I enjoyed the conviction with which Kings commentator Grant Napear said “Ball game!” following Nemanja Bjelica’s three-pointer with around 2 minutes left to put the Kings up 12. I also enjoyed the slightly more subdued “Woo!” from Doug Christie.
The conviction was misplaced, however, as there ended up being a lot more basketball played. The Suns kept extending the game, hitting shot after shot as time dwindled, with various Sacramento players parading to the free-throw line in an unexciting display of foul-shot shooting. The Kings did manage to hold on, which is good, because it would’ve been very Kings-like to somehow choke this game away. They never would’ve heard the end of it.
The Suns and Kings are busy reversing their early-season records, with the Kings on the upswing and the Suns on the downswing. Lots of hastily-considered words were written about the Kings’ horrid start to the season (some written by me), but they’ve turned things around and are winning games at a very respectable pace. Part of that is due to Bjelica coming back to life after an iffy first few games. I don’t know how long this will last from him; he started off last season really strong before coming back down to earth. But for now, the Serbian Superteam in Sacramento has a very potent second member (the first being Bogdan Bogdanovic, duh, who did you think it was?).