K gang.. yet another lackluster preview brought to you by the letter K, the number 4 and Harbingerofdoom. Harb's General Shootaround: Lets first off hope that my nick is not going to live up to itself today. The Kings are facing a Rockets team that is on a roll right now after beating the Suns, Sonics and Mavs during their current streak and are looking to show that it wasnt a fluke. For the Kings however, an old Rush tune keeps rolling through my head... <font color="black">"Plus ?a change, Plus c'est la meme chose</font>... the more that things change, the more they stay the same." This time its Miller who is out for an extended period of time with a fractured fibula. The good (and yes, I really had to stretch to find something good on this one) part is that its non-displaced (meaning that the bones are all still in the same place they are supposed to be) and the healing process wont be as extended as it could be. X's, O's and Matchups Tonights matchups are really going to be key for Sacramento with the Loss of Miller. My starting lineup has Bibby, Mobley, Stojakovic, Songaila and Skinner. The 4 and 5 spots will probably see a lot of substitutions as Thomas comes in to spell Songaila, Williamson comes in to not only to spell Stojakovic, but may even spend a bit of time at the PF position as well. Today we may even get a rare performance from Tag who matches up well enough with Yao (so long as they dont go to hack-n-Tag mode to put him on the free throw line). The game plan I would use if I were Adelman? Make T-mac earn his money today. Shut down everyone else with double teams and force T-mac to either make the long range shot (which he is more than able to do) or drive the lane and give him some punishment and hopefully some offenseive fouls. On the other side of the court, this is a team that the Kings can not afford to come out flat offensively against. The Rockets may not be the most solid of defensive teams, but they still have a defense and the Kings must be working the offense efficiently if the Kings expect to win. That also means that Stojakovic is going to have to wake up. Since his return from the strained Hammy, he has really only had one good night. since then its been all Bibby and this Rockets team is going to be prepaired for Bibby. Predictions: If the Kings can get more ball movement throgh the entire game, the offense will open up for them and they would be amazed at what would happen. But for some strange reason, this is a team that can only play well at one end of the ball in a game. Currently they are playing great defense and mediocre offense... something not really seen in Sacramento since the mid to late 90's. If Adelman can get them to buy into the fact that they actually can do both offense and defense in the same game, there is no telling what this team is capable of, but untill they get down to it, they will continue to let other teams hang around & get back into the game... ...At least we have Bibby on our side though. Kings 106 Rockets 102
