Los Angeles Lakers vs. Sacramento Kings

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The closest thing this team has to a neighbour it refuses to take seriously is up the valley in Sacramento, and that dismissiveness has never once been reciprocated. Northern California arrives carrying a grievance that is entirely one-directional, which is a genuinely funny dynamic to sit inside: one half of the building treating it as another Friday, the other half treating it as the night they have been waiting for. Tournament group games sharpen that further, since the arithmetic is public and everybody can do it. A Friday tip means downtown is at its loudest beforehand and the whole area stays open long after the final buzzer. Take the side you do not normally take and see how differently the evening reads from there. Arrive in time for the warmup, which on a tournament night is the one chance to see the painted floor empty and properly lit before twenty thousand people fill the seats around it. It is a genuinely odd sight and it only exists a handful of nights a year.