The Kings predictably got rocked against the Golden State Warriors in their last visit to Oracle Arena. The young team clearly was not ready to match the well-oiled machine running the Western Conference the past few seasons.
The Kings were led by a nice outing from Buddy Hield, who scored 22 points, grabbed 8 rebounds and dished 7 assists (and only 3 turnovers!). Buddy's point total was buttressed by a couple garbage-time threes, but even with his shot off-target, he was making an impact passing the ball and hitting the glass. Skal Labissiere was on triple-double watch late in the game, scoring 10 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and dishing 8 assists. Its phenomenal progress for a young kid still learning how to play within the system. Ty Lawson scored 18 of his 20 points in the first half to pace the team.
The Kings held serve with the Warriors until halftime, but unfortunately the stark difference in talent took over afterwards. The Kings started turning the ball over leading to Warrior leakouts. The offense died after they started botching easy layups, with one coming from Buddy and a few from Kosta Koufos. The Warriors were up 20+ by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, and nobody really expected anything of note to happen.
But, that's not what played out. The Warriors bench, with a frigid cold Klay Thompson as the main offensive option, could not shake the Kings. Led by Skal, Buddy, and Ben McLemore, the Kings cut the Warriors lead down to 11, forcing Steve Kerr to go back to Steph Curry to finish the Kings off. Steph did indeed do his work, nailing three straight threes to put the Kings away for good, and that was the end of it.
The young guys review:
For the opponent’s perspective, visit Golden State of Mind
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