Looks like the Kings' coach even thought about playing these two today.
With Golden State's big win and the Clippers' big loss, the Warriors now control their own destiny in their quest to make the playoffs. This was a painful loss for the Clips, and Bob Baker who writes the Clippers' blog in the L.A. Times summed it up best:
The Clippers played like a guy who wakes up groggy, has a cup of coffee and almost kills three people on the road waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Most of the fans responded in the same way-sluggishly, as Sacramento raced away with the game. It was like sitting in a morgue. This was the worst loss of the year, supplanting the Feb. 15 home loss to hapless Atlanta, when the Clips were outscored by the Hawks 34-18 in the fourth quarter, losing 96-93. And don't tell me about any valiant comeback attempt. I thought we had learned how to play a full 48 minutes.
Yeah, this one hurt. The Clippers started off surprisingly flat considering what was at stake, and were unable to recover from a 23-point deficit, even though Sacramento played only one of their starters (Artest) the entire fourth quarter.
You read that last part correctly. For some strange reason, the Kings went the entire fourth quarter with the likes of Francisco Garcia, John Salmons, Quincy Douby, and Justin Williams. Now I couldn't watch the game, but the L.A. radio guys were killing Sacramento for not trying to win with their best players. I'm sure the Golden State people won't be too thrilled to hear about this either. We'll have to wait for some answers from the Kings as to why they rested their starters in the fourth, I'm guessing we'll get some line about "seeing who they've got" for next year. But between this, the questionable Garnett injury, and the blatant tanking in Boston, the league really needs to do something about teams that are out of the playoffs just mailing it in for the rest of the regular season.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
In defense of Musselman, which I'm not apt to do...
This team isn't tanking. Brad Miller should've been shut down two weeks ago with recurring plantar fascitis, and he played a bunch tonight. Garcia has been playing out of his gourd the last month, and Salmons is a part-time starter when Artest is out. Williams is the only PF/C available besides Reef and Miller. (We don't count Potapenko, who has played like 10 minutes this year.) The team's made it known they wanted to get Douby some minutes this final week, and you can't fault them for that.
The closest the Clips got was 4. Yeah, it would've made sense to at least put Martin and Bibby in with about 5 to go, but obviously the Kings had enough on the floor to win. The only blowout they've suffered the last two weeks (which is how long they've been finished) was Friday against Golden State, who is playing phenomenal. No tanking here.
I hear ya, and I don't think the Kings were tanking either. But if the Clippers had actually come back to win and the Kings stuck with that lineup, I do think there would have been some rumblings about it around the league.
All I'm saying is there's an awful lot of grey area in terms of what teams are allowed to get away with the last few weeks of the season. And if the league doesn't do something about it, it will probably become a serious problem at some point.
You're right. A loss would've changed things, certainly.
I think this season may be an anomaly with the all out tanking, due to Oden and Durant. Minnesota needs to be talked to due to repeat offenses. But as Kelly Dwyer wrote last week on SI.com, this is not solely an NBA problem.