Kings Flashback - Kings & Cavs, Double O.T.

And here we continue my game-by-game breakdown from the fall of 2000, where I summarized my thoughts on the second Kings game of the season, a not-so-pretty showdown with Cleveland in the Cavs' season opener. Notable here is the very first on-court appearance (in regular season) of Hedo Turkoglu, our drafted rookie from Turkey who become a big fan favorite (and a national obsession for his home nation, whose citizens got up in the middle of the night to catch Kings games live via satellite, waiting for any chance of Hedo getting off the bench and making them proud. Every road game we went on, there would always be a shot, no matter what city we were in, of a group of Turkish folks up in the stands, waving the Turkish flag and going crazy for Hedo). Also notable is commentary on what it's like to watch a game with a very drunk roommate...

Back to the year 2000...

Kings at Cleveland
11/01/2000

So exciting. And yet so ugly.

No, I’m not talking about your mom. Calm down.

The opening game jitters out of the way, the Kings moved on to…what the heck was that? Can’t quite put a name on it, but it wasn’t good. Not until the end, that was, where the Kings, who trailed nearly the entire game, finally got it together and caught up long enough to take it to double overtime. Double overtime in game two of the season. Not bad at all.

As I mentioned, this was not a pretty game by any stretch. The team was just out of synch. Lots of flailing around, nothing falling. I’ll admit, I’m not quite sure how we managed to stay in this thing, especially with Cleveland playing at the level they were. Once again we’re seeing the weird Kings miracle in action—I’m sitting here the whole time thinking how out of it Webber is, and how he’s missing so much, and then the game’s over and I realize he had 27 points! Guess that 10 for 26 stat makes that understandable. With things going like they were, Webb was fighting to take over, and taking it to the basket whenever he could. Not a great percentage, but he got us the points. And we needed them.

For all my praise for Christie and Jackson last night, they seemed stymied tonight, running around in desperation and just not able to land a shot. Doug was 1 for 13. Bobby 1 for 7. At least they made up for it in free throws. Bobby was looking a little more like Jason tonight, going for some crazy circus moves that never quite came together. And one could attempt to credit Christie with losing the game in those final seconds…but I personally feel that would be an unfair stretch.

The big news, in my opinion, was Scot Pollard tonight, baby! Did I manage to forget mentioning his new samurai ‘do last night? It’s all style with the Butcher, baby. But more amazing than his hair was his presence at both ends and his fat 37 minutes! Scot was almost the man that won the game, in fact. It was the final seconds of regulation. Game is tied. Webber does the stutter step…Webber wants the points. He jumps it up…he’s short…and there’s Scot, the garbage man, to snatch it up and put it in, putting the Kings up by two. BIG smile and protruding tongue from Big Kansas after that one. He was already feeling the glory. Little did he know that sort of the exact same thing would happen at the other end with the clock ticking into zero, when Wesley Person would do a little amazing trashman move himself, right in the middle of the freaking buzzer, and send the game into the first overtime. And what does Adelman do when it’s post-regulation? He chooses to leave the feelin’-it Pollard in over the more obvious Vlade substitution. Thumbs up, Rick! Takes a lot of coach to be able to feel out when someone’s in the zone and let them stay in it. Big night for the Butcher, giving us 12 points in important moments and keeping the final drive alive.

When we hit double overtime, I was really starting to get into the game—even with the knowledge that if we did pull it out, it wouldn’t be a win worth wearing with pride, and one that would have come to us compliments of some very lucky ref calls. It was back and forth in that final five, and I really thought we had it. In those final moments, the ball was lost—and I thought the game had just slipped through our fingers—but Webber was able to tie up Matt Harpring and get the refs to whistle a jump-ball (another questionable call in our favor). They jumped it up, and Webb got it, tipped it to Christie. It was all up to Doug. Smothered by Cavaliers, he got ready for the shot that could have tied it up and sent the game into three overtimes.

And then Lamond Murray—who, by the way, scored all of Cleveland’s points in the second overtime—just swatted the ball away from him, leaving Doug with a post-terrorist-bombing kind of stunned look of disbelief, and ended the game, finally, at 102-100. Hey. At least we hit the century mark, right?

