Have you ever watched a movie that simply didn’t do anything for you? I’m not talking about a movie that you hated or a movie that was really bad. I just mean a movie that was very boring from start to finish and left your life, psyche, and sense of entertainment completely unaffected?

I felt that way when I watched the movie Vantage Point. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t suspenseful. It was merely Dennis Quaid running around a city in Spain trying to figure out who shot the president, who set off an explosion and why Matthew Fox was such a douche bag. I didn’t really leave the theater disappointed either. It was simply two hours of my life I would never get back but I don’t know that I really would have replaced them with anything substantial.

That’s kind of how this game between the Sixers and Kings.

I don’t know if it’s a sign of the dog days of the NBA season coming in January but this game was just hard to watch, wasn’t it?

It’s hard to even come up with something to say about it. It was a very bland, uninteresting game. There wasn’t a big run that the 76ers really went on. The Kings went on a huge run early and looked like they were going to blow a bad Philly team out of the water. But then the offensive onslaught stopped. Well, it didn’t exactly stop. The Kings shot fairly well throughout the entire game. The problem was the 76ers started making their shots.

In fact if you throw out the 76ers first quarter dry spell of 7/22 shooting, they shot 60% over the course of the rest of the game. A good percentage of those were quality shots. They made nine of their 16 three-point attempts with the main culprit being Rodney Carney – yes, THAT Rodney Carney. The Kings kept leaving him open on the perimeter – most likely because the scouting report probably says, “IT’S F^$%ING RODNEY CARNEY” – and he made them pay. He made four of his five attempts from deep. Even Allen Iverson and Lou Williams each hit a couple of threes (combined 4/6). It was just one of those nights.

The Kings didn’t play bad defense but they didn’t play inspired defense, either. Well, maybe that IS bad defense. In the first quarter there was a spark with this team when Donté Greene and Beno Udrih weren’t turning the ball over. They took the ball from Philly and made the most of those opportunities with 10 points off of five turnovers. But after that, it looked like a bad high school team going through the defensive motions in practice.

Once the Sixers evened up the game going into halftime and came out in the third quarter by not letting the Kings go on a huge run to turn the tide of the game, the writing was pretty much on the wall. It was a lot like the final half of the Kings home loss to the Bulls. It wasn’t a blowout and the Kings were always within striking distance but you never had a confident feeling they would come back and take control of this game.

And that’s all you can really say about this game. Chalk it up to tired legs and seemingly disinterested participants.

Game Notes

- Remember when the Kings were allegedly entertaining the idea of acquiring Samuel Dalembert? After watching this game, aren’t you glad nothing came of that? He’s terrible. He’s a defensive specialist who can’t play solid defense. He has hands that Johan Petro would laugh at. And you’d rather try to kick in shots from halfcourt than give him the ball in a scoring opportunity.

- Where do Omri Casspi and Donté Greene disappear to when they have it going? It seems like when Donté and Omri start out on fire, there’s very little chance of seeing them in the second quarter. Tonight, the honor went to Omri. He had a very good scoring night with 21 points on 14 shots. Sure he missed those two close shots but he scored very efficiently for a team that struggled to get good shots.

- When your team is clearly lacking energy, why don’t we see more of Jon Brockman? He played eight minutes tonight and it didn’t seem like he was given a chance to inject life into this team.

- Allen Iverson isn’t the old 40-point threat we’re used to seeing but he scored VERY easily against the Kings tonight. He still has enough left in his tank to positively affect games.

- When you have Thaddeus Young guarding Jason Thompson inside, why don’t you feed him like the gluttony victim in Seven? He should have been allowed to punish him all night. The fact he only had 14 shot attempts is wrong. Poor recognition of a mismatch there.

- That’s all. Don’t re-watch this game if you want to.  And don’t watch Vantage Point. It’s just a waste of a couple hours.

