Kings vs Clippers Preview: Kawhi-it The Doubters

The Sacramento Kings are home again and looking to test out their four game winning streak against the team that gave them seven quarters and a penny to hold the last time they met. Yes, we’re going to talk about Steve Balmer’s vengeance and how they’re going to be gunning for a Sacramento squad now five games ahead of them for the division lead with twenty-one games to play, but honestly? I just want to take a moment before we jump in… breath in… eleven games over the .500 mark, the best away record in the Western Conference. Damn that feels good, don’t it? Okay, gotta get this preview rolling before the self-inflicted fissure in my index finger spits open from typing this!

Let’s talk Kings basketball!

When: Friday, March 3rd – 7:00 PM PT
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBC Sports California
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140

For Your Consideration

The Bleeding Edge: So I’ve been out for a bit. Many thanks to Greg and Akis for stepping in while I was bleeding out – with friends like those two, who needs enemies. With all this time to sit there and think (because typing was impossible and holding a phone to tweet was painful), I missed out on a lot of the discourse around the last time the Kings and Clippers squared off, in that 176-175 Game of the Decade shoo-in.

Now most of what I want to say has already been said, said better and said by smarter folks than myself, but I’ve got to reiterate here, for posterity sake if nothing else, that was one of the most entertaining single sporting events I have ever watched. Good games, great games even routinely leave my mind by noon the next day – all hype burnt off by the light of reality that even if the Kings did come out on top, they’d be right back at the bottom soon enough. That game though? That game has stuck. I’ve told clients about it, I’ve gone back to watch the highlights, I’ve found myself pondering in the middle of my work day how the hell they found a way as dramatic as THAT to claw back into the contest with less than four minutes left on the clock.

And none of it feels like a fluke.

Sure, the 176 points isn’t going to happen again for a good long while, but that game wasn’t an aberration, an outlier of shooting prowess – it was one of the most efficient offenses in NBA History running at high efficiency. If anything, the Clippers shooting seemed a bit more difficult to replicate in terms of their shooting. But the Kings, through my purple tinted glasses, felt like they could do that again someday. My jaw is still on the floor and I’m happy to drag my chin across the linoleum for a bit longer. What a goddamn game.

Tonight’s contest is going to be another dog fight, regardless of Leonard taking a pass on the game due to injury management. The Clippers haven’t won since the All-Star Break. Call it karma, call it the Kings breaking their collective backs, call it Westbrook-itis. All I know is that I’m calling it a really scary game for Sacramento if they’re taken lightly. If the Kings continue to play this laser focused, pissed off level of game they’ve been throwing out of late? They could clinch this season series with the Clips, distance themselves just that much further from a team desperate to catch up and dare I say, start driving the first of many nails in the coffin of the Kings p**yoff dr**ght.

Guys, I’m off to Mexico at 3 am for a wedding. It ain’t mine, just a dear friends. Not to jinx anything but I’ll be donating $50 to the ASXL Rare Research Endowment to cover any losses that may occur between now and Wednesday. There was a part of me that hoped I could do it on Rare Disease Day (the 28th of February) in honor of our nearly two-year old friend Cooper Crowe, who lives his life with the incredibly rare Bainbridge-Ropers Syndrome, but the Kings foiled those plans. No complaints here, but, would have been a pretty perfect time to do so. Please, please feel free to post any donations here, or in any post-loss articles that occur or tweet them too me or the TKH account. Cooper is a sweet kid, and he could use all the support we can muster. I’ll link the ARRE Foundation here. My many thanks.

Alright, love you all. Don’t play with straight razors if you’re tired and I’ll see you all soon!

Prediction

They’re going for two hundred. They’re hitting every shot they take. Keegan gets 40. Fox gets 50. Sabonis gets 25 assists. Kawhi’s duracells need replacing at halftime from just watching all the scoring going on. I don’t lose my finger to jungle rot in Playa Del Carmen. WE ALL WIN.

Kings: 201, Clippers: 157