The Sacramento Kings are somehow, some way in San Francisco today to play basketball against the defending champion Golden State Warriors, and up 2-0 in the series after defending their home court in the first games. With both teams shouldering the tonnage of historic pressure tonight, and the distinct possibility of this game being the proverbial seven trumpets calling to an end one of the great NBA dynasty of the last 30 years, the basketball world has turned its focus to San Francisco, and the little three seed that, to many, just shouldn’t be here. Without Draymond Green, without the cushion of a time, without their poise or superior schemes and suddenly without the self-assuredness that everything’s going to wind up in their favor, the Warriors and their fanbase are, for maybe the first time in a decade, staring into an unknowing future and suddenly tense of what may come to pass. It’s the most important game of the last 16 years for the Sacramento Kings – until Game 4 on Sunday night.. So without further ado:
Let’s talk playoff basketball!
When: Thursday, April 20th, 7:00 PM PT
Where: Chase Center, San Francisco, CA
TV: TNT
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140
For Your Consideration
A Pain in the Asterisk: There’s something festering in the city of San Francisco this morning, and it’s been stewing, rotting at an already arrogant fanbase for awhile, but now especially as the Kings look to land a devastating blow against a championship franchise and fanbase playing and behaving like anything but. I don’t need to go too deep into this today – if you’re breathing and have stepped out into the sports world over the last 48 hours, you’ll recognize the stench wafting around you. For so many years the Warriors were the cutting edge of basketball, free-flowing, hot-shooting, maniacally-defending with heroes and villains and goofballs to satiate even the most curmudgeonly of sports personalities. The NBA world has run through the Silicon Valley for near a decade now and even when injuries kept them quiet, kept them beatable, they still sat ominously to the side of the collective basketball world, like a Mordor of microchips, steeping in the black magic of venture capitalism, waiting for an inevitable return. Last season was proof – the Warriors weren’t leaving anytime soon.
Yeah, well, shit happens, bud.
After a decade where near nothing has happened to the NBA elite, the basketball world has witnessed a week where a decade of change has happened, now sitting on the edge of a brand-new paradigm, one where the Warriors, with all the strength of their constant national media campaigning and attention, with all the skill of their superstar players and talented coaching staff, with all the might of their Twitter fingers and Youtube commenters and all the volume of their hipper-than-thou, surly radio personalities cannot beat the Sacramento Kings in the first two contests of the first round of the playoffs. They can complain about refs, suspensions, missed calls all they want but at the end of the day, one team is up two games to zero and the other team is wondering how the hell this can happen. Here at the edge of unknown future, with reports of injured aging stars wanting max money, their defensive anchor podcasting through the pain of his own self-control issues, the bench riddled with injuries and youth, the dynasty that held such a grip on this league, is suddenly in doubt.
And now we, as citizens of this basketball collective, bare witness to history – to either the Kings claiming a nearly impossible-to-overcome, hell, nearly impossible to believe, three game to nothing lead or to the start of one of the great final chapters for a Warriors squad on the brink of dissolution. The beginning of one story and the end of another are still being written, the Kings and Warriors still have plenty of time to change the narratives that quickly approach and unlike many pieces of writing, or guarantees from those paid to piss their consumers off – I can’t tell you which to expect.
What I can say, the one thing I feel confident in is this: for a region, a sector, a franchise that prides itself for being on the cutting edge, obsessed with maintaining a grip on what’s to come, that is always sermonizing and searching for the next wave of disruptors – they sure as hell weren’t ready for the Sacramento Kings.
Prediction
3-0. Light the beam chants in the fourth quarter. Sunken looks and dour demeanors on talk shows all across the bay. Tiktoks with “time to make history” and Steph Curry smiling start cropping up.
The new world stops struggling to be born. It starts being born.
Kings: 141, Warriors: 128
Warriors fans about to have a rapid unscheduled disassembly.
Starship w(rec)ked
I love that term…seriously one of the best technical descriptions ever for something blowing up
FTFY
Warriors fans about to have a rapid unscheduled dissembly.
related but unrelated question. I’ve yet to receive my Kings herald /wade “light the Beam” bespoke BB shirt. Is it that they have been delayed crossing the Atlantic or has there another delay since the one covered by e-mail on 6th ? Any I’m off for Power Nap before 0245 wake up and watch alarm. Go KiNGS Put the f###ing jets on ….