We have a guest poster today who wanted to share his thoughts on Tyreke Evans. This post is by Graham Brunell from Celtics 17. He wanted to give an outsider’s perspective on what Tyreke Evans means to the Kings. Enjoy:

Some people consider rookies roller-coaster rides. Whether their initial impression of them brings outstanding results or not, there’s always that dark ray of doubt. Sort of like a kid trying his first sandwich with tomatoes. It’s a love-hate relationship that can blossom into an impassioned exaltation (shared by only the fan of course) or plummet into a life-long disgust with (again, shared only by the fan).

But man, this kid Tyreke Evans? The dude’s got me hooked on his game. I have no question in his ability to win for his team on the court, and despite seeing the danger of his style, can’t resist pursuing the same feeling that I get watching him time after time. The best part is, he delivers, time after time. ‘Reke’s incredibly talented skills have been on display for the eye to see since day one. The only disappointment has been the general feeling that he’s just been noticed recently. In 28 games this season, Evans has only produced single-figure points just twice. Even prior to the still rather fresh Washington game that put him on the league-wide map (when he pulled a hit-and-run on Gilbert Arenas to get the game-winning theft), Evans contributed two 30-point games and 11 20-point games. He also had 11 two+-steal games going into that Wizards game.

Evans has an dream PG body-build for most coaches. Evans falls under the “charging matador” section, a perfect fit for the Kings. His graceful yet wild footwork, controlled but explosively vigorous upper body, seeking hands and arms, and ferocious mindset is a force on the court. His advanced basketball IQ and patience exhibited on the hardwood is truly amazing to watch.

That may be why Tyreke Evans is being included in both MVP and ROY discussions, being a strong candidate for both awards. The fiery youth is posting numbers such as 20.3 ppg, 4.9 apg, and 5.1 rpg. His maturity and brilliance in understanding the game is intriguing to what could be some of the deciding votes in the race to both capped-season crowns. Evans’ natural leadership has roared his Kings on a tear… Well, for Sacramento at least. The atrocity of a team this organization has put out in the past few years was putrid — but this squad, under the helm of Evans, could really mold a future core here. With young teammates around him and a window of opportunity for the future — not now — has really helped Evans in my opinion. He’s not rushed because there wasn’t much of a goal for this team to begin with, and he doesn’t have the pressure a rookie with criticizing and frustrated vets above him has. His game can progress at its own pace, and without much worthless negativity revolving around his game, the development will come on its own.

Going back to the Kings and the possibility of Evans winning the MVP, keep in mind that MVP has a distorted meaning to those who don’t follow the game — or any type of team athletics — closely. Most believe MVP to mean the most gifted player in the league, when a more accurate interpretation would be the player who has the most value to his team. The player who wins is one who is more precious to his team than anyone else in the league is to theirs.

Quite a feat for a rookie to even get mentioned as a nominee. But, it is very understandable.

Evans can literally do anything and everything on the basketball court at least with decency. More likely than not, he’s close to excelling at it. What’s his most preferable move? Obviously, going to the basket. 82games shows us that 51% of his shots are from close range. More impressively, Evans’ rampages to the bucket are only assisted 28% of the time. Even the wisest slashers of the league such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James have higher percentages of an assisted drive than Evans. What caught me by surprise is that Evans slices to the lane at an extremely excessive rate — and what I mean by “extremely excessive” is “you blow by Kobe Bryant and LeBron James in that statistic.” He favors the bucket with morbid.

Evans also has a pretty good jumpshot, and he utilizes it too. ‘Reke rises up for a J 47% of the time, and once again, he does it by himself. Only 13% of his jumpers are served with a dime. That’s outrageous. Absurd. And it also means that Tyreke Evans is astonishingly ingenious at creating for himself. He draws in shot opportunities with much more ease than a typical rook does.

