Will the Kings eat well on the road?

Plus other Pacific Division questions

The Kings are as good as it gets. Hired the hardass head coach to work them into shape, cut the tough coach loose in time to promote the in-house favorite, who trimmed the fat and reminded everyone here that they can earn more capital in California’s capitol than anywhere else.

Coach can do that because he’s from here, Sacramento, where the Kings won’t be for a little while. The Kings didn’t even sleep in their own beds after winning at home on Wednesday, jetting directly to Denver to play the Nuggets on Thursday. Kings coach Doug Christie can tell his players what it is like to earn above-market money in Sacramento, and he is familiar with criticisms that the Kings can’t play well away from Sacramento’s Kingdom.

Doug’s current Kings are fine away from home, 10-8, the sixth-best mark in the West. Doug’s old Kings? Invincible at the home arena, slightly less so away from the home arena, which was enough to drive pundits to wonder incorrectly if Christie’s turn o’ the century Kings were all cowbell, no milk.

Gross.

Those pundits were silly, the 2002 Kings owned the NBA’s best road record.

Me? I’m super-silly, but super-super-serious about what Sacramento is scheduled to endure. Starting Thursday, the Kings work 17 of 23 games on the road, a span which reaches to St. Patrick’s Day, a night the Kings will be asked to perform.

Is nothing sacred, in this league. We Irish built half a railroad.

After a league-leading 25 games at home (13-12), the 23-20 Kings are a game out of the Play-In, behind the 24-19 Clippers, a club which sits its stars so its stars do not implode, sucking in each of us. Thank you, Clippers.

The Kings are also in credible reach of the 23-18 Lakers, a game behind the franchise which repeatedly vanquished Christie’s former Kings, just humiliated them, over and over. Taking a second to think about that. Bob Horry. That had to be rough.

Christie’s team was 5.5 games behind the Lakers when the Kings fell in Los Angeles during Doug’s head coaching debut on Dec. 28. The team closed the gap by winning all but one (road loss in Milwaukee) of its next ten.

The offense rolls, players appear freed to improvise off ball, maybe go to the glass instead of sticking in the corner, stuff like that. Why is this happening now, and not earlier?