Alvin Gentry is searching for answers as to why the Kings can’t win at home

The Sacramento Kings dropped yet another home game Wednesday night, this time to the Atlanta Hawks by a final score of 108-102. With no Trae Young, Bogdan Bogdanovic or John Collins, the Hawks came into the Golden 1 Center and jumped out to a 33-24 lead in the first quarter, which the Kings had to climb out of the rest of the game and ultimately fell short.

Following the game, Alvin Gentry said the Kings can’t let opponents score on multiple possessions in a row down the stretch like the Hawks did, and he’s not sure why the team can’t play better at home. He also admitted they perplexingly seem to play better when going up against teams that are at full strength.

“To be honest with you, we almost seem to play better if they have everybody from the standpoint of being locked in and understanding those situations,” Gentry said.

De’Aaron Fox agreed that “it’s definitely happened at times.”

Gentry, Fox, who had 30 points and 6 assists, and Tyrese Haliburton, who had 24 points on 5-7 from three, all spoke to the media following the loss. Here is what they had to say.

More Home Losses

Alvin Gentry: “It’s another home loss and we have to be much, much better at home than we are. We’ve got to be much better at home. Any time you lose a home game somewhere along the way you’ve got to try to win a road game to compensate for that and that puts a lot of pressure on you.”

“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t win at home. I think the fans have been great, I really do. I think the fans have done a great job of being behind us trying to lift us up, so that’s not it. We’re playing at home in an environment that we’re comfortable with, that’s not it. So, I’m not real sure why we can’t seem to close out games or win close games and things like that. We have to definitely find an answer to that, and it’s got to be yesterday really.”

Tyrese Haliburton: “I think it’s an issue everywhere, we’re losing everywhere, so we’ve just got to figure it out. Obviously, we were depleted with COVID and things like that early in December where we had a lot of home games that month, not using that as an excuse by any means, but just getting into rhythm and things like that. We’re just not playing well. That’s all there is to it. It’s on us more than it’s on who we’re playing against.”

The Slow Start In The First Half

Alvin Gentry: “I thought we didn’t start out like we should have, but that being said I thought we did regroup and started to play like we’re capable of playing.” “Somewhere along the line you’ve just got to dig in and you’ve got to come up with stops that puts you in a position where you can win a game like that.”

“We don’t have to make great plays, we have to make good, solid plays and we have to value the ball more, we really do. We have to value the ball more in a situation where we’re getting shots at the basket, we didn’t start the game that way.”

Tyrese Haliburton: “It was ugly early, I think we went into halftime with 45 points, but I thought we had a little spark in the third and that kind of carried us through the second half and Fox got going, I started to make some shots, so I thought that got us going. It was bad early, obviously we had a game yesterday, but no excuse, we’re professionals so we’ve just got to be better to start games.” “Our energy coming out was poor and I don’t know the reason by any means.”

De’Aaron Fox: “I think we just came out slow, obviously we’ve got a lot of games in not too many days, but I think more so it was just we let them get comfortable. I think they scored like 13 in the first four minutes of the game. So, I definitely think it was attributed to the start. We still ended up scoring what 104 or whatever it was, so we were still in position to win the game.”

On De’Aaron Fox’s Performance

Alvin Gentry: “I think that he’s playing at the level that he left off with at the end of last year. He’s doing everything that we ask him to do and I think at the end, he was the guy that was guarding [Kevin] Huerter and did a great job on him until it ended up being a switch situation, which we tried to avoid, but we couldn’t quite avoid it.”

Tyrese Haliburton: “He’s just making a lot of plays down the stretch, that’s what he does. He’s our guy, he’s a great basketball player so we trust him to make plays down the stretch and he’s trusting me when he’s a little tired or just take a possession to kind of breath I can see that and he kind of lets me get it and lets me go as well. So, it’s all about just figuring each other out. We’re a young backcourt so we’re just learning each other every day.”

De’Aaron Fox: “I think I’ve had a decent groove, but I’m just trying to do whatever it takes, and my teammates put me in position, my coaches, and they want me to make those plays toward the end of the game. I struggled early on, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter because we didn’t win. You wish you could play well and it comes in wins, but I’m just trying to put my team in position to get us there and whatever happens at the end happens, but I just want to get us in that position.”

De’Aaron Fox on Tyrese Haliburton

“We talked about it last year when it was the first game of the season and he made big shots while we were in Denver in his first game. So, he plays the game like he’s a vet and he’s continued to see the game and it’s definitely slowed down for him this year, but I think for the most part we just want him to be aggressive. I mean I think that was one of the big differences for me as I started to get older, continuing to be aggressive and knowing when to and when not to attack, but for him we want him to stay in that attack mode and I think it benefits everybody. He’s going to score, he’s going to get guys easy shots, so it helps the entire team when he’s able to stay in attack mode.”

“He should have taken more [shots] than that. There was one that he passed up and we ended up turning it over so we as a team, as players and as coaches we still encourage him to shoot the ball more. He’s an over 40% three-point shooter, a lot of times he has a good look and sometimes he makes the extra pass, or he stampedes and takes it to the basket trying to make a play, but a lot of times, the shot that he gets is probably the best shot that we were going to in that possession. So, we definitely encourage him to continue to shoot the ball.”

A Few Takeaways

• No surprise the Kings play up or down to their competition, it’s been going on for years.
• The Kings had actually won the first quarter in the three games before this game.
• It’s true the Kings don’t appear to play any better at home than they do on the road, but they actually have a higher winning percentage at home (10-13) than on the road (6-11). You will notice, however, that neither of those records is good.
• Fox is averaging 28 points over the last three games. Haliburton is averaging 13.3 points and 7.6 assists over those three games.
• Haliburton definitely should take more threes. He is at 43% from three on the season and only averaging 4.7 attempts per game. As Fox mentioned, a three from Tyrese more times than not is one of the best shots the Kings are going to get on any given possession.

The Kings will now take on the 18-18 Nuggets in Denver Friday.