The Mayor himself came later in the game straight and received a huge and well deserved standing ovation.

The Kings had trouble getting anyone other than Cousins going though. Tyreke Evans and Isaiah Thomas weren't having their shots fall. Marcus Thornton did chip in 7 points, thanks to his continuing improvement from moving without the basketball. More importantly, his teammates have done a great job of finding Marcus when he does cut to the basket, and it results in easy points.

Sacramento came out with much better energy in the third quarter. Isaiah Thomas really pushed the tempo and along with some nice buckets from attacking the basket, he did a very good job of finding his teammates. DeMarcus Cousins continued to dominate inside and the Kings got the lead back going into the fourth quarter.

Free Throws were a big part of why the Kings won. Sacramento hit 24 of its 29 opportunities at the stripe while Utah shot just 50% (11 of 22) on its own attempts.

DeMarcus Cousins, Thornton and Isaiah will get a lot of the credit for the victory tonight, but an unsung hero was Jason Thompson, whose defense on Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson was crucial to the victory. Millsap, a guy who rightly could have been on the All-Star team this year, was held to just 4 points and 2 rebounds, and Jefferson had just 12 points. Both Thompson and Chuck Hayes did a great job at negating Utah's size. Francisco Garcia and John Salmons also did a great job defensively on keeping Utah's wings in check, something that really hurt the team the last time they played in Utah. Salmons didn't score much, just 4 points, but he contributed with his defense, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists.

There were things the Kings could have done better. Tyreke Evans was very quiet from the field, scoring just 13 points on 12 shots. The team as a whole also had 17 turnovers, 5 by Isaiah. A lot of those were unforced or caused by a player trying to do too much.

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