA Off-Season:

(Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images)

We learned on the last road trip that this is still a very young team that will shoot itself in the collective foot over and over as they learn how to be a real NBA team. And that’s not meant as a dig at all. They’ll be competitive most games and they’ll most likely kill themselves most nights with turnovers.

But an encouraging sight for this team is a game like this – a home game to kick off a homestand in which they play four very beatable teams and need to set the tone for this stretch of games by blowing out a terrible team. And that’s what they did against the Knicks on Wednesday night; they set the tone for this road trip by taking a bad Knicks team and putting them away with plenty of time left in the game.

It was a little worrisome for a while. Not worrisome in the sense that the Knicks were going to challenge to win this game but it was worrisome in the sense that the Kings should have been up by 20+ at halftime and instead let Nate Robinson and David Lee keep the Knicks within 10 points. But then the third quarter hit and the Kings too care of business. The Kings used runs of 13-4 and 11-0 in the third, sparked by Donté Greene’s 13 third quarter points on perfect 5/5 shooting.

Speaking of Donté Greene, where in the hell did Dount Mutombo come from? He dominated the paint on defense and made Al Harrington look exactly what you would expect from Al Harrington. He didn’t just block shots; he took the listless efforts by the Knicks and made sure to hurt the ball as a consequence for them putting up such weak attempts. And on offense, he played incredibly smart basketball. It was a matured game in which he made the extra pass when he needed to and attacked when the time was right. He finished with 24 points on 18 shots with six threes, six blocks, and five assists. In fact, it was just the fourth time in 23 seasons in which a player had six blocks and six threes. It was SOOOOO Raef LaFrentz of him (Raef has done it two of those four times).

The Kings had great balance in their scoring. Seven guys in double figures and the point guard play was spectacular between Evans and Sergio. They combined for 34 points, 11 assists, and 15 rebounds. Tyreke missed out on setting the Kings rookie record with eight straight 20-point games with a 19-point performance but it’s probably safe to say he’ll have another shot at setting that record this season. His outside shooting was pretty rough but for the most part, he showed a pretty complete game everywhere else.

Jon Brockman came off the bench along with Omri Casspi and Sergio Rodriguez to give the Kings a very productive second unit. Brock had four offensive rebounds and nine rebounds total to set the tone in the paint (after Spencer Hawes’ early scoring inside slowed down) when it looked like the Knicks might be able to come back with some solid work on the boards. Omri scored 11 points off the bench, despite the fact that he missed a couple of wide-open threes. And Sergio had his third strong game in a row by pushing the tempo and making the Knicks attempt at defense even more uncomfortable than usual.

Next game is Friday against the 0-15 Nets. This is actually sort of a scary matchup because with a healthy Devin Harris and Brook Lopez, the Nets have a balanced inside-out attack. They can penetrate and get to the bucket or dump it into the huge Stanford product and let him go to work. The Kings will feel the pressure of not wanting to be the first victim of a Nets victory, especially on their home court. They’ll need to keep up the energy they showed in thumping the Knicks.

I’ve got your New York State of Mind right here!

Over at Thoughts From The Jockstrap, they’re having a fantasy three-0n-three tournament. The tourney pits together the team’s coach, best player, and 12th man. The Kings trio of Coach Westphal, Kevin Martin and Jon Brockman received a first round bye in this tournament. Now, they’re facing off against the Lakers tryst of Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant, and something called an “Adam Morrison.”

Head on over to the Jockstrap and vote as many times as your cookies will allow.

(Programming Note: I have no idea what happened to the Kings-Rockets recap. Usually, I write the articles in Word and then copy them over to the website but for some reason [laziness] I just wrote it in the website. Well, that was a mistake because I posted it, went to bed, and woke up to it being gone. But now we’re back on track.)

“We’re going streaking!”

After winning four straight games without their top scorer (and the top scorer in the league), the Sacramento Kings have now lost four straight to drop three games below .500 as they return home from a winless road trip. While this is probably disappointing and frustrating to Kings fans, it should have probably been somewhat expected.

The Kings are the third youngest team in the league. When you have a young team like this, you hope for them to defend their home court with vigor and pray they show up and compete on the road. And for the most part, they did that on this little three-game roadie. They played sloppily against the Mavericks and Rockets but “played the full 48 minutes” (as you probably heard Peaches incessantly repeat away from Arco this week) in each contest. And against Memphis, the Kings looked lethargic and exhausted from being out on the road so long. However, they did compete for the most part when they weren’t making terrible decisions with the basketball.

So how did the Kings lose this game against a team you’d like to see them steal a victory from on the road?

Well first and foremost, let me talk about the officiating for a minute. I HATE complaining about officials. I really do. I find it to be such a copout when teams and their fans blame a loss on the officials. Sure, there is always going to be human error in NBA officiating until the world is over run by robots in 2014. And I’m fine with that because I think for the most part, the referees (outside of Violet Palmer) do a good job of calling a game that you and I would be atrocious at officiating.

