There are two things that can help a young team win on the road: 1) some good ole fashioned defense and 2) a young star taking over the game when they need it most.

First, let’s talk about the Evans-Jennings matchup. On paper, it looks like Tyreke Evans won this battle with a 24-15 scoring advantage, a 9/19 to 4/11 shooting advantage, and Tyreke’s game-winner outlasting Jennings’ clutch play. But if you watched this game you didn’t necessarily walk away thinking Tyreke Evans is hands down the better player. They’re just extremely different players.

We all know about Evans. He’s an unstoppable force when he wants to go to the basket. It seems like the only player in the NBA that has stopped Evans from going to the basket this season is Tyreke. He tries to keep the defense honest by shooting jumpers. If he makes them, it makes the defender inch up on him, which gives him even more of an unfair advantage going to the basket. But there are times you wonder if he should shoot jumpers at all because he’s SO good at going to the hoop. Seven of his nine makes from the field were layups or around the basket. He also missed five or six layups. He just simply gets into the lane and gets quality shot attempts.

But he didn’t do a great job of running the offense in terms of taking care of the ball. It was actually fairly fluid and flowed decently but he turned the ball over six times.  His first two possessions in which he made moves towards the basket, he threw a pass out of bounds and lost the ball dribbling it off his leg. It wasn’t as smooth as watching Brandon Jennings run the Bucks. Jennings doesn’t seem like a legit scorer if you’re playing fundamental defense against him. Going hard against screens and having a decent help line from your teammates seems to limit his ability to create a shot for himself. Teams have figured out to limit his scoring quite easily. But that doesn’t stop him from running the Bucks and getting them scores.

Maybe the most important score was the layup Jennings found for Ilyasova with five seconds remaining in the game. Jennings tried to inbound the ball to Bogut in order to get it back and strike towards the defense. But like most people, he couldn’t estimate the length of Tyreke Evans. Evans tipped the ball and then was pushed aside by Bogut during the scramble for the possession. Jennings grabbed the ball and made a quick decision to get the ball up the halfcourt and fired a solid pass into Ilyasova, who was wide-open due to the scramble and defensive breakdown. It seemed like an obvious simple play but there was a certain calmness with Jennings that most rookie point guards wouldn’t have.

But then there was Tyreke Evans. So far this season, I’ve compared his moves around the hoop to Manu Ginobili. However, the move he put on Andrew Bogut to get an easy game-winning layup was straight out of Dwyane Wade’s Wonder Emporium. A hard jab step right to get Andrew Bogut away from his path and then a nice little reverse layup on the left side of the basket was all that the Kings needed to win this game.

However, they didn’t necessarily win this game because of Evans’ layup. They won this game because in the second half of this game, they played much-improved defense from the first half. While the Kings shot well in the first half, the Bucks shot very well with 54% shooting. The Bucks were moving the ball well and getting easy scores. The second half though was much different. The Kings closed out very well on jumpers. They attacked shots and did a good job of making the Bucks work much harder for the scores they made.

The Kings kept Andrew Bogut and Brandon Jennings from making a single basket in the fourth quarter. In fact according to Jeremy at Bucksketball, Bogut and Jennings missed their final combined 13 shots in this game. The Kings snapped their losing streak on the road because they took away the other team’s two best players (combined 10/31 shooting). When’s the last time you could say that about a Kings team? They forced Hakim Warrick, Charlie Bell, and Ersan Ilyasova to win this game and made sure they had their ace in the hole with Tyreke Evans to give them a chance of pulling out this road victory.

While the Evans-Jennings debate may never be completely decided, Tyreke took the first showdown by doing what he does best: bothering teams with his lengthy defense and getting to the basket. Evans is probably not a pure point guard but the people that say he can’t play point guard don’t pay attention to the way he turns the game into one big mismatch. Jennings is probably better at running a team but Evans is going to give you baskets and wins when you need them.

Evans – 1, Jennings – 0.

Today’s the big day. Instead of the Bucks playing the Kings in Milwaukee, from what I understand Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings are just going to play one-on-one for 18 hours.

First to 2000 wins!

This video was taken by Sam Amick (perhaps you’ve heard of him) before the Wolves game.

(H/T – Tom Ziller of Sactown Royalty [perhaps you've hard of him too])

I don’t know what’s more impressive: the fact that Kevin Martin didn’t miss a shot or the Bryan Gates flexing.

The Sacramento Kings hadn’t really had a dud of a road game since the third loss of the season when the San Antonio Spurs blew them out. This was also the game in which Tyreke Evans rolled his ankle, had to leave the game, and then was semi-hobbled for the next two games.

Well, Friday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves the Kings did everything they didn’t do when they beat them at home. They couldn’t score on one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA (21^st in defensive efficiency). In a game with 105 possessions, the Kings scored 96 points. That’s good for a 91.4 offensive efficiency. The New Jersey Nets have the lowest offensive efficiency this season with a 96.5. So to say the Kings were bad on offense would be an understatement.

