Despite win, troubles on defense again resurface

Coming off an impressive defensive performance against the Los Angeles Clippers, the Kings let a team that is 28th overall in scoring and only has 5 wins score 130 points. They won the game, and yes they scored 142 themselves, but the defensive performance was yet another example of how this team continues to lack consistency.

The Magic scored 30 or more points in three of the quarters Wednesday night, and shot 54% from the field and 50% from three in the first half. The performance on that side of the ball was so bad that even after a win (the team’s third in a row), it was a main topic of discussion in the postgame.

Head coach Alvin Gentry led his comments with it.

“We have to do better defensively as far as keeping our man in front of us. The dribble penetration I thought was tough all night. We’ve got to do a better job of getting over screens There was too many instances where they were getting the basketball and going downhill against us and we’re stuck on screens and stuff so we’ve got to do a better job with that,” he said. “And then I thought we’ve got to do a better job of coming up with some 50-50 balls. The ball was on the floor quite a bit and it always seemed to end up in their hand and we’ve got to do a better job with that. So, it’s great winning the game, obviously, but there’s just so many areas that we’ve got to get better in and more consistent in as I say every night up here.”

That is a lot there to get better at.

Throughout the game, the Magic were granted easy layups and never were really taken out of their offense, which is concerning with how inefficient Orlando’s offense is. Gentry said he doesn’t want to try to win games where you are giving up 130 points, even though he liked the ball movement and unselfishness on offense.

“I think that puts really, really too much pressure on your offense,” he said.

It worked Wednesday night, but as Tyrese Haliburton said, it’s, of course, not acceptable or sustainable.

“If we’re not going to guard then we’ve got to score and we did that tonight, but it’s not something that we can continue to think that we are able to do. You’re not going to make shots every night so we’re going to have to be better defensively,” he said.

De’Aaron Fox echoed this.

“You want to rely on your defense a little bit more than what we did tonight,” Fox said. “Obviously, all games aren’t going to be like this and we’re not going to score over 140 in most games so we have to be able to crack down on defense more than we did tonight.”

The Kings currently sit at 25th in defensive efficiency. Aside from the obvious struggles in this game, what is more concerning, as has been the case for as long as we can remember now, is how consistently inconsistent this team is. They can come out and hold the Clippers to under 100 points and basically take Paul George out of the game, and then follow that up with a clunker like this on defense.

In the end, the Kings have still won three in the row and remain in the hunt for the play-in tournament (they are currently 10th in the west).

Is your hope back??

By now, we all know what could happen over the next week. Harrison Barnes warned about what not keeping their focus could result in: “We’ve had points in the season where we say, this is time where we turn the edge, this is the time where we’re going to run off this many games, then you lose four straight, right? So, I think for us it’s a matter of being consistent, just every single day knowing that we can do all the talking we want, and all the meetings and the feel-good sessions, but until we go out there and do it, it doesn’t really matter.”

The Kings now go on the road to face the New Orleans Hornets (14-13), Cleveland Cavaliers (14-12), and Toronto Raptors (11-14).  Here’s to hoping the defense travels with them.