Kings Flashback - Kings 2000 Home Opener!

After starting their 2000 season with a tough 4-game road stretch, the hard-traveling Kings finally made it home...home to the Mecca of basketball fandom, Arco Arena, where the walls shake and the rafters tremble (and soon, the cowbells would ring). This was a big game. They'd started things out nicely on the road, but now they had something to prove to the home crowd - the die-hard Kings fans who'd been cheering the team for over a decade, even when the vast majority of that was quite depressing. No bandwagon fans, the Kings faithful were ready for a show and a big win. Would the team give them one? Also, please enjoy a little historical political moment in the first paragraph, just to give you a feel of what was going on during the time of this game. So join us next as the Kings host the dreaded Trailblazers, right here on the Kings Basketball Network. And if you don't like THAT...

Portland at Kings
11/07/2000

This is a late entry, by the way, as after this game—the Kings home opener—I had to get off to bed for an early rise to vote the next morning. Which is a good thing, because this year, my vote may actually decide who’s going to be President.

Sadly, we got the Portland feed on the NBA League Pass broadcast, as I was hoping for Grant and Jerry to call the home opener for me. But the good news was that Portland has a really cool game graphics set up, which flashes up current points for each player that makes a shot, and pops up what foul was called. Very cool. More teams should get hip to this.

So this was the team we so feared last year, one of two teams (Suns being the other) that always seemed to have our number. Yeah, we’d played some pretty tough teams up until this game, but this was to be the test, playing one of the recognized best teams in the league. And the freakin’ Portland announcers had to spoil my joy by talking and video clipping over the home game intro stuff. Grrr. You could still feel the roar, though. The best fans in the NBA were making the noise the whole league knows us for, and it was music to my ears.

And we’re not going to get into too much analysis of it tonight, because I’ve got an early day tomorrow.

Suffice to say…

Big Kings Love.

After 11 straight losses to the Trailblazers, the boys fed off the home crowd and took it right to their Oregonian bane, playing fierce defense (defense? I’m sorry, could you repeat that?) and holding Portland to 34 percent shooting in the first 3 quarters, which finally paid off with a 79-75 victory, and a big win at home. You had to see these guys! Hands in every Portland face, hustling for everything, plucking up the rebounds! We wanted this one bad, and got it, finally exorcising the Portland fear. How good was our D? Davis was 3 for 12. Smith was 2 for 9. Stoudamire, who’s always made me cringe every time he gets the ball he’s so unconscious, was 4-14! Sure, you can attribute that to a bad shooting night, and it’s true. But you had to see these Kings hustle and make these guys work for everything. We owned most of the game, but started falling apart in the end, thanks mainly to Wallace (24 points for the night. And 17 technicals. Okay, kidding…), and things got pretty scary in the closing couple of minutes. But there was Webb to feed a beautiful Vlade layup with 22 seconds left to go, putting us up by 2. Portland still had their shot to tie and take it to overtime…if not for the eagle eyes and quick hands of Bobby Jackson. He stripped Scottie Freaking Pippen (where’s your triangle now, fool?!), and Scottie was forced to foul him. Bobby sank both free throws, putting the game away. And Portland no longer has our number on speed dial. They’re actually going to have to pull out the black book and look it up from now on.

This game was all about Webb and Vlade. Webb was en fuego with 29 points, shaking off some bad juju from recent games. And Vlade was doing some shaking of his own, surely thinking about all the Sac Bee talk of him being out of shape and non-productive, when he put up 16 points and grabbed every board in sight (11 for the night). The downside, and what surely kept us from a major victory, was ice-cold Peja shooting 1 for 11 and totaling 2 points for the night (THAT’S got to hurt the average…). Don’t know what’s riding on Peja’s back lately, but he’d better work it out pretty soon. We’ve got a lot of games to win, and we count on that guy to make big numbers. Hey, everybody’s got a bad night once in a while. Don’t think we’ll see this become a habit.

Doug was looking great, with 8 points, 6 rebounds and a steal. Bobby was 6 and 4, with 6 assists (Bobby Jackson if you’re nasty!). Barry got a solid 26 minutes of play (much to the joy of the Barry-loving home crowd) and put up 8, a pair of those 3-pointers. Nick gave us a 3 (that’s pretty much his job this year, isn’t it? Come in, shoot a 3, sit down and enjoy watching the game). And Fundy was hard-working but non-scoring. Worked the boards nice, but couldn’t get his shot to come together. No Darrick or Turk tonight. Too much on the line, I suppose. Probably a good choice this game, which was a big statement we needed to make, and the boys stepped up and did so in style.

With the exception of a little bus trip to Oaktown, we’re now in for a nice long home stretch, which is right where the Kings always shine. And if they keep shining like they did tonight, it’s going to be an amazing season. That’s Portland. Now it’s time to see what we can do with the Lakers, obviously our big target this year after getting dropped in game five in last year’s finals. Lakers haven’t really got it together yet this year that I’ve seen. What are the chances that the torch of destiny has been passed up north this year? Could I just be dreaming? Could be. But keep an eye on this Kings, sports fans. They have come to play this year. And last year’s taste of post-season glory seems to have only made us hungry for more.