I got an email that mine was shipped on the 16th. Haven’t heard anything since.
Ours showed up last night and my wife wore hers to school today to rub it in the nose of her little third grade Warrior fans.
Noice!
My son’s LTB jersey arrived yesterday.
Got my shipping notice this morning for my first order, then one just an hour or so ago for my second order. All custom numbers.
Might want to email W&W directly. I had a question shortly after I placed my order and they got back to me in a few hours.
Hey ukca375,
I’m guessing you ordered a custom number? Those ones are the ones that arrived from the manufacturer last. I just got notification for my own order with custom numbers being shipped today.
Same here. The #6 was delivered to my sister yesterday, my custom number for my son shipped yesterday.
I ordered custom number: 1.
I was hoping that they’d ship starting with 1.
after seeing you for the first time, they changed your number to “101”
The Kings dealt with every Dubs hit
And a flagrant from their piece of s**t.
Let’s go down to the Bay
And dominate play.
Get the win and KEEP THE BEAM LIT!
I can’t wait to hear “Light The Beam” chants in the Chase Center tonight.
Usually, six seeds don’t whine this much when they’re unsurprisingly down 2-0 to three seeds.
It’s like we found their secret cupcake stash and punched–or should I say stomped–all of their cupcakes.
Ps I’m lost on how Greens suspension is our fault and overrides ALL the great things our team is doing. I’ve never seen a Cinderella story switch so quickly. After 17 years of shit you would hope they would let us enjoy a little time in the sun for a while. Easy for me to say from 1000’s of miles away but “stay classy” Sactown fans and just smile knowingly..
Pps love the LoTR reference above
It’s not, they’re just acting with full entitlement like the Bay Area is so well-known for. On my assignments I meet people in the Bay Area all the time who still think the world wants to move there, they’re just not living in reality. It’s pretty amazing how an area that’s been romanticized for over a CENTURY, and in ten years that tone has completely reversed, now literally known for crime and piles of poop.
I’ve never seen such a turnaround. Maybe in the 90’s, everyone wanted to move to Seattle, but up until then it was sort of a mysterious place that was off the radar. In this case SF went from a romance novel to a toilet bowl.
Defund the Refs!
This statement is applicable in literal terms to the playoff refs from some two decades ago.
Well said. Growing up I kind of envied SF and the bay but as a grown man I’d much rather live in Sac than the bay.
For the last ten years or so I’ve considered the bay a shithole and do my best to go nowhere near there.
I live here now and can’t wait to cash in on my house and move to Sierra County
It’s a bunch of media personalities trying to scramble and save face after getting the collective rug pulled out from under their horrifically wrong takes analysis leading up to the series.
Exactly, this is all coming from the same mush-mouthed morons like JJ Redick who said the Kings had no shot to win against GSW…now they’re (erroneously) claiming that they weren’t wrong at all, its the refs that want the Kings to win so they’re not calling fouls on Steph and they’re being mean to Draymond, the same Kings team who had more incorrect calls go against them than anyone else in the NBA.
Ding ding. The Athletic writers have been particularly obnoxious.
i can’t wait for the 3 ball to fall at least a bit better so this game is an absolute Kings blowout and there is no question who is the better team and it’s not ‘oh but the refs…’
I keep reading how the refs keep giving us the games, how we keep fouling/riding curry so he can’t get to his spots and get his shots off, how OUR fans are unbearable…? All the excuses in the books for our little cow town team who are just flat out beating the defending champs.
I guess they just want us to play 0 defense and let curry take wide open shots huh? Let them all just walk to the rim and give them all the rebounds. After 20 years of shit product, all the talk about how the warriors wanted us cause we’re an easy win to advance to the next series, all the disrespect, we’re not supposed to support this team in the loudest and proudest way we can? Fuck all the outside noise. I hope this team takes all this in and come out swinging every single game.
The Kings of the past are no more. We’re dominant. Teams fear us now and it shows.
Light the fuckin beam babyyyyyyy
(Sorry for my potty mouth)
Just need a version of this with Domas with a basketball.
Needs more cowbell instead of bottles
Kings 128 Warriors 124
A series, stepping stones to be remembered & have fun ..
Man, I really want Game of Zones to come back.
The SunKings was one of their best ever, I also loved the episodes about J. Butler and the T-Wolves and the Grizzlies/Suns failed trade for the wrong Brooks.
Excellent preview Will.
Let’s go boys!