To be honest, Cleveland really deserved to win this game tonight. They looked better than we did, played better than we did, and did it all under a mountain of ref calls that were close to starting a riot on the Cuyahoga River. As out of shape as Chris Gatling is looking, he is still the man, and put on quite a show. The aforementioned Murray was all over the map, capitalizing and taking the Cavs team high with 18 points (18 points for a high. Feh!!). Traylor was…okay. Traylor was just scary, actually. He just made my list of people in North America I wouldn’t want to piss off (or even mildly annoy). How someone so big can move so fast is beyond me, but the man makes it happen, and makes for a really tough target if you’re trying to keep him out from under the bucket. Andre Miller was looking great, and put up 17 for the Cavs…and will be wincing every time he watches the replay of that overtime moment where he slipped on a wet spot and went down hard, bruising his knee. NOT the thing a Cleveland fan wants to see happen on opening night. ‘Spoon was a force to be reckoned with, as was Ilgauskas—when he wasn’t giving them like their 8^th illegal D of the night. We can thank that man for a few free throws. They looked loose out there, comfortable with each other, confident. That’s two in a row for them, and they earned it both times. They’re looking good this year. I’m looking forward to getting another crack at them.

As for the rest of the boys tonight…

Vlade just didn’t have it going, and was 2 for 5 on his 4 whole points. Didn’t really make himself felt, but managed a couple of good flop moves. Darrick got a little time, enough to put up another of those pretty acrobat layups and get himself a deuce. Some great use of Funderburke (not much of it, as Webber played 50 minutes of the extra long game). He came in for 8 minutes and managed 9 points, and was at the receiving end of a flagrant that put him down and had me holding my breath for a few seconds. Nick came in, made his 3, sat back down. Peja got his 23 again…man, what a mixed bag. 6 turnovers of his own, and some pretty sloppy ball all around, but some moments of pure Peja love, too, with three 3-pointers that we really needed, too. Hmm. And another not so great night for Jon Barry. Again, he’s out there, working his butt off (5 assists in his minutes), but no points and a lot of unprofitable time. I’d like to see a little Barry of old step up before we get too far into the season, as that, besides Jason, is what’s really missing for me so far.

Hey, I got to see Turkoglu play finally! Interesting choice, Rick putting him in when the chips were pretty south. Sure, it was only five minutes, and I’ll admit that in the first minute or so, I was decidedly unimpressed with what I saw—the kid looked lost out there, and really out of place. But suddenly, there was swiftness and skill from nowhere, and the big Turk put up a 3 before sitting back down. Way to go, Turk! And welcome to the Kings. Looking forward to seeing a little more of what you can do.

Again, not a pretty game, but hey…on the final scoreboard, it’s a two point loss in double overtime, which looks a whole lot better than, say, Orlando’s 26 point loss to Miami tonight (go Brian Grant! Love that guy!), or Detroit’s 20 point drop to Boston. If you’re just looking at the scores, we looked pretty good. But in truth, this was a not Kings joy. But as we Kings fans all know, you’re just NOT going to get the joy every game. Aaron, by the way, didn’t even hang around to finish the game tonight, finally getting ticked off with several minutes left in the 4^th, slurring out phrases like “This is crap. They’re going to lose. Thing is the old Kings. They can’t win on the road” and drunkenly stumbling off to bed and missing a pretty exciting double overtime. As Aaron’s not often prone to walking out of a game (unless you count game five of the playoffs last year), made me wonder if he didn’t whip through the game tape before I got home from work and already knew the outcome. If so, I’d better get used to it this season, as with my hours, I can’t expect the man to always feel like staying up until 1:00 a.m to watch the game on my hours. Ah, the tragedy, when work must get in the way of roundball.

Number two behind us. Detroit’s up ahead, waiting for us Friday night. Going to have Tim in town for that one, and well as for Minnesota the following night, so it’s back to the old Chicos watching the Kings again. A little La Casa reunion. Going to be great having Tim down here in SoCal this season. And hey, just took a good look at the schedule, and we’ve got a nice little 5-game home series coming up this month. That’s the third thing that’s missing—the glorious roar of the Kings fans at Arco. Counting the days until that sound.