So now I've seen the Sacramento Kings play two games against the Los Angeles Lakers, and lose badly both times. Sure, they're the 8th seed and LA is the #1 seed with a 67-15 record compared to their 44-38. And the Kings ended the season winning like one out of seven games to fall from 7th place to 8th place. But I was hoping they'd be more competitive.

In the first game the Kings got off to a good start. They were hitting all their shots and mainting a bit of a lead against the Lakers. But the Lakers were getting an awful lot of offensive rebounds to stay in the game. Then when the Kings came down to Earth the Lakers kept getting the rebounds and just ran away with the game.

It's a bit frustrating to see the Lakers take a shot, miss, then a Laker comes out of nowhere to grab the offensive rebound. You're supposed to block out the rebounders. Oh well, the Kings are not a defensively oriented team, much to coach Adelman's chagrin I'm sure. Moving around, staying with your man, blocking out, switching assignments, those are all the little nitty gritty details that a good defensive team has to do. It's not flashy, but it is necessary.

The other thing was that once they started going cold they kept shooting too many outside shots. They have four players -- Divac, Webber, Williamson, and Anderson -- who are quite capable of pounding it inside for the close range baskets. You get in there you'll take a bit of a pounding from the defenders, but you'll get good shots and draw fouls, it's easier to score if you can stand the heat.

That was a consistent problem in the first two games for the most part. They just didn't take the ball into the paint and challenge the defense of the Lakers. Too many outside shots, which is not so bad unless you're missing a lot because in general a team gets fewer offensive rebounds with outside shooting. There were spurts when the Kings scored some points and got closer, but they just couldn't get anything tangible going for any big length of time.

Down 2 to 0, with only one more loss away from elimination, the action moves to Arco Arena, where the Kings have a chance to win a game or two. I wasn't expecting them to beat the Lakers, but I was hoping that they would win a game or two and play more competitively. I'm still happy to watch them play since they're my hometown team.

Which brings me to the point that although I haven't lived there in ten years, I still consider Sacramento my hometown. Berkeley, Concord, the whole Bay Area is just where I happen to live, but I don't really think I'll be living here twenty years from now. It's not like I've been thinking about it at all. I live in the Bay Area, I'm not a Bay Area person.

Looking at the NHL playoffs, we see that the San Jose Sharks upset the best team in the NHL to advance to the quaterfinals. The Sharks started the regular season well but had a bad run and just got into the playoffs. They had a couple of lucky games but beat St Louis handily in two games. I also see that the Detroit Red Wings have also advanced. My favorite hockey team, and Sergei Federov is my favorite player, but that's because of a great commercial I saw promoting something. Federov skating circles around all the defenders until the goalie finally stops him by running him over with a Zamboni.