However, what we saw in this game in Memphis was really bad. Leon Wood, Scott Foster, and Sean Wright were your officials and they did a horrible job at calling this game. They were more sensitive than a 12-year old girl who is trying to explain to her parents why it’s unfair she doesn’t get to go see the midnight showing of the new Twilight movie. I’d like to say the officiating was bad on both sides, because for a while it was, but the Kings really got screwed overall.

After Jason Thompson picked up his second foul (an awful call by the way) with 2:29 left in the first quarter, he pleaded with the officials to let him play. And that embodied the frustration from the Kings side of this game – the refs didn’t let them play. They had quick whistles with any contact inside. They called a couple of phantom travel calls against Sacramento. They gave Omri Casspi his second technical foul of the game because Jamaal Tinsley (I know; I had no clue he was still alive either) grabbed his arm, wouldn’t let go, and Casspi tried to shake free. Overall, the Grizzlies went to the free throw line 42 times to the Kings’ 23. There was just flat out HORRIBLE officiating in this game and the NBA needs to discipline these refs for it.

Outside of the refs, the Kings were really sloppy once again. They compiled at least 20 turnovers for the fifth time this season (they’ve also had 19 turnovers in a game too). Now, in this game they were able to limit Memphis from scoring effectively off those turnovers (just 15 points given up off of turnovers) but for the 11^th most efficient offense in the NBA, giving away scoring opportunities like that, especially on the road, is going to be the reason you lose games. Eight of their 21 turnovers came from poor passes. Two of them were thanks to three-seconds in the key violations by Spencer Hawes. And they also just simply lost the ball on several occasions. Maybe this Kings team can play sloppily at home against the dredges of the NBA and expect to win but you can’t do that on the road – even against Memphis.

Tyreke Evans once again scored 20 or more points and finished with 28 for the game on 10/18 shooting with making all seven of his free throw attempts. It was his franchise record and L-Train-tying seventh straight with 20 points or more as a rookie. I’m starting to wonder if it’s beneficial to the Kings to have Tyreke play in the post. It seems like they rarely get him the ball early in the clock with the proper spacing to make something positive out of those possessions. He’s much better with a pick-and-roll or isolation at the top of the key because he can drive either way and get to the basket.

And get to the basket he did in this game. There were 14 possessions in this game in which he either got a shot attempt at the basket or was fouled around the hoop. He rarely settled for his jump shot and if it weren’t for a terrible traveling call on one of his successful drives, he would have finished with 30 points.

For the rest of the team, Omri Casspi had a nice game until he was ejected for having appendages. He scored 15 points on 11 shots off the bench and even knocked down another three (shooting 42.9% on the season) and both of his free throws. After starting the season just 2/12 at the line, he’s now made nine of his last 12 attempts at free points and is shooting 45.8% from the free throw line this season. I think we’re starting to see the real Omri stroke (75%-ish) as opposed to his Brockman-like performances earlier this season.

Other than the 14 minutes of inspired play by Jon Brockman off the bench, the Kings had next to zero defensive and offensive presence inside. Spencer Hawes was once again a complete non-factor. Actually, you can’t even call him a non-factor out there because his level of play and effectiveness are a huge factor against the Kings most nights. His inability to defend the hoop, rebound, or score have really hindered the Kings from putting out a complete effort. Other than his passing, you can’t point to a single part of his game and be proud of the effort being put forth.

Also, with Jason Thompson, this is now four straight games in which he hasn’t been able to stay out of foul trouble. He’s had five fouls against him in four straight games. There’s no coincidence that the Kings are losing when he’s struggling. His numbers looked great in the Dallas game but his defense was poor and he gave up a lot of rebounds to the Mavericks big men. In the four-game losing streak, he’s averaging just 12.2 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 3.5 turnovers. In two games against Memphis this year, he’s given the Kings just 15 points, 15 boards, two assists, 11 fouls, four free throw attempts (three made), and shot 6/18 from the floor. It’s safe to say he doesn’t want to see Zach Randolph any time soon.

I want to end this with the fantastic play by Sergio Rodriguez. The Kings have really needed him to step up and be the backup point guard he was brought here to be (especially with the Kevin Martin injury). Sergio has been very inconsistent this year (as have his minutes) but over the last two games, he’s certainly making the most of his time on the court. He had a modest six points, four assists in 11 minutes against Houston the other night and followed it up with 16 points and seven assists in 18 minutes against the Grizzlies. He’s been aggressive in both games and getting deep into the defense with his quickness. This is something the Kings desperately need with the second unit in order to let their bench keep them in games.

