Kings seek to spoil party for Warriors

It has come down to this.

Spoiler roles. Silver linings. Rivalry games. Mucking it up, as Kings coach Reggie Theus has said so often recently.

Tonight at Golden State, the fate of this historic Western Conference playoff race could be on the line.

"It just gives the guys a little extra juice to play," Theus said of the chance to affect the race. "To have an effect on what's going to happen in the West is a good thing."

And pulling a repeat of last year's final Warriors meeting would be, well, a bad thing.

In this climate of lowered fan interest and Arco Arena sellouts when the visiting team is nice enough to bring its own followers, the Kings should remember what happened around this time last year. April 13, 2007, went down as the day Warriors fans filled the building with chants of "Let's go, Warriors!" while their team's 125-108 win ultimately put them into the playoffs for the first time in 12 seasons.

The victory gave Golden State the win in the season series (3-1) for just the second time since 1994, all while the Kings' playoff streak of eight in a row was broken and so many Sacramentans turned their attention to the Warriors and their electric ways.

Once again, the Kings are intimately involved in this playoff race in every way except actually being part of it. With the Warriors' losses at San Antonio and Dallas to start the month, their playoff lives in this brutal Western Conference race were on life support. Until, that is, the Kings pulled off Saturday's stunner at Denver, which was followed with the Nuggets reeling even more with Sunday's double-overtime loss in Seattle.

Thus, the race is on again. The Nuggets hold the tiebreaker with Golden State, and Dallas is suddenly leaving this part of the playoff picture, as it has a two-game lead for the seventh spot. Denver and Golden State (both 46-31) are in eighth place, with five games left and one on the verge of making unenviable history.

If either team finishes with 49 wins and doesn't make the playoffs, it will tie the 1971-72 Suns for that painful distinction of winningest seasons without a postseason. The 2000-01 Houston Rockets (45-37) had the best season without a playoffs since the format expanded to eight teams per conference in 1984.

The Kings, meanwhile, have the opportunity to spoil a team's season and crash the stage that is so perfectly set. If the Warriors do as expected and win tonight, and the Nuggets beat the Clippers in Los Angeles, then the tie will remain just in time for Thursday's Warriors-Nuggets game in Oakland.

First, though, the Warriors must get past a Kings team that has 13 wins against teams with winning percentages of .597 (which the Nuggets and Warriors have now) or better. Even with the Kings continuing to play a long rotation as part of their youth movement, they have shown an ability to be effective.

The latest example came Sunday night, when the combination of Anthony Johnson, Quincy Douby, John Salmons, Mikki Moore and Shelden Williams went on a 15-4 run in the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 12. They also should benefit from the expected return of point guard Beno Udrih, who has missed 10 of the last 11 games with a lower back strain.

"(We) look at these games like (when the Warriors) beat us and made us miss the playoffs, so why wouldn't we try and do the same?" Kings shooting guard Kevin Martin said Monday. "I don't think there's any letup because we want to go into next season on a positive note."

Martin is on his way to doing just that. Despite missing 17 games with a groin strain, he broke his own Sacramento-era free throws made record Sunday that was set in 80 games (482). He is on the verge of another achievement. With 1,398 points for the season, he needs two more points to reach the minimum total to qualify among the league leaders in scoring. He is sixth in the league in scoring (23.7 points per game), behind Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire (25.2) and ahead of Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki (23.6).

About the writer:

• Read Sam Amick's Kings blog at www.sacbee.com/blogs.