Kings coach Reggie Theus stood with red eyes and drooping shoulders at the postgame podium on Tuesday night, dispirited in defeat but willing to provide all the answers to a long list of questions from the media.

The more relevant question, of course, is whether the answers will satisfy a front office that continues to watch his courtside performance so closely.

His team's 99-94 loss to Utah had been a new kind of low, the seventh in a row and 10th in the last 11 games and very different because of the confusion and disbelief Theus' late-game decisions had caused. It was also the Kings' seventh consecutive loss at home, the first time that has happened since a stretch of eight home losses in a row in the 1993-94 season.

With four minutes left and the Kings down 85-82 to a Jazz team playing without Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer and Matt Harpring, Theus inserted guard Quincy Douby into the game after the third-year player had yet to play.

He couldn't call on his most clutch player in Francisco García, the swingman who had ice wrapped around his recovering right calf and whose night ended with a decision from the player and the medical team that 31 minutes in his third game back from injury would be enough. He didn't call on Bobby Jackson, the veteran guard who had hit 2 of 9 shots (0 of 4 from three-point range) in his 28 minutes to that point.

So as the players of recent influence looked on, the bizarre Douby saga of this season continued anew. Douby – who had played in just 33 minutes combined in the last seven games – had virtually disappeared since his horrific three-game stretch in mid-November. The missed potential game winners against San Antonio and Phoenix were bad enough for the third-year player, let alone the 0-for-9 outing against Memphis in the next game.

Yet from the time the Kings trailed 87-86 with 2:15 left to the time the end was all but decided when Mehmet Okur hit two free throws for a four-point lead with 13.8 seconds remaining, Douby took three of the Kings' five shots at the most crucial of times. He came up way short on a three-pointer from the left with 2:15 remaining and the Kings down 87-86, then went long with an airballed three-pointer from the right with 50 seconds left. In between, Douby hit two free throws after he was fouled going to the rim.

"Bobby, I thought, was getting tired," Theus said. "He was guarding Kyle Korver (15 points on 4-of-9 shooting), running around picks. He had missed a few shots. I just looked at him and thought he was tired."

The Kings were without swingman John Salmons (strained left thigh), but they had shooting guard Kevin Martin for the first time in 13 games after his absence with a left ankle injury.

While Martin's minutes were supposed to be capped at 25, he played 32 and scored 22 points. Yet he took his last shot of real relevance with 3:48 remaining.

Asked if he could have conserved García's minutes to have his sharpshooter at the end, Theus said it wasn't that simple.

"If I was writing a script, if it was (his former television show) 'Hangtime,' then maybe," Theus said.

While García said he approved of the decision to sit for all but two minutes of the fourth, Jackson wasn't so satisfied with Theus' answers.

"I was fine, man," he said. "I wasn't gassing. You aren't going to shoot the ball the way you want every night, but defensively those are moments I play for. I like challenges like that."

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