The finger-pointing continues in Sacramento, and although they've said otherwise numerous times, it's becoming more clear that Ron Artest and Mike Bibby can't play together.
"We've got to put away the individual stuff and go try to do the collective team thing," Bibby told the Sacramento Bee. "Try to win a game instead of trying to see how many points you can score or how many shots you can get up ... it's frustrating, but I think everybody's goal has to be winning, and I don't think it is.
|
|
| Kevin Martin is the team's leading scorer while shooting 50 percent from the field. (Getty Images) |
Not winning? That's an understatement. Imploding is more like it. Sacramento dropped consecutive home games to the Lakers, Blazers and Cavaliers -- surrendering an average of 117 points in the defeats. Though Bibby has a point about bad shots frequently going up, the team's biggest problem has been its defense. Specifically, the fact they don't have any.
The fact Bibby is talking about the team's offense as a problem should tell you how clueless he is about what's really holding the Kings back.
In fact, in the team's past three losses, he has led them in shot attempts every time, averaging nearly 20 a game. The ball has consistently been placed in his hands, and although his offense is coming around, if there's a problem going on with that side of the ball, it starts with him.
Kevin Martin, the leading scorer on this "bad team," is actually among the league's most efficient top scorers, shooting 50 percent from the field despite the fact many of his looks are from outside 15 feet. Artest, who does tend to lose his poise at times and looks too much for his own offense, is actually the Kings' third leading scorer.
The truth is that though this team got off on the right foot, the grind of the schedule quickly soured moods.
Artest has never dug how lax many of his teammates are on defense, and considering Bibby and Brad Miller didn't get it going offensively until recently, resentment has lingered. Usually, a winning streak is the cure for these type of ills, but Sacramento hasn't been able to string together more than two wins since November ended.
Losing three consecutive games at home for the third time this season has even caused the typically boisterous fan support in California's capital city to die down.
"The whole five and a half years I've been playing (in Sacramento), I don't think the team has been booed (like it was after the third quarter of Tuesday's loss to Cleveland)," Bibby told the Bee. "That's kind of bad as far as (them) always being behind us and getting us through hard times and stuff. That's tough."
It doesn't appear anything can get them through this particular hard time, and it certainly won't be crowd support. The Kings hit the road for five of the next six, and if they don't turn things around soon, will be left out of the playoffs for the first time in since 1998.
"We had a cycle of being a team that was very good, had a legitimate shot and we're trying to come back around to that without totally falling off a cliff," team president Geoff Petrie said, "Coming into the year, I thought we could compete for a playoff spot again. But we're obviously not playing well enough. At some point you have to call it for what it is."