But what’s the downfall of him reeling in all these unassisted scoring sprees? Even successful stars like James and Bryant don’t go a game with that poor (or ignored) help. The answer is, balance. James and Bryant rarely suffer major injuries because, like Evans, they have extraordinary body builds. But even at 6’6″, 220 pounds, Evans will never sustain his physique without suffering substantial wear and exhaustion. There’s a reason that Bryant and James — especially James, in this case, because of his own preference to driving — still are noticeably present in this league. Those two take even the least versatile of teammates and turn them into productive machines. If Evans doesn’t figure that out in the next few years, there’s a strong chance of consequences.

Another hypothetical guess of how this could hurt Evans? For one, teammates don’t like an “I’ll do everything” player on their team all the time, and ultimate success isn’t friendly with that type of game too. A living example of this has been Allen Iverson, who has yet to win a championship because of that very same demeanor. While Evans is FAR more connecting and communicative with his teammates than Iverson ever was or is now, Iverson proved it to us that players like that don’t have a wide variety of teams that will fit them. Iverson had a strict team format, and if everything wasn’t up to standard, the squad was done. It’s just not possible to not involve your guys in getting the job done and expect to win.

Passing and rebounding are also in Evans’ arsenal. ‘Reke has had double-digit games in both stats, including 12 games where Evans had 7+ of one or both statistics. While that is quite a rare find in guards, and can be very useful and handy to have on your side, there’s also individual pitfalls there as well. We’ve seen LeBron James and Jason Kidd do it. Rajon Rondo is doing it now. But the fact is, they’re more apt to put themselves at this type of risk because their bodies are more compensating for their size. Evans is a bull, as I said, and still has a fascinating muscular build, don’t get me wrong — but LeBron is 30 pounds heavier and only two inches taller, and Kidd is two inches shorter and just 10 pounds lighter. Rondo has long arms and can just reach in and grab the ball a lot of the times instead of having to get bruised around. And the fact is, we STILL worry about James’ and Rondo’s future health. Just for emphasis — this is LBJ, whose physicality seems rock solid even despite all the beating he’s taken since getting drafted. As for Kidd, he’s already begun a rather steep decline (89% of the shots Kidd takes are jumpers, which is an indication that his body is too banged up to get in the paint much anymore aside from a few good rebounds).

Sticking to the present though, this part of Evans’ game really bolsters his MVP/ROY candidacy (right now at least). Because of his broad repertoire, comparisons of Magic Johnson and LeBron James have already risen from the surface so far this season. Voters aren’t going to omit such connections in a tight race like this — if Blake Griffin can get off hot when he returns from his injury (I still don’t think he’ll win, just because he’s missed so much time, but there’s not doubt he’ll contest for the trophy), it’s going to be a dead-lock race between Griffin, ‘Reke, and Brandon Jennings. And that’s exactly what I think will put ‘Reke on top. His proficiency for all aspects of the game is certainly one thing that will be crucial — but it’s his immediate adaptations from the college game to the NBA, and his instant impact on his team that brought him to this level. What that allowed him to do was flourish to the ceiling of the game he has today, which will undoubtedly improve.

Not only does two players whose games are commonly held in high respect (we know how I feel about the fan relationship with LBJ himself) help Evans, but two players from different eras. It will draw the attraction of today’s audience as well as the audience from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. This will bring huge support for Evans.

At the end of the day, Tyreke Evans is legitimately one of the most valuable to his team, no question. And under the guidance of COY candidate (this Sacramento team is becoming the OKC Thunder 2.0) Paul Westphal, his basketball game and ability to make decisions will further prosper as well. Right now though, Tyreke Evans does have some thunder to his game.

Will lightning come after the roll?

The following video probably won’t translate to those of you who weren’t at the game. But trust me that this dunk was far more impressive in person than the TV box leads you to believe.

Brilliant part of this play: notice how Beno completely took away Lawson’s ability to stop the ball by being physical with him and bringing him along for the ride? That’s how you veteranize the younger players in this league.

The Kings gave the ball to Tyreke Evans and told him to win games against two of the best teams in the NBA over the past week. It didn’t happen. He failed to get shots off in both contests when his team needed a dagger and the Kings ended up giving in during overtime periods.