LIGHT THE BEAM
The Kings are up 2-0 because of defense. Plain and simple. Their offense has been good for sure, but their D is the difference.
De’Aaron Fox has been the leader of this squad this playoffs, and to his credit his defense has been upped a notch. But the leader of the defense has to be Davion Mitchell. He is doing all of those Davion things. But on the national stage and in the NBA playoffs.
For these last two games, he is no longer Off Night. He is PlayOff Night.
I am expecting Scott Foster and Tony Brothers and Dick Bevetta wearing zebra stripes tonight. To be fair – I have been expecting that every game against the Warriors. I know that Coach Brown and Coaches Fernandez and Triano will be expecting same.
I like that Mike Brown added the other P – Poise, to his Physicality and Pace game plan.
Should be a clean game tonight with the clown out. I’m expecting a crazy high score with no shenninagans or drama.
Eric Lewis (#42)
Kevin Scott (#24)
Sean Corbin (#33)
Ray Acosta (#54) – alternate
I’m very interested in how the team responds to an arena full of self-righteous anger from an entitled fanbase and a team in circle the wagons mode around their “i’m the victim here” class act who has a child’s level of emotional control.
I’m guessing our COACH OF THE YEAR will have the guys ready and will preach what he’s been preaching all along- poise, physicality and pace. And amen to that as the proof has been in the results.
Here. We. Go.
I don´t that know that this belongs here, but I´ll go with it anyways. Curiosity drove me to actively search for national coverage of this series over the last few days. I found a mountain of almost inexplicable bs and homerism. It´s almost fascinating where some people´s minds go.
Anyway, do yourselves a favor and check out Trysta Krick. I believe she´s in Ny, not a Kings fan (at least not until recently), and I really like her takes.
she also had good commentary after that Kings Clippers game.
I bet it is a really tight whistle tonight. Should be an interesting game.
Hope so. Maybe when Lyle’s gets punched in the face he’ll get a foul call. No look at the replay for possible flagrant though. That’s too much to ask.
Excellent writing, Will. Per usual. Only correction: It’s ‘bear’ witness. ????
I was told there would be no pants.
the testimony of the bare witness is fairly normal, its those that see the bare witness that have a story to tell
The Warriors complaining about officiating with a small market team with a history of getting blatantly screwed over by the league in the playoffs. While I don’t see it shaking out this way, they deserve to taste a 4-0 boot from the postseason. A dude with a history of dirty plays stomps and then JUMPS off of the sternum of an opponent then swaggers around calling the fans in attendance pussies, laughing as the injured player writhes on the ground in pain, and the media swoops in saying it was exaggerated, his history shouldn’t matter, and he shouldn’t have been ejected OR suspended. Again, I don’t foresee it playing out this way, but they deserve to be metaphorically stomped.
Wow, I just watched Clayton step over a fallen Embiid. Joel kicked up at him and jumped up. It seems like Sabonis under reacted and that it’s disrespectful to step over a fallen opponent
Just saw Kings bus heading to the arena. Son make eye contact with Coach me with Trey. Hanging at Spark food truck area and Sixth Man is showing out. Let’s Go Kings!!’
Represent!!! Take their gym!
This preview was fantastic.
Let’s remember that a small minority of any group is amplified by today’s media technology. A lot of the national writers have relationships to maintain with celebrity podcaster Draymond. Many Warriors fans feel the same way we do about the Green situation. Check the top comments on Athletic articles. Let’s go suck the hope out of this team early and get Keon Ellis some garbage time burn.
Still wild to think that we are up 2-0 while still leaving some points out there. Man misses by Keegan and Kevin are just rim-outs. That’s the main point of improvement to look at coming as the series shifts to SF.
I hope the law of averages catches up on that and Keegan and Huerter starts to hit their shots at a higher rate. If that happens, man, bring out the broom.
Watch out for the script: the early ticky tack fouls, especially on Sabonis
The Warriors are going to come out angry and hot. The crowd with be rolling and the refs will look to imprint themselves on the game early. Kings need to hold their composure, stick to their game plan and withstand the runs. It’s going to be a close one, but I’d love for the Kings to put their foot on the throat of the Dubs tonight.
Light the fucking beam.
Warriors are going small tonight to shake things up. I say give heavy minutes to Off Night and let Sabonis feast. No GP2.
Will,
Yours is a “It’s The Playoffs” Game Preview!
Excellent.
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