Unfortunately, the Kings were done in by turnovers and defense. Some of the Kings' turnovers in this game made one wonder what was happening; it seems like donning a black jersey tonight meant all basketball I.Q. is flushed down the drain. The biggest culprit was Omri Casspi, who had five turnovers, an absolutely unacceptable number given his role on the team. Cousins had five himself, but his 10 assists helped mitigate them. McLemore had a few passes just bounce off of his hands, McCallum made several bad decisions and brain farts, and even Sauce Castillo had trouble hanging onto the ball.

And the defense, yikes. Vance Walberg mentioned that the defensive strategy was to take away the paint but that meant giving up threes, but I'm positive that the gameplan didn't call for giving up open threes. The Rockets hit 18 threes shooting at 45% on the night, most of them wide open, and many of them coming from the short corners. There is still much confusion from the Kings in getting their defensive rotations straightened out.

Random Observations