Against the Nuggets, they didn’t have that option. The Kings were missing Tyreke because of a sprained ankle. The criticism against Coach Westphal and the rest of the Kings during the Cavs and Lakers losses was that there wasn’t enough team ball being played. Monday night against Denver, the only option the Kings had was team ball.

And it worked.

The Kings played a pretty poor game Monday night. They turned the ball over like crazy in the first half, gave a poor effort inside and failed to take advantage of a 7/23 second quarter by the Nuggets. They gave up 54 points in the paint during the game, 20 offensive rebounds and 29 second chance points. And yet, they still won the game. How?

Well, everybody did enough to squeak out a win at home against one of the best teams in the Western Conference. Donté Greene kept the Kings close in the first quarter with his hot shooting and he made Carmelo work for every single one of his 34 points (on 35 shots). Beno Udrih took away Ty Lawson’s greatest asset – his quickness. And even though his shot wouldn’t fall (2/11), Sergio Rodriguez was enough of a pest and distributor on offense to keep the Kings in control of the pace of this game.

But wait, there’s more.

Andres Nocioni finally broke out of his shooting slump. Over his previous 11 games, he was shooting 32 for 89, which is good/bad for 35.9%. But against the Nuggets, he couldn’t find the rim. He made four of his five threes. He made six of his seven shots total and accounted for 21 of the Kings 106 points while playing 25 minutes off the bench. He bailed out the Kings in bad stretches. He kept good stretches going on offense when the Kings needed to keep the momentum in their favor. He was just a perfect bailout scorer for a Kings team that struggled to get continuity out there.

Westphal after the game said, “I told him after the game, ‘Noc, you know how to get out of a shooting slump don’t you?’ and he said, ‘yeah, keep shooting.’”

And then there is Jon Brockman. What can you say about him? He’s probably the most fun King to watch out there when Tyreke isn’t on the floor. There’s a certain buzz in the arena when he’s checking into the game. People know they’re going to see effort out there from him. They know he’s going to annoy the other post players. They know he’s going to play solid defense against guys that should obliterate him. They know he’s going to be a factor on the boards. And he delivered with all of those assumptions about him.

When Brockman came in, he changed the game. His final line reads six points, ten rebounds and two blocks in 16 minutes on the floor but it goes well beyond the box score. Brockman didn’t just block two shots. He swatted two shots and made sure the hoop was protected. His athleticism is deceiving. If he were five inches taller, he probably would have been a Top 15 pick. He’s that good defensively and as a rebounder. When he hits the boards, he soars for the ball. He snatches it out of the air like a thief grabbing a purse on the run. And he gets more tips than a hot bartender near any college campus.

He wasn’t the sole reason the Kings won this game. It was a total team effort without roughly 50 points sitting out with injuries. It was the effort the Kings needed against big teams. Before Evans was being left out on an island. But against the Nuggets, the Kings role players had no choice but to step up. The result was a big win against a tough opponent.

One Final Game Note

I want to get back to Donté Greene’s defense against Carmelo. If you look how ‘Melo scored his points, he was pretty much unstoppable when he got to the basket. He made nine of his 17 attempts around the rim. He also threw up a shot clock beating prayer from about 35 feet that dropped through to everyone’s amazement. So that’s 21 of his 34 points right there.

But for the rest of his scoring, the Kings did a good job of keeping him out of the paint. Some of that was help defense already being set up to deter Melo from forcing the issue. The rest of that was Donté staying in front of Carmelo and getting him to settle for outside jumpers. He was 5/16 on jumpers outside of the key. He only attempted seven free throws because Donté played him about as intelligently as you can. Let him think an outside jumper is a good shot, get a hand in his face, and pray for the best. It was a strategy that didn’t work against LeBron and Kobe because they were just hot. But against Carmelo, he took advantage of a slumping scorer trying to bust out of his malaise without working hard for his scoring opportunities.

Just a great effort from Donté.

