Sacramento — The effort was much better this time, but the results, as they often are for the Hawks on the road, stayed the same.

The Hawks lost to the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday, ruining Mike Bibby's chance at a grand homecoming against his former team with a 119-107 loss.

In addition to suffering their sixth straight loss, the Hawks (21-30) are slowly but surely playing themselves completely out of the Eastern Conference playoff picture with every setback.

They have three more games on this Western Conference road swing, their second and final such trip of the season, starting with Friday's game in Oakland against the Golden State Warriors.

Bibby played valiantly in defeat. He finished with 17 points and three assists while also playing on severely bruised right heel.

Bibby suffered the injury in his Hawks debut Tuesday night in a 122-93 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.

It wasn't even certain that he would play in his first game back here after being traded to the Hawks on Saturday.

But he played through the pain and helped keep the Hawks in the game until late in the fourth quarter, when the Kings' superior size and shot-making finally overwhelmed the Hawks.

Bibby's replacement, Beno Udrih, was deadly in the game's final minutes, penetrating and executing the pick-and-roll. He finished with 18 points and 10 assists, benefiting greatly from the tone set by the Kings' two leading scorers, Ron Artest and Kevin Martin.

Under constant siege from Artest and Martin early, the Hawks simply couldn't keep the pace as the game wore on.

Artest finished with a game-high 29 points, seven rebounds and three assists. Martin had 26, three and two.

Artest controlled the action on offense and defense most of the night. When he felt like flexing his muscle on offense, he simply plowed through Hawks defenders to get to the basket, flexing his muscle to the crowd on one play late in the game when he scored a layup after knocking Josh Smith to the floor.

On defense, he harassed everyone from Joe Johnson (16 points) to Bibby to backup point guard Acie Law IV, making sure that his menacing presence was the most dominant on the floor every moment he was in the game.

Josh Childress led the Hawks with 18.

The Hawks' first-half showing was considerably better than the one they gave Tuesday night in Los Angeles, when they trailed the Lakers by 36 points at the break.

The Kings' lead at the half was two, 62-60.

But Bibby had the Hawks in a good rhythm early; he finished the first half with 11 points and two assists.

And Law aided the cause with 10 solid minutes off the bench, including a 2-for-4 shooting effort from the floor.

The Hawks' bench outscored the Kings' reserves 23-10 before halftime, making sure that Artest's 20 points and Martin's 18 didn't do them in prematurely.