However, in my opinion the Kings were much worse on defense. Sure they forced 22 turnovers. Well, they only had six steals with those 22 turnovers so they didn’t really force 22 of them. The Wolves gave them the ball quite a bit. But the Kings allowed 54% shooting from the field and 112 points to the second worst offensive team in the NBA (Wolves rank 29^th with a 98.0 offensive efficiency). Only the problem was it felt like it was worse than this.

As many of you know, I’m not a Kings fan. But I’ve truly enjoyed watching pretty much every game of theirs this season. There has been a certain energy surrounding the direction of this team. Some of it is due to the young guys like Omri Casspi and Jon Brockman. Some of it is due to having a real coach – something you haven’t been able to say since Rick Adelman. Some of it is due to the Kings playing really well without Kevin Martin thanks to the vast improvement of Jason Thompson and Beno Udrih. But a lot of it is due to Tyreke Evans and the growing realization through every game that he’s going to be one of the best players in the NBA someday.

Friday night, he definitely didn’t show you any of this future stardom. It was the first bad game by Tyreke Evans since his 3-point performance on that bad ankle against the Grizzlies. It seemed like Evans didn’t have his legs at all against the Wolves. In the first matchup against Jonny Flynn, he had an easy 18-5-5 in 34 minutes. In this matchup against Jonny Flynn, his jumper was short all night except when he overcompensated for his Lt. Dan Syndrome and let it wildly fly with all arms. He finished with just 10 points on 4/12 shooting.

Now he did have a good attempt at creating offense for his teammates. He had eight assists in the ball game and set up Jason Thompson and Omri Casspi nicely. And they along with Beno Udrih were the only bright spots for the Kings the entire night. This was not a team that was fun to watch at all. This was a game that reminded you the Kings were a 17-win team last year. There was no fight. There was little effort, especially on defense.

Kevin Love is one of the hardest and smartest working players in the NBA. But the Kings have plenty of rebounders and big bodies to make him work for what he gets. Friday night, I didn’t seem to think he was working particularly hard on the boards in order to grab 16 of them but with the utter-malaise the Kings showed in that department, he was able to grab them with ease.

On defense, the Kings were flat out lazy. They didn’t close out properly or really at all on jumpers. With a team like Minnesota, they don’t have good or even adequate outside shooters so all you really have to do is throw a hand up in their face and they’re probably going to miss it. But if you constantly let them waltz into open spots on the floor and never try to take them out of their comfort zone, you’re going to get a good shooting night from even the worst NBA teams.

Spencer Hawes didn’t start for the second straight game. His play against the Wolves (first matchup) and the Blazers was pretty horrendous. Coach Westphal claims Spencer didn’t start against the Wizards due to matchup problems but that clearly wasn’t the case Friday night. If anything, the Kings needed his size to start out against Al Jefferson and Kevin Love. They always need his size to start out games and when he IS playing well, he’s a force to be reckoned with. Hopefully for the Kings, it’s lesson learned with Hawes and he’ll go back to playing like Rick Hawes instead of Spencer Hawes.

Overall, the Kings were due for a let down game. Young teams have games like this in which their solid play doesn’t show up and they look like a mess with no hope. The Kings will probably have a couple more like this throughout the season. Maybe they were saving all of their energy for tonight so they could come out with fire and gusto in order to ensure Tyreke Evans gets a win over Brandon Jennings in their first showdown. Whatever the reason is, you want the Kings looking like they did against the Washington Wizards, other than looking like a bunch of kids doing this:

Final Game Notes
- Donté Greene didn’t make anything and I mean anything. 0/7 from the field, 0/4 from three and 0/4 from the line. He also didn’t make his dinner reservation or his tee time. He golfs, right?

- Every time a Corey Brewer jump shot is taken, an angel loses its wings.

- Kings are now 9-10 when Spencer Hawes starts and 2-4 when he doesn’t. That isn’t a HUGE difference but you can see they’ve only been competitive in half of those six games he started on the bench. They’ve been pretty much competitive in all of the games he has started.

- Kenny Thomas didn’t attempt to score in his 21 minutes on the floor. Kings fans should thank K9 for showing that type of restraint.

- Reader Noam pointed out to me that Omri Casspi averages 21.5 points per game when he starts. Noam is also from Israel and completely biased towards all things Omri Casspi.

Ahmad Rashad caught up with the best rookie in the NBA at Bella Bru for a nice little breakfast and conversation.

(Thanks to Greg for passing this along.)

Also, check out Ian Thomsen’s article about Evans here. Really good read for all of you (including myself) who can’t stop swooning over Tyreke  Evans this morning.

(Thanks, @JulianNewman)

Kyle from Truth About It – Wizards blog for the TrueHoop Network – has the frame by frame imagery of Evans’ steal against Arenas.

Check it here.