Saw this at the game the other night. Just speechless…

When the TrueHoop Network started, I was introduced to the writings of John Krolik.

If you don’t know who John Krolik is, he’s the guy that run Cavs: The Blog for the THN. He’s also probably the most impressive young writer I read on a daily basis. Aside from my NBA obsession, I really don’t care about the Cleveland Cavaliers. I love watching LeBron (well, it’s kind of a love/hate thing with me and LBJ) but outside of Delonte West the rest of the team is extremely uninteresting to me. But I read every single word John Krolik writes about the team every day because he’s just an exceptional writer (much like with Rob Mahoney and the Mavs blog, Two-Man Game). I recommend throwing him into your RSS feed reading device if you can.

Anyway, I was reading him this morning because I wanted to get his thoughts on the game and he wrote a lot of good analysis on the Kings. Here’s a snippet:

Tyreke Is Young: Right when LeBron took the Tyreke matchup, you could see LBJ was in Tyreke’s head a little bit. The first time Tyreke saw LeBron guarding him, he launched into some elaborate shake-and-bake moves on the perimeter to try and show LeBron that he belonged on his level, but ended up getting forced into a fallaway 20-footer for his efforts. Later, when Tyreke actually did ditch LeBron with a beautiful (and much simpler) pivot move in the lane, he rushed the shot so much that he ended up missing the resulting open four-footer pretty badly.

And finally, when LeBron missed a jumper with fourteen seconds left and Tyreke got the rebound, Evans dribbled into a trap and forced up a hopeless shot instead of calling a timeout when he recognized he had nowhere to go. And while Tyreke’s teammates could’ve tried to help him a little more, Tyreke seemed to have few misgivings about challenging LeBron over and over again down the stretch, even as the results got increasingly worse. Overall, the effect this game will have on Evans’ maturity level will probably pay huge long-term dividends for the Kings, but it’s a lesson that cost the Kings on Wednesday night.

First of all, John is pretty much spot-on here. Tyreke Evans became a one-on-five show throughout most of the fourth quarter to the point that people in the stands seemed dumbfounded by what was going on. The Kings after this game were playing up the “we’re one of the youngest teams” angle for their loss. I think that’s fine if you want to lump all of the criticism onto birthdays but I’m not completely buying it.

You can blame things like the last possession on youth. Spencer Hawes instinctively came up to set the screen against LeBron because that’s what you should do at the end of games when you need a score. Young guys have fallen into the LeBron-Pierce-Kobe habit of dribbling out the clock and then taking a terrible step-back jumper from 22 feet away. Tyreke Evans isn’t making that type of shot against LeBron James. He just isn’t. You give him that shot 100 times against LeBron and he might connect five times.

And since the Cavs are one of the worst pick-and-roll defensive teams in the NBA and you’ve opted to keep that final timeout in your pocket so the Cavs can’t get Zyndrunas Ilgauskas out of there defensively, why not run a pick-and-roll? Sure, you’re probably giving the ball to Spencer Hawes for the last shot but with as slow and off as the Cavs players are with pick-and-roll defensive rotations, you could easily end up with a kick-out pass from Hawes to Omri or Beno or anybody. Whatever that shot was, it had to be a better shot than what Tyreke Evans didn’t even get off.

So you can blame the final possession on youth with them panicking a little bit (everyone except Spencer here because he was trying to do the right thing) but what about the rest of the fourth quarter? Youth isn’t letting Tyreke Evans get into a pissing match with LeBron James. I understand the notion to want to give Evans the ball and have him go beat the best player in the NBA. After the week Tyreke had with the steal against Gilbert, the domination against the Bucks and the fourth quarter comeback against the Bulls, you’re inclined to ride that wave until he crashes into the beach. But at some point, it was obvious the Kings were asking too much of Evans and it wasn’t going to work.

