You won't find this in any box score, but the Kings were roughly -19 while Dustin Pedroia joined the broadcast table and +15 when Natalie Gulbis was on the mic. Free 3-Wil Gulbis!I made a point to focus on the Boston defense during my viewing, and I think I figured part of it out.

It's not as if the Kings got any easy shots in the third quarter (when they went on a 22-6 run). Boston's defense rebounding (very good usually) broke down a bit there, and John Salmons hit some tough shots. Beno had five assists in the quarter, but only one resulted from penetration as far as I remember. If you aren't hitting contested jumpers and you don't have an uberstrong post scorer, you aren't scoring much on the Celtics. If the Kings' hot three-ball shooting had stayed around, Sacramento might have been in the game. But all those made threes the past few games haven't been contested. A hand in the face makes quite a difference, no?I should also note Ray Allen received more double-screens in the first quarter than Kevin Martin's gotten his entire career.