Now, the Kings look to start a new streak with a very winnable four-game home stand. Over the next eight days, they play the Knicks (3-10), Nets (0-13), Hornets (6-9) and Pacers (5-6). Three wins here shouldn’t just be the plan. It should be the worst-case scenario for the Kings.

(Preliminary Note: This recap was delayed because I coach JV basketball for a local high school and we had a late practice during the game Friday night before we turned around and had our first scrimmage Saturday morning. Because of this, I didn’t get to watch the Kings game until Saturday afternoon. But we won four of the six quarters we scrimmaged this morning and looked pretty decent!)

It’s pretty simple – when you turn the ball over at a high rate, you’re going to make it extremely hard for your team to win basketball games.

For the Kings, they played a very solid all around game in a tough, hostile environment. They took the Mavericks on, played tough defense all over the floor and weathered the Dallas runs that would normally put most teams away by 20. So far this season, the math has been pretty simple. When the Kings win, they shoot 48% from the field rather than the 43% in their losses. They make 44% of their threes in wins as opposed to 28% in losses. And they score a lot more points in their wins (112.2) than when they lose (94.8).

For the most part against the Mavericks, they took care of business in those departments and at worst, met somewhere in the middle. They shot 51% from the field with 37.5% from three and matching the Mavericks on the boards (44-44) after getting killed on the glass in the first quarter (at least, offensively). They also finished the game with a flurry of points by scoring 12 in the final 56 seconds to finish with 102 points. But they kept shooting themselves in the collective feet by turning the ball over (most of the time by their own accord instead of being forced into it).

The Kings turned the ball over 21 times for 24 points given up off of those turnovers. Tyreke Evans and Jason Thompson committed nine of those turnovers and every single one of them were because of their own doing, rather than good defense by the Mavericks (unless you want to argue that their defense forced the Kings to panic and turn the ball over, which I would disagree with). They threw balls away on passes instead of taking the time to be accurate with the play. Tyreke Evans traveled on two straight moves to the basket. Players simply lost the ball while trying to attack the basket. The Kings were great at being aggressive in this game but terrible at executing it.

So far in this season, the Kings have been able to play well despite a high number of turnovers. In their five wins, they’re actually averaging more turnovers per game and points off of turnovers per game with 16.2 and 20.6, respectively. In their now six losses, they turn the ball over less with 15.6 per game and give up fewer points off of those turnovers with 18.8. But there’s only so long you can actually dodge that turnover bullet, especially if you’re a young team. The Mavericks made them pay enough to build a big enough cushion to keep the Kings late flurry from sending this game into overtime.

The Kings didn’t get much point production from their bench with just 14 of their 102 points coming from the pine but they did get solid contributions from Udoka, Kenny Thomas, and Omri Casspi. Casspi was the best player off the bench with nine points, four rebounds, two steals and two assists. He played the final seven minutes of the game and helped the Kings close out on a 14-6 run that turned what looked to be a double-digit loss into a two-point defeat.

The story of this game for the Kings was definitely the defensive effort on contending shots, Beno Udrih’s scoring and Tyreke Evans’ incredible play.

The Kings did a great job of closing out the majority of the shots. The only Maverick to make them pay when they didn’t close out on the shots was Jason Kidd. Kidd made four open threes against the sagging defense of Tyreke Evans and Beno Udrih, who both dared the future HOFer to hurt them by playing to his reputation as a poor shooter. Unfortunately, they failed to see that he’s been pretty good on open long-range shots since he joined the Mavericks for the second time in his career.

Beno Udrih was lying in the weeds for much of this game but not forcing a lot of shots, playing decent defense and moving the ball well. In the fourth, he took the scoring into his own hands by making Dallas pay for not staying with him on pick-and-roll plays. He ended up scoring 12 points on 5/6 shooting in the fourth, including seven points in the final minute of the game.

And Tyreke Evans once again had a very impressive game with any point guard doubts put on hold. Maybe he was inspired by the man who is less than 20 assists away from passing Mark Jackson for second on the all-time assists leader board but whatever it was, ‘Reke did a nice job of finding his open teammates and creating good scoring opportunities for them throughout the game. He finished with 10 assists (a career-high) and scored 29 points giving him six straight games with 20 or more points (one away from Lionel Simmons’ franchise record of seven straight games with 20 as a rookie). He showed the age and slow feet of Jason Kidd by continually blowing by him with the dribble. He scored off the bounce quite early, which opened up his jump shot even more. His jumper was slow to come around but he finished making four of his last five jump shots with two of them being threes.

Overall, the Kings made a valiant effort and got some good on-the-job training in a loss. They didn’t get a moral victory (because I still don’t believe in those on the professional level) but what they did do was learn how to keep pressing with the game supposedly in hand. They kept coming until the final buzzer on a road game against a team that is virtually a lock to win 50 games for the ninth straight season. This was one of those efforts that will prove to be invaluable towards the end of the season.