Most frustrating of fashions? That means the Marcus Thornton foul with time running out on Arron Afflalo. It's Isaiah Thomas missing 1 FT (before an Afflalo made 3 that cuts the Kings lead to 1) that would have sealed the game. It's the Kings not really running any quality plays beyond a few PnR's with Tyreke Evans and Jason Thompson early in the OT.

As far as losses go, I don't like it. I didn't see much of the game in truth, and what I did see (the final 28 secs and OT), I could see the Kings were in position to win a game on the road against an opponent that had wiped the floor with the Kings in two previous meetings this season.

Other thoughts after the jump....

There are things with the Kings, as frustrated as I was tonight with this Kings group, that are worth nothing above and beyond the frustrating losses. So after the jump, here are my thoughts regarding the rest of the season starting with Denver.

The bottom line? The Kings have a group of young players who make incredibly silly and stupid basketball stupid plays. In a league where precision and execution are just enough to often give you a simple SHOT at winning games, the Kings sloppiness and terrible shot taking often kills them when the opponent is not screwed up by their freneticism. Rarely does that freneticism is done on purpose by the Kings, and that's basically what happened tonight vs the Suns. If you've seen most of this season, you've seen this Kings team. Here is the boxscore.

Tonight is one of those nights, and that's really what it comes down to. The Clippers came in 8 games above 500 an offensive juggernaut, and tonight they hit a lot of shots. There will be nights where they will hit a lot of contested shots, but tonight many of those shots were spot up wide open shots. Some of that was the Clippers did move the ball exceptionally well. Here is the box score.

There's really not a whole lot to say about this team that I haven't said about individual players, general trends or anything else. So just some things that mattered a great deal towards deciding the outcome

Too many TO's. Period. You can't be a professional basketball team and consistently turn the ball anywhere near 18 times.

Forgive me for these ridiculous words masquerading as a preview, but that's the way it is.

Clippers are better than the Kings, but they lost to the Wolves Tuesday night so that's....something. I'm not sure what it means for the Kings though. The Clippers for what's it wroth are 8-7 on the road (as opposed to 12-5 at Staples) and the Kings are at 8-5 at the artist formerly known as the scamming wristband. (This is known as foreshadowning.)

On a real note, I am excited to see what kind of response the Kings come out with against a top tier team like the Clippers (I'd argue they are top 3 in the West after Oklahoma City and San Antonio).

The Kings Pace is 93.6 possesions per game (3rd of 30), the ORtg is 100.5 points per 100 possessions (24th of 30)  and the DRtg is 108.5 points per 100 possesions  (28th of 30). Lob City's Pace is 89.8 possesions per game (23rd of 30), the ORtg is  108.0 points per 100 possessions (3rd of 30) and the DRtg  is 105.5 points per 100 possessions (21st of 30).

If you watched the game, and if you watched the Jazz feed as I did, you would have heard Matt Harpring quote Jerry Sloan. The quote? "This game is not played in tuxedos." Damn skippy. Here is the box score for your perusal.

I apologize for this being short but there is little to say if you saw the game. It was physical, and there was actually a few bad calls that went the Jazz's way. That said, the game was about the Kings setting the tempo and the attitude of the game. Whenever the Kings set both of those, they took it to the Jazz. The problem is this Kings team is not always consistent or attitudinally correct all the time. Which is the downs you see. Onto the bullets......

Well then. Here we are. First, let me show you an image that I think sums up this situation very well:

This is via Think Big Sacramento's Twitter.

Well, let's check in at the funding sources for the "supposed" 387 million dollar arena.

200 million from the leasing of the parking garages. Some monetary piece from the County of Sacramento using 3 parking lots nearby the city owned parking garages. 70 million from the Maloof family. 50 million or so from AEG is the number typically bandied about.

That's 320 million if those numbers are anywhere near accurate. And I think 320 million dollars gets the arena built for right now. Fully paid for? Obviously not. But you get the thing started and it's only semantics from there.