Yes, it was still a close game and you still had ample opportunities to win the game even with Evans wasting possession after possession. But imagine if you ran pick-and-roll plays with Beno a few times instead or let Thompson and Hawes take advantage of the terrible inside defense the Cavs were playing. You probably score a few times in those final possessions and put the Cavs on their heels offensively. And maybe you end up with a .500 record after 28 games and a huge home victory.

That didn’t happen but not because of youth. At a certain point, they got caught up in trying to make Evans a star. If he beats LeBron one-on-one a couple of times, you might lead off SportsCenter and get every national blog linking to you for the fourth time in a week. You might convince people to keep coming to the games (great crowd at the game last night by the way). Take a lesson from what LeBron James did: find your teammates and make the smart play when the offense isn’t going your way.

John Krolik was dead-on. This was a lesson that cost the Kings a victory Wednesday night.

With a tough home stretch of the Cavs, Lakers and Nuggets in a one-week span, the Kings and their fans should be hoping for one win and anything on top of that is just the proverbial icing on this holiday cake. When you have played the Cavs to a standstill and have possession with 13 seconds left, you have to like your chances – especially with Tyreke Evans holding the ball.

But let’s do a little rewind.

The Kings went up three on a Tyreke Evans layup with 2:08 left in the third quarter. At that point, Evans was 10/16 from the field for 24 points. He along with Omri Casspi, Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson were matching Cleveland blow for blow with LeBron James having a huge night and Mo Williams heating up. But when LeBron checked into the game with 7:43 left in regulation, Tyreke was now going to be tested. Mike Brown gave LeBron James the assignment of finishing the game trying to stop Tyreke Evans on one end and leading his team to victory on the other. And that’s where the night started to break badly for the Kings.

Whether it was a conscious decision or happenchance, Tyreke Evans started becoming exclusively isolated with LeBron on one side of the court while his teammates waiting with open hands on the other end of the court. And Tyreke Evans was shut down. Cavs fans will try to convince you it was LeBron being a lockdown defender when he wants to be. I think that’s only half the story.

There were plenty of times LeBron smothered Evans and forced bad shots. Even when Evans shook LeBron James and took a step-back or fade-away jumper James was able to recover quickly and challenge the shot. But I think the main culprit for the Evans offensive debacle that was the final 14 minutes (he finished the game with four points on 1/9 shooting) was the Cleveland help defense that collapsed on Evans in the lane. He was able to blow by James in the isolation on a few plays but the Cavs help defenders shot down into the lane and bothered whatever forced shot Tyreke put up. And I think on the second most important play of the game, it was in his head.

Late in the fourth quarter, Evans once again drove past LeBron. In a veteran and Hakeem Olajuwon-esque moment of clarity and genius he did a nice upfake on LeBron to send the reigning MVP flying by him. He pivoted back to free himself up for the shot from about two-feet and completely choked on it. It was never even close to coming out of his hands properly. I think he was expecting a defender to be there.

Now with the regulation seconds ticking away and the Kings opting to move the ball up court without calling a timeout (it was the right move by Westphal; you don’t give Cleveland a chance to set their defense), Evans wanted to isolate one more time. There was confusion in the spacing with Spencer Hawes wavering on whether to set a pick or not. It brought the extra defender over and allowed LeBron to jump all over Evans. He swallowed him up defensively and never allowed a shot to get fired.

In the overtime, the Kings ran out of everything. They couldn’t get a shot to fall. They couldn’t get a single point on the scoreboard. They were shut out in the final five minutes of the game with some more solid Cleveland defense. To rub salt into the wounds, Zyndrunas Ilgauskas buried three three-pointers to turn a four-point game into a 13-point, overtime drubbing.

The biggest sequence of that overtime was definitely when Cleveland had the ball and a two-point lead. LeBron drove the lane, missed the layup and grabbed his own rebound. Then Spencer Hawes blocked James putback attempt from behind before LeBron grabbed it one more time and scored the two-point basket. Kings could have used that defensive stand for some much-needed momentum. Instead, it led to a forced Casspi drive that missed wildly and then the first of Ilgauskas’ threes.

