Excuse all typos. Mussst write fast. Way behinnd. Still need to get the canned goods. At least have already stocked up on bottled waater. Sand bags also done.

	Chris Webber doesn't just hold the team's fortunes in his hands, but the city as well.

The Kings have Game 2 Wednesday night. If they lose again to the Suns, a good possibility if the recent style of play continues, the first-round series will be 0-2 against the favorites and heading to Phoenix. And over. Not mathematically, but realistically. Can't help but wonder if the same fate will come to Sacramento. Over.

At least that's what it feels like. The team is remaining calm, for good reason. A resilient group all along. Three wins this season alone after trailing by at least 20 points -- including after being 28 down in the second quarter March 3 at America West Arena in Phoenix. Doesn't matter. Fans still brace for the nuclear winter.

It would be better to let Chris Webber go in the summer rather than pay the $120-something million as a free agent in the summer. That's been a big theme on the talk-radio and e-mail circuit since the loss Sunday. Rick Adelman has no clue. That's come up more than a few times, too. Fifty-five wins wiped out by one loss. Jason Williams isn't anywhere near ready to be the starting point guard for a championship team. OK, so they got one right.

People are griping. Not the team. The fans. These guys call L.A. a bandwagon town? Webber is the pride of the city in November, says around the all-star break that said city lacks diversity and excitement, and chiropractors suddenly are working long into the night. Whiplash everywhere. Same thing now.

	Webber

	Williams

It's a fine place. Really. Have been here about seven months now. Came from some community down south (hint: the NBA team from there beat the NBA team from here in the first round of the playoffs last season, won the championship, wobbled through much of this season and still took three of four meetings. Will win again in the second round this season, if the Kings make it that far). Massive inferiority complex -- who knows why since there is much to be proud of, but the big city-little city thing rages -- fanned by basketball inferiority.

Trying to get in tune with the local mindset. Asked around. Have been told it goes something like this: The personality is complex, far beyond the basic love other smaller cities (Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio) have for pro basketball as the only major-league sport in town. If the Kings lose the series to Phoenix, badly or otherwise, and the greatest regular season of the Sacramento era that started in 1985-86 ends with first-round elimination, there will be an implosion. Two, maybe three days of darkness. People roaming the streets to find food and loved ones.

	“	I don't know what the vibe is. I'm just saying if fans are walking away, then they're fair weather. But I'm sure that the majority of fans in Sacramento know better than that and they're not that retarded. They're going to stick with it and realize, 'Hey, this is just one loss. OK, fine, we didn't sweep 'em. There's an outside chance will can still win. One game, at least. Maybe.' ”
		— A sarcastic Scot Pollard

And then things will turn. The same people will get defensive and rise up against the critics, all of whom must either be in the media or from other cities. (Or, gulp, both.) By the end of that week, whatever week it is, the citizenry will turn its attention to how Geoff Petrie will save them and how great next season will be. And how dare anyone pick on their team! The season was a grand success, right? We're talking 55 wins!

Asked Adelman. He knows. This is the end of his third season here, the only time the Kings have reached the playoffs three years in a row since the Kansas City days with Cotton Fitzsimmons. Also had six seasons in Portland, a city likewise focused on its NBA team. The Trail Blazers had a much better tradition of winning, but a similar underlying current.

"I'm really not [surprised]," he said. "I think it's been kind of a knee-jerk overreaction for two years. I was more surprised last year when we're playing a team that won 20-plus games more than us, and when we lost to them it was like, 'Why? What happened to you guys?' I mean, c'mon. They ended up being the world champions, they had 20 more wins than we did, they have the best big guy and the best perimeter player in the game. We're kind of disadvantaged here.

"But your expectations change when you are successful. We were successful, so these people think that there can be no failure here. It's got to be a reason for it. We played a good team, we lost a basketball game. I expected everything you could expect the next day. I just felt it was going to be that type of reaction. The town, they're so into it, they want it that bad."

Asked Scot -- that's not another typo, he spells it that way -- Pollard. He played college ball at Kansas, so he knows a thing or two million about being in a town with hoops expectations. He played for the Pistons in 1997-98, so knows ... well, the point is he is in Sacramento now.

"I don't know what the vibe is," said the backup center/power forward, a critical element in the success of the season. "I'm just saying if fans are walking away, then they're fair weather. But I'm sure that the majority of fans in Sacramento know better than that and they're not that retarded. They're going to stick with it and realize, 'Hey, this is just one loss. OK, fine, we didn't sweep 'em. There's an outside chance will can still win. One game, at least. Maybe.' "

Sarcasm noted.

It hasn't helped that the Kings coasted into the playoffs. They were winning at the end. Beat San Antonio on the road in overtime. Beat Utah on the road. But they too often lacked the focus and intensity required in the playoffs. You should have seen the Mavericks scoring in transition after made baskets. A little more than a week ago in Phoenix, in what became a first-round preview, the Suns outhustled them to loose balls. A couple games before that, the Clippers took them to overtime at Arco Arena and win that game a year from now when Lamar Odom has better harnessed his great talents instead of trying to do everything on his own down the stretch. The only people surprised at what happened in Game 1 on Sunday were the ones who hadn't been paying attention for weeks.

It hasn't helped that the Kings are having another of those special Jason Williams moments. The latest is that he came out the week of the playoffs and questioned his role on the team. "At this point in my career, I don't know what some people want from me," he said. He means other than not hurling racial slurs at fans near the bench, working hard on defense and playing under control. "I'm just confused."

He's confused? Get in line. Adelman, who has been incredibly patient with Williams, did a slow burn over the comments, especially the timing. Fans, who figured that 15 years of patience was enough, flash angst after one game, apparently unaware that the rest of the series and the potential of another loss to the Lakers still remains. And some people try to ride out the storm. Here's hoping it reaches a safe conclusion for all concerned. Especially those of us hiding under the bed.

Scott Howard-Cooper covers the NBA for the Sacramento Bee and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.