Tonight the Kings hope to take one more step towards making the playoffs by downing the Suns and taking their current 10 game split of 6-4 to 7-3. One interesting fact is the Bibby - Nash head to head matchups. The Kings are 11-7 against Nash lead teams (including both Dallas and Phoenix) and they are 8-1 when Bibby outscores Nash. (15-3 if you include playoff games). Look for the Kings to get Bibby off to a good start. Defensivly, the Kings are going to have to have one of their better performances tonight to ensure that they win this game. It used to be that was a herculean effort, but take note, the Kings are not the soft dough-boy team it used to be. The Kings were 18-24 before the Artest trade and are 23-13 with Artest. They have also gone from allowing 100ppg down to 94ppg at a 42% clip. But they are playing a team that is avaraging 108ppg this year. Its a tough one to call, but given that the Suns have little to loose and are not playing their best right now combined with the loss of Stoudemire leaves the door wide open for the Kings to step through it.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The Kings were 18-24 before the Artest trade and are 23-13 with Artest. They have also gone from allowing 100ppg down to 94ppg at a 42% clip.</div> Nice stats Harbingerofdoom. The opposing fg.% of 42% is a key stat that tells you the Kings are nothing like the pre-artest team that couldnt play defense even if the fate of the world depended on it. Anyhow, i like our mismatch of Bonzi being guarded by Raja Bell and I also like the fact that the Suns wont be able to take advantage of our lack of size ( Thomas is 6'7 and we only have one 7 footer). If the Kings get can get to the Suns shooters on their defensive rotations and if Artest can stop Marion from making clean cuts into the paint then I'll like the Kings chances.
wow... last night was just a complete letdown. how can you have a team down by 17 with their only two main guys left already in foul trouble before the 4th only to loose the game by 13? Missed FT's, poor shooting decisions and just a general lack of second half defense killed them last night. I will give it to Phx though... Their TV announcer stated that the Suns do NOT want to play the Kings in the first half and they played like it.
30 point swing in the second half ? Ridiculous. I must say it was a great effort by PHX, but that 4th quarter was flat out as flukey as it gets. The suns shot 80% going 16-20 from the field in the 4th quarter. That would be hard to do in a shoot around practice session.