Here was a post-game quote from Gilbert Arenas when he was asked about Tyreke Evans:

“I like him. He’s 6’6 and I think he’s about 220 pounds. Guards that come in that size as a rookie are like when LeBron and D. Wade came in at that size, they’re hard to guard. I’m considered a big guard in this league and going against Tyreke I felt little tonight. He has the poise of Brandon Roy when he came into the league. He plays at his own speed and never looked flustered out there. I think it is a great pick up for the Sacramento Kings.”

That’s pretty high praise. Some big names being thrown around in that quote.

It wasn’t “Havlicek stole the ball” or “a steal by Bird; underneath to DJ, he lays it in.”

But for Tyreke Evans on a nationally televised stage that his stellar play earned him and his teammates this season, it might as well have been. Casual NBA fans aren’t really going to remember this game or the defensive fortitude Evans showed after committing a questionable foul that never gets called unless Tim Donaghy is in the mix. But Kings fans and everyone in this organization is going to remember what happened in the final 16 seconds of this game.

This was the moment that could have signified Gilbert Arenas’ resurgence. He was flush with 33 points on 10/22 shooting and had the ball in his hands with the seconds ticking away and the majority of viewers expecting a dagger by Gil. But as he made his move – the same move he had killed the Kings with all night – there was something else in the cards for this evening. Instead of an Arenas resurgence, we saw Tyreke Evans’ emergence.

Evans saw the same crossover move that was destroying Sacramento coming at him and instead of being consumed by it he consumed it. It isn’t registered as a steal because Arenas fouled him before Tyreke could take possession of the basketball but we all know that it was the steal of the game. Tyreke Evans is going to take a lot of things from NBA players as the years go by. He’s going to take hardware and accolades from them (you’re on notice, Brandon Jennings). He’s going to take playoff wins and maybe a title if he’s lucky. He’s going to take a lot of pride away from guys with huge egos. And it all started when he took the win from Gilbert Arenas’ hands.

It’s not that he made a play to win the game. It’s that he made a play that never gets made to win the game. We never see defensive takeovers on the final plays of games. We may see a tipped shot or the defense at the mercy of whether or not a bad shot will fall as a player chucks it from 20-feet while fading away unnecessarily. But we never see the possession just ripped from a superstar’s hands from a rookie who simply decides not to be the guy to give up the shot.

“I just thought it was almost poetic to have it come down to a clear-out for Arenas and have Tyreke pick his pocket,” Coach Westphal said after the game. He added, “that’s what I told him to do; he’s very coachable.”

This wasn’t just a coming out party for Tyreke, who finished with 26 points, six assists, and six rebounds. It was a statement of establishment in this league. He didn’t stop at the defensive takedown and just go haphazardly shoot his free throws and hope Washington doesn’t come up with a miracle. He calmly went to the line, knocked down both free throws and watched a desperation attempt by Caron Butler careen off the iron. For rookies, these two things don’t simply happen. And they certainly don’t happen for a rookie who acts like this was anything but a fluke. For him, this was supposed to happen.

It capped off a night in which the Kings saw amazing balance in their scoring. Omri Casspi was also a rookie who excelled on the big ESPN-lit stage. He scored 22 points on 6/16 shooting with a few of his last shots coming up well short due to tired legs. He played a career-high 37 minutes. He also made eight of his nine free throw attempts, which for a rookie who was struggling through 50% season from the line is pretty big. Andres Nocioni also had a huge night. He scored 20 points on 8/15 shooting, while playing very solid defense on Caron Butler (16 points, 7/19 shooting) when he wasn’t being torched by Antawn Jamison (30 points, 11/22 shooting).

This was a night of a young Kings team trying to figure out how to close the game against a relentless offensive squad. Jamison kept the Wizards within striking distance in the first 15 minutes of the game with 20 of his 30 points and Gilbert Arenas got hot in the second half with 18 of his 33.

After Nocioni hit a wide-open three to put the Kings up 100-88, the Wizards came back with a furry to try to close out the final six minutes of this game with a lot of pride. They chipped away with quick scores, free throws and a big three-point play by Haywood off an offensive rebound. The Kings got complacent with three turnovers and a lot of waiting for the whistle to blow.

But ultimately, the late surge meant nothing but a set-up to Tyreke Evans taking the night. It was a night in which Kobe Bryant made a game-winner on a jump shot. Evans showed a little more depth by winning the game with his defense and confidence.

Game Notes

- Spencer Hawes only received eight minutes and didn’t start the game. Westphal said Omri got the start because of matchups with Jamison. When Hawes did come in, he played really well. His defense was solid, he was extremely active and he even threw down a dunk.

- The Kings made 81.8% from the free throw line.

- Only nine turnovers for this Kings team.

- Kings enjoyed a huge advantage for fastbreak points with a 33-12 margin in that category.

- Tyreke Evans gave birth to the future tonight. The rest of the league declined comment because they fear this child.