SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sacramento Kings coach Dave Joerger addressed reporters late Tuesday night, fans filing out of a mostly empty Golden 1 Center after another surreal night where protests became more salient than the final score.
"The bigger issue," he said amid his own anger rising from his team's performance, "is that we couldn't get friends and family members (into the arena). So your biggest concern before you play a game is, 'Is my family OK?' "
And so it may be again Thursday, when the Kings (24-51) take the home floor for the third-to-final time this season against the Indiana Pacers.
Protesters angry with a police shooting that killed an unarmed Sacramento man have interrupted two of the team's past three home appearances.
The message by those protesting Stephon Clark's death March 18 has been present at every Kings game since the shooting, with Sacramento players speaking out on the topic and players wearing black warm-up T-shirts that say, "Accountability, we are one," on the front.
"We know it could happen, it might happen, but we can't let it change how we play," Kings forward JaKarr Sampson told the Sacramento Bee. "We're allowed to protest, and they're allowed to do what they do out there, and as basketball players, majority of us African American in the league, we understand what's going on out there.
"We respect that, but we've still got to come in, be professionals, and bring the same juice, the same energy every night."
Joerger was plenty dissatisfied with that juice in Sacramento's 103-97 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday. The defeat marked the Kings' fourth in five games and dropped them to 1-3 on a six-game homestand. They have only 13 victories at Golden 1 Center.
Indiana (44-31) is moving in the opposite direction. A 92-81 road win at the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday gave the team a three-game winning streak and lifted its record to 25-12 since Jan. 3.
The Pacers overcame a 15-point deficit and remain one-half game behind the Philadelphia 76ers for the fourth seed in the Western Conference and home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.
Bojan Bogdanovic is particularly hot. He's averaging 21 points over his past three games and scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half against Golden State. For the season, he's averaging 14.1.
Thaddeus Young's improvement also has fueled Indiana. He had a double-double against the Warriors (17 points, 10 rebounds) and has tallied six of them in Indiana's past 31 games after recording only two in its first 44.
"I've always tried to be, instead of up and down, just tried to be consistent," Young told the Indianapolis Star. "If I'm not scoring, rebounding or getting steals, if I'm not having a good game, picking guys up. That's what vets do."
Fellow veteran Darren Collison, who averaged 14.2 points and 4.7 assists in three seasons with Sacramento, went 0 for 4 and collected only three points and two assists against the Kings in the Pacers' 101-83 home victory on Oct. 31.
Pacers forward Trevor Booker left the Warriors' game with a sprained right ankle in the second quarter, and the Pacers have not said whether he will play.
