Kings Flashback - The Return of J-Will!

Back for more 2000/2001 Kings game analysis by yours truly. Wrote this one up about the second Kings home game of the season - a big one because it was the first game of the season for the infamous (and unbelievable) Jason Williams. Why? Well, being young and...well, a cracker, he got himself in trouble with a little drug-testing debacle and a bit of the old Cheech and Chong. Hey...I said he was good...I didn't say he was smart. So having completed his five-game suspension, J-Will was back was something to prove, and despite their annoyance with him over the herbage, Kings fans were ready to see their #1 circus performer back in action. Would #55 disappoint in a home game against local rivals, the Golden State Warriors? I say, let's find out...

Golden State at Kings
11/08/2000

Pure basketball joy.

Okay, let’s say this up front. This was not the Warriors team that should have been. Golden State takes a lot of crap for their play and record, but they’ve been looking good this year, taking out the Suns in one fine match, which is no small feat (even without my man Rex Chapman coming off the Suns bench, out with injury). This was not the same team. They were off tonight. They couldn’t make a thing happen. Every team is going to have one of these nights, and God knows the Kings have had their fair share. So what you had was a Warriors team that couldn’t make anything happen at either end of the court. They were sloppy. They had no energy or drive. They were missing the rim like these were accountants playing a pickup game after work in the local park, with shots falling up to a couple of feet short of the basket. They were terrible.

And gave the Kings the perfect opportunity to put on one amazing show.

This was Jason Williams’ first night back after the 5-game Bob Marley suspension. All eyes in Sacramento—and around the roundball-lovin’ nation—were going to be on him tonight, to see what the golden boy was going to do in his first regular season game after a 1999-2000 that was both glorious and maddening for the then-sophomore, but never boring. And right off the bat, it was clear to everyone that J-Will was back…and so was Kings basketball the way we love it.

Jason was out there doing sideshow dribbles from the get-go, with complete confidence and focus. Was he still on his game? What do 12 rebounds tell you? Jason lit it up, and fed his teammates for some spectacular, show-stopping plays that the full house in Arco Arena had been waiting all summer for. I swear, that man could make Don Rickles look good if Don ended up under the hoop.

The game was all about show—spectacular passing from everyone involved, with smooth, stunning ball movement that took your breath away (and left the Warriors looking baffled and befuddled). The entire first half was one big highlight reel, and everyone was on their game in old school Kings fashion, ooing and ahing the fans and commentators.

C-Webb has his stroke back in monster fashion, plugging in his patented 18-footers on autopilot. He was on fire on “O” and “D”, with 27 points and 9 boards—all of the latter on the defensive end. Peja was looking questionable again at the start, ending up 11 for 18, but finally started hitting his marks and looking like the big mouth-breather of old with 27 big points, both from range and underneath, eating up some really pretty assists and throwing down a couple of jarring slams. Vlade was feeling it—and probably would have felt it a lot more if not for two early fouls that sat him down—and walked away with 8 points, 5 boards, and a couple of big steals. Christie was a pleasure to watch, fitting in with the starting boys like he’d been there with them all last season, reading the feeds, giving the goods (5 assists), and being a beast on defense. Loving that guy! Pollard did some good work, not lighting it up like in earlier games, but being the big man underneath and grabbing a couple for some highlight points of his own. Nick was real busy on defense, and sunk one of those big Nick 3’s I need at least one of per game. Barry only got 14 minutes of play, but managed 6 points and would have had a lot more assists if his teammates (who were starting to get too comfortable with their ridiculous lead) would have finished things up. Bobby Jackon, the hero in the final minutes of the Portland game 2 nights before, didn’t get as many minutes as he had been, of course, as he settled into his backup role that he’ll be playing the rest of the season (if Jason lays off the Zig Zags), but was rocking on the defense and dropped a pretty 3, Sac-Town style. And let’s talk about Fundy! It’s becoming obvious, to me at least, that this could really be his season if he gets his minutes (Webber has to sit down for at least a FEW minutes a game, right?). In his 17 minutes tonight, Larry put up 12 points, and points with authority, baby, and deserved a few seconds of SportsCenter time he won’t get. Some monster jams and some really strong, hard work under the hoop. And color me happy, Rick even gave Darrick some minutes tonight (things were actually going THAT bad for Golden State). He made a few moves. But most importantly, in the final seconds, he gave me my D-Mar 3! This was a moment when Grant Napear was verbalizing that he was probably going to run down most of those seconds. Grant HAS been watching Darrick play all this time, right? Darrick let fly in the middle of Grant’s sentence, and hit the mark, putting a big exclamation point on an almost embarrassing win.

And everybody got to play tonight (I love Golden State games), so that meant a few minutes for the big Turk—Hedo Turkoglu (I think I’ve finally got the pronunciation down), and the crowd cheered the minute he stepped off the bench, giving him a great hometown welcome. This man, by the way, has officially won the title of biggest nose in the NBA. Larry Bird would be proud. In just 6 minutes he gave the team as many points, and showed off his easy, confident shot. I really hope Turk gets more minutes, because this kid really does have big fat Euro game.

I did I mention defense, by the way? Defense! When did we learn to play defense? White shirts were all over the Warriors, blocking, stealing, grabbing, jumping. This is what sports writers have so much fun dogging us on, and it looks like we finally may have a fire under us to keep from giving away so many points per game. You put powerful defense with the kind of magical Kings offense we saw in full glory tonight, and what you’ve got is a team that can go up against the best in the NBA and hammer their way into the playoffs instead of sneaking in the back door.

Again, I don’t know what was up with Golden State, but I really was feeling empathy, having seen so many Kings teams have similar nights over the years. The game was really over in the first 3 minutes. They never got it back. They never really seemed to even try. This is a shame, because I was really looking forward to checking out the skills of this Fortson guy who’s been out-boarding Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, and every other rebounder in the league, putting up 15 points to match 15 rebounds a game. Sure enough, at the end of the game I realized he had 17 points and 14 rebounds, but I hadn’t even really noticed, so overshadowed by such a horrible overall team “effort” as he was. It was good seeing Vinny Del Negro playing again (and old-school Sac man, a draft pick of ours back in the late 80s), and he was looking pretty good—all things considered. If there were any moments for Oaktown fans to hold onto for the game, they both came from Foyle, who handed the Kings two FAT embarrassing blocks, one stopping a Pollard slam and the other a Funderburke layup, both of which looked like sure things. But I don’t think there’s going to be any fond memories for the Warriors on this night. Final score was 115-84, and Golden State was in for a very long bus ride home.

Where they’ll be playing the Kings again Friday night, and where I guarantee we’ll see a much better game, and a Warriors team looking for redemption and good old-fashioned payback. I think we’ll see a lot more of this tough new Warriors team we’ve been hearing about, and the Kings would be making a big mistake to walk in too overconfident (easy to do, seeing as how about half the crowd there will be King fans driving down from Sacramento anyway). As much as I enjoyed the big highlight show tonight, I look forward to a tougher, body-crashing floor war Friday, which had better not pump me up too much, because I have to get straight to bed after to get up at 5:00 am to get to a training class at work. Still, I do hope to stumble into that class droopy-eyed but gloating, still high on the previous night’s big Kings love.

Welcome back, J-Will.

And just say no.