This was a game you’d love for the Kings to have won. 1) Because if you’re reading this then you’re probably a diehard Kings fan. 2) With the Lakers coming to town the day after Christmas on the backend of a back-to-back (with Cleveland being the Christmas Day matchup), that could have easily turned the momentum towards taking advantage of a possible trap game for the Lakers. And 3) they played very well for most of this game. They went toe-to-toe against one of the best teams in the NBA and had a chance to win on the final possession of the fourth quarter. That’s a tough one to slip away.

Game Notes

- LeBron James is good.

- I mean… LeBron James is really good. He probably handled the ball for the majority of his time on the court and he only turned the ball over twice. He controlled the game with his rebounding and passing – and in the end with his defense. His 34 points were impressive but the majority of them were on possessions the Kings will absolutely live with. He made an amazing amount of his jumpers. He only shot seven free throws. With LeBron James as your opponent, that’s the defensive result you want – jumpers. He just flat out made them (made nine of his first 14 jumpers, finished 9/19 on jumpers).

- When Mo Williams gets hot, this team is tough to stop on offense. He helps LeBron spread the floor, which opens up shooters on the perimeter and offensive rebounding inside.

- The Cavs have HUGE issues inside defensively. JT and Hawes abused Shaq on offense early on and they flat out can’t defend the pick-and-roll with Z or Shaq on the court.

- Omri Casspi guarded LeBron for the majority of the crunch time minutes and did a very good job. He forced him into a lot of jumpers and passes. You can’t ask more than that from a rookie.

- 52 points in the paint by the Kings. Again, the Cavs have interior defensive issues.

- Cheer yourselves up, Kings fans. This was a fun play for Tyreke to make:

In case you haven’t heard, LeBron James and the rest of the Cavs are in town to play the Kings.

LeBron James is probably the best player in basketball. He’s scary athletic. He’s freakishly good. He’s [insert superlative describing] [another superlative].

Here’s a preview of coming attractions:

The Kings were listless and didn’t really compete against the Bulls on Monday night. The Bulls created turnovers and took advantage of a poor defensive effort. They shot the lights out, attacked the basket and outworked this Kings team on the boards.

This was going to be the general theme of the game recap when the Bulls went on an 11-0 run with just under 21 minutes left in the entire game. It left the Kings down 79-44 and I started to think a few things. Why am I watching the Kings get their teeth kicked in right now? Why can’t the Kings figure out this road thing? I wonder if Point Break is on right now? It’s a shame Tyreke Evans is playing so terribly; this was a bad road trip for him outside of the game against Milwaukee. Should I even finish watching this game?

The last question to myself was odd. I pretty much never watch blowouts like this. I never finish them and even though I’m covering the Kings now, I still was so close to turning the game off and just using the first 27 minutes and the final box score to write my recap. I didn’t want to watch another bad effort for 48 minutes like had just happened against the Wolves in Minnesota.

But then Tyreke Evans scored on a layup to cut it to 33. And Sergio Rodriguez scored in transition to cut it to 31. Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson became extremely active on the defensive end of the floor and the tempo was pushed a little more with a lineup of Hawes-Thompson-Greene-Evans-Sergio. The Kings cut it to under 30 with back-to-back JT jumpers and the Bulls seemed like they were the ones coasting. You can’t really blame them either. They were up 30+ in the second half. But they made a huge mistake – in allowing a young team to get a little confidence and momentum their way.

When Jon Brockman checked in with 2:11 left in this game, the Kings were still down 26 points. However, he was playing with the energy of a backup forward on a team down just one or two possessions and hungry to help his team gain control. The Kings ended the third quarter on a 9-2 run to cut it to 19.

In the fourth quarter there were a few factors as to why the Kings came back and had such success in turning around one of the more embarrassing losses in Kings history into the greatest comeback this franchise and the league has ever seen:

1) Jon Brockman was willing to outwork the other team’s big men without worrying about the score of the game. He was tireless on the boards and annoying to Noah, Gibson and Brad Miller. He didn’t score a single point in this game but he played the entire fourth quarter and grabbed four rebounds in the final 12 minutes of this game.

