‘Who’s friends with this guy?’ Sacramento Kings fans drown out Warriors supporters at DoCo

If you love the sound of cowbells, look no further than outside Golden 1 Center before a Sacramento Kings playoff game.

Thousands of Kings fans packed Sacramento’s Downtown Commons on Saturday afternoon to revel, hobnob, imbibe and heckle anyone who dared to wear blue and gold.

Golden State Warriors fans were met with a mixture of boos, thumbs down, shouts of “KINGS IN FOUR!” and, of course, a chorus of aggressively shaken cowbells. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky onto a sea of purple and gray, and an occasional breeze wafted smells of beer and sweat.

“Take it off! Take it off!” yelled Kings fan Jon Lardy, 28, toward a fan wearing a Stephen Curry jersey. “Put it in the trash!”

Lardy was decked out with purple body paint, purple opera mask, a button-up shirt with the sleeves cut off and a purple striped tie. On the front, he wrote all the dates of every game the Kings won this season.

“We’ve been getting clowned for a long time,” Lardy said. “These are all the receipts of the wins we have, so we can show the Warriors and the rest of the NBA just why we’ve earned the right to be here.”

Despite taunts and jeers from Kings faithful, like Lardy, plenty of bold Warriors fans repped their team proudly.

See the divide, a beam apart

Rudy Solorzano, 46, has tried for years to get his partner, Raquel Aguilar, to change loyalties and join the Warriors fandom. A native of San Francisco, he lives in Citrus Heights now, but he’s never thought about adopting the Kings as his team.

“You know, you gotta go with the winners,” he said. “We are the defending champs.”

Aguilar, a lifelong Kings fan from Lodi, dug her heels in deep.

“I’m just like, ‘Stop dude!’” she said, laughing. “We should’ve left this kid at home!”

She and her brother Art have waited 17 years to see the Kings back in the playoffs. They spent between $1,000 and $2,000 on StubHub to get seats in section 103.

“I might be 80 years old the next time the Kings make the playoffs,” Aguilar said. “I’m so excited, this was on my bucket list.”

She wants to see the beam light the sky after her first playoff game.

But Solorzano?

“I want it to be dark,” he said.

Hear the divide, cacophony of cowbells

Fans amassed outside the northwest entrance as game time ticked closer. Some held up signs reading, “BEAM TEAM” and “WHY NOT US?” Along with “What We Need is MORE COWBELL”.

Chants of “KEEEGAN” followed by “MURRRRAY” followed by “SAC-RAH-MEN-TOH!” rang out over the crowd.

And, oh my, the cowbells. One fan would jingle a bell, and just like at a wedding when a guest tings a wine glass to start the toast, the ringing crescendoed into a cacophony of cowbells.

Brian Farmer chose to spend his 30th birthday cheering on his Kings. As he made his way to the entrance, he couldn’t help but think back to the last time he saw the team in a playoff game. That was 20 years ago – in 2003 – when Farmer was only 13.

“I’m emotional,” he said. “I just want to cry.”

‘Who brought this guy?’

Tagging along with Farmer and his friend Tony Roa was Warriors fan Paul Payam from San Francisco. Unlike his friends, who acknowledged the gravitas of a 17-year wait, Payam didn’t seem too moved.

“I mean, we’re in the playoffs like every year,” he said. Around him, the crowd erupted with boos.

“Who brought this guy?” someone shouted. “Who’s friends with this guy?”

Farmer and his friend Tony Roa have tickets for section 221, row Q. Payam and his partner, on the other hand, has standing room only on the floor.

Those who couldn’t get seats inside Golden 1 could watch the game outside in section 916 on big screens mounted to the side of an L Street parking garage. That’s where Jared Rose, John “J.C.” Dossantos, Blake Landis and Daniel Shevchyk were heading as they crossed the DoCo plaza Saturday afternoon. The quartet met as roommates at Sacramento State, but on gameday, they’re a divided household.

“I don’t know them today, they’re weird,” said Shevchyk, pointing at Warriors fans Rose and Landis. Shevchyk, 24, is from Sacramento and sported a Peja Stojakovic jersey. He rattled off memories from his lifelong love of the Kings.

He danced with a Ukrainian dance group at halftime once in Arco Arena, he said. And he hated the blue plastic seats as a child – they made his backside ache.

Shevchyk defended his team against attacks from Rose and Landis.

“We’ve earned it this year!” he said. “You guys have just been sitting there with all that cash and all that money – you buy your players!”

Suddenly, a chorus of cowbells erupted from the crowd. When that died down, chants of “Light the Beam!” and “Here we stay!” swelled.

Now all they need is their victory beam.