Ball movement was an issue for the Kings all night long. They were sloppy and careless with the basketball, and reverted to isolation plays too often. As such they finished with just 19 assists to 18 turnovers. The Clippers were even worse, with 17 assists to 18 turnovers, but they made a higher percentage of their shots (45% to 41.7%) and got to the line more (24 FTA to 15 for Sacramento).

The officiating was rough for such a physical game. There were lousy calls/non-calls on both sides of the ball, but the particularly aggravating calls to me were the ones that came late. There were too particularly bad late whistles tonight. The first was when DeMarcus Cousins set up to take a charge, took the brunt of the contact as Bledsoe threw up the shot, and wasn't called for the blocking foul until after the shot missed and the rebound was grabbed a couple seconds later. The other was a three by Chris Paul where he initiated the contact, and he didn't get the whistle until the ball had missed and the rebound was grabbed. Late whistles infuriate everyone, even if it was the right call to make at the time.

The lineup of Isaiah Thomas, Jimmer Fredette, Terrence Williams, Jason Thompson and Chuck Hayes is a bit weird on paper, but it brought the Kings back into this game towards the end of the 3rd quarter and through the first half of the 4th quarter. Up by 5 points heading into the final period, the Clippers struck first as Eric Bledsoe got to the rack and hit a layup. Sacramento answered right back as Terrence Williams set up Jimmer for a short jumper and hit his own jumper after Chuck Hayes stole the ball away on the other end. That cut it to three. The Kings almost forced another bad Clippers possession after that, but were bailed out by the aforementioned Chris Paul three point shooting foul.

Paul hit 2 of 3 to put Los Angeles up 5 points again. Jimmer found Terrence Williams for a mid-range jumper, and after a missed shot by the Clippers, Isaiah found Chuck Hayes at the basket for a layup. A couple botched possessions by both teams later, Chuck Hayes returned the favor to Isaiah by setting him up for a shot on the baseline that swished home and gave the Kings their first lead since the 1st quarter. It didn't last long however as Kenyon Martin nailed a jumper off-the-dribble in response. Chuck Hayes then posted Blake Griffin up and nailed a short hook over him. If anything says you need to work on your defense, it's when Chuck Hayes successfully posts you up and scores on you.

Nick Young tried another three, this time from the opposite wing, but it was too long and the rebound came out to Terrence Williams. I love it when Williams grabs rebounds, because he immediately starts a fastbreak possession. On this one, he set up Jimmer for a big three, and Jimmer delivered to put the Kings back up on top with 4:35 left.

This is when Blake Griffin became clutch. Blake went on a personal 6-0 run on the Kings, hitting two long jumpers and one nice post score to put L.A. back up again for good. The shots by Griffin were quite surprising as those are technically the shots you want him taking. Griffin was shooting just 34% from 16-23 feet coming into tonight's game and 30.6% from 10-15 feet (statistics from HoopData), but he nailed the two jumpers he took there.

DeMarcus Cousins finally scored inside on the Clippers to end Griffin's run and make it a one point game again. L.A. again fed Griffin up on the top of the key, and Cousins made a slow swipe at the ball. Griffin covered his eye and the officials called a foul on DeMarcus Cousins. Whether you think it was a foul or not, DeMarcus had a hilarious quote in a post-game interview saying that "the wind from my hand must have brushed his eye".

It was a non-shooting foul, but it was still big because it took away the Kings foul to give, something that might have come in handy down the stretch of this one. Chris Paul took it to the hoop out of the inbounds play, and it was 86-83 Clippers with 1:02 remaining. Tyreke tried to answer back with a layup of his own, but missed it point blank. Tyreke had a rough game overall, shooting just 5 of 13 on his way to 14 points. He did have a team-high 6 assists though.

Isaiah Thomas had a huge defensive possession on the other end, coming up with a steal on Chris Paul and getting it up to Tyreke Evans, who again just barely missed the layup but this time drew the foul. Tyreke made up for his last miss by knocking down both free throws.

The Clippers called timeout with 18 seconds left to set up an inbounds play. The Kings did a great job of covering the inbound and forced a lob pass to the opposite corner that Tyreke Evans almost managed to steal but unfortunately couldn't, landing out of bounds. On the second inbounds, I thought the Kings again did a good job of defending it, but Paul was able to find Randy Foye and Terrence Williams was forced to foul. Foye hit both free throws and now it was the Kings turn to set up an inbounds play.

The Kings tried a few options that were covered at first, and then tried to get the ball down low to DeMarcus Cousins. Terrence threw the ball to DeMarcus, who was being fronted by Blake Griffin, and DeMarcus was unable to handle the ball as it went out of bounds. Keith Smart was as furious as I've ever seen him, feeling that Cousins had been held by Griffin on the play. The Kings were forced to foul from there on out, and that was all she wrote.

Kenyon Martin decided to shoot a three as time expired and nailed it as well. There's a bit of an unspoken rule in basketball that when you're going to win, you don't shoot with the game winding down. It was salt in the wound for the Kings, and I very much look forward to the rematch in Los Angeles on Saturday. I wouldn't mind a better result.

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