Plus their are ticket surcharges, brick selling (likely only a million or two dollars at most), a hotel tax that will likely be very little annually as well.

I believe this is a great day, I'm not sure what I can tell you that others can't. I will say that Seattle will always be lurking, and so will Anaheim.

A Bee story that suggests the Maloofs will put up 75 million up front and 75 million over the life of an arena. That's not insignificant no matter how you view the Maloofs.

As Rob McAllister  notes on KFBK (who has been in Orlando following this story), the next key part is to get an "term sheet" together so that the City Council (of Sacramento) has time to review and vote for the use of parking garages on March 6th.

McAllister did a podcast with the Cowbell Kingdom crew (Jon Santiago and James Ham) this morning before the news broke. Please listen, as always.

Good news today on a lot of fronts. Whatever the case is going on, there is more news coming out and while I don't think I can get all of it, there is the reality that this is a great 1st step to getting a new arena. This is a tough step to hurdle, and possibly the toughest step of all.

But, we aren't finished, and don't forget that. Don't exhale until building of the construction starts. For now, here is my reaction: #HEREWESTAYEDBITCHES!!!!!!

This is going to be a bit disorganized so I'll just say these are the notes as I was watching the game after it was over. (Yes I knew the Kings won.)

Some notes about the 4th quarter (fairly scattered as these are rough notes):

Isaiah handoff to Chuck Hayes with 6:33 remaining in the 4th for a layup; this puts Kings up 5.

After 2 Wiz 3's (one by Roger Mason & Jordan Crawford), Francisco Garcia misses a jumper. Then, on the other hand, the Kings force a miss, come out of the crowd with the ball, and Isaiah Thomas scores the bucket that keeps the Kings up for the rest of the game with 4:02 remaining. The score is now 102-101 Kings.

With 4:28 remaining Chuck Hayes gets his 2nd of 2 baskets (the only 2 he attempts) off a Jason Thompson missed basket. The Kings are now up 104-101, and the Wizards turn it over on the ensuing possession.

After Jordan Crawford scores his last bucket, Isaiah Thomas answers with another driving layup at the 3:33 mark.

With 2:36 remaining, Isaiah Thomas hits a layup after Chuck Hayes and Marcus Thornton trap Jordan Crawford to get a steal. Thomas leaks out and gets an easy basket off this steal. This puts the Kings up 110-103. (DeMarcus Cousins was also set to come into the game, but after the timeout apparently Keith Smart changed his mind.)

With 2 minutes remaining, Thornton does his typical "standing there with the ball and jab stepping". He then splits the defenders, loses the ball, Chuck Hayes picks it up and gets fouled. Hayes hits both FT's. The Kings are now up 112-103 with 1:49 remaining.

With 1:15 remaining, Francisco Garcia hits the 3 that seals the deal. The Kings are now up 115-105. (The previous Wizards possession Kevin Seraphin has a dunk.)

With 29 seconds Jason Thompson gets an offensive rebound that allows the Kings to essentially run out the clock. Kings win 115-107.

After last night's scintillating loss where a pretty cool answer to a trivia question emerged (Q: Who has scored the most points on Miami Heat in a single quarter this season? A: Isaiah Thomas), the loss to Miami still counts as a L. Tonight, the scintillating and lovely dysfunctional Washington Wizards. A group that makes the Kings, umm, look good.

Both teams are at the  bottom of everything you can be at. I'm not going to write the ORtg/DRtg's for both because they are both bottom 5 in ORtg/DRtg.

In a loss that wasn't nearly as embarrassing as the final score might indicate, the Kings actually showed some positive things tonight. Tyreke Evans actually played like a NBA player (it's a nice change), Isaiah Thomas had a career night going off for 20 points in the 3rd quarter (a season high in a quarter for a Miami opponent) and 24 points for the game (a new career high), and the ball movement at times from the entire team was something to behold. But, when you run into a championship contender who have all the answers you simply won't win. That's Miami in a nutshell.