2) The wing defense by the Kings was incredible. You can chalk this up to Ime Udoka and Tyreke Evans playing lockdown defense on John Salmons and Luol Deng during the fourth quarter. With the active Brockman inside and Jason Thompson challenging shots and playing tall, Derrick Rose had nowhere to go for his offense. Beno Udrih played amazing defense on Rose knowing he had to check him with Rose having no other options. The result was a 10-point quarter and seven turnovers in the final period. Udoka and Evans didn’t even let Salmons and Deng get shots off during this final push. It was just good ole fashioned lockdown defense.

3) More defense to talk about here. The Bulls offense during the fourth quarter was really confusing. They only made two baskets and those were by Kirk Hinrich with the second one coming with 10:15 left in the game. After that, the Bulls shot 0/6 in the final 10:15. They only attempted six shots in 10 minutes? The Bulls were basically playing a prevent offense in which they dribbled out the clock, fired up a bad shot or turned it over, and prayed the Kings couldn’t make enough shots to win this game before the final buzzer. And for a while it was working. The Kings were still down 12 with a little over four minutes left until…

4) Ime Udoka happened. While his defense was HUGE in this turn around, his offense was even bigger. Udoka scored eight straight points from 4:13 to 2:28 left in the quarter to cut the deficit to four. Where did this come from? He’s not a scorer and he’s really not that good of a shooter. He isn’t Desmond Mason bad at shooting but he’s not Jon Barry either. But he calmly stepped up on back-to-back threes when Beno drove and kicked to the corner and then on a scramble and broken play, the ball ended up in Ime’s hands with the shot clock running down and the Bulls crapping their pants. And that paved way for…

5) Tyreke Mother^$&*ing Evans. He scored nine straight points in a two-minute stretch to help this team win the game. There isn’t a player I remember watching on this team or any other that I feel assured they will come through when you need him to. He gets the ball at the end of these games and I honestly feel sorry for the guy trying to defend him. He has no chance of stopping Evans. And the help defender is hopeless too because even though he’s bigger, he’s not strong or quick enough to keep Evans from getting into the lane. He finished this game with 23 points on 8/19 shooting. But when you factor in that he missed six shots around the basket in this game, it starts to look a lot more dominating than the numbers suggest. He just got wherever he wanted on the court. And he did this against solid defenders in Salmons, Rose, and Hinrich. He’s not even ‘Reking Havoc anymore; he just is Havoc.

This was a big win for more reasons than just “they came back from 35 points down to win.” They did it on the road, which is a big thing for a young team. Now, Coach Westphal has this experience in his coaching pocket and he can bring it out at any point in the season and remind them of the great things they can do. There isn’t a single contest the rest of the year the Kings should give up during because they know they can come back with good defense, active play on the boards, and relentless offensive aggressiveness.

One final thought on this game and it’s about Westphal. It’s amazing what having a real coach will do for the growth of a young team. We’re now about 1/3 of the way through this season and the team looks night and day compared to last year’s debacle. A lot has to do with the acquisitions Petrie made this off-season but even more has to do with what Westphal does for this team. Here’s what Evans said after the game:

“One thing I like about Coach Westphal, he’s a great coach. At halftime he didn’t come in and curse us out like we were little kids. He talked to us, we weren’t playing our best basketball, keep fighting. We went out and did that. I think that kept our confidence up instead of just coming in and yelling at everybody.”

Not many coaches would do that after their team was just shellacked for 24 minutes and found themselves down 24 at halftime. Only the really good ones know how to keep their team motivated and confident. For those of you who badly missed Rick Adelman over the past three years (and justifiably so), how do you like having Paul Westphal as the coach of the Kings now?

Apparently, this was Tyreke Evans’ house. The Bulls probably feel like it was a home invasion.

35-point comeback. Just incredible.

More to come in the early morning.