The Kings managed to stem the bleeding by knocking off the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday, but tonight they’ll face an even tougher task in a Cleveland Cavaliers team that is currently tied for the best record in the NBA. The Cavs are on the second night of a back to back, but the Kings will be without Domantas Sabonis, so both teams are facing their own challenges coming into this one. Let’s talk Kings basketball!
When: Wednesday, March 19th, 7:00 PM PT Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA TV: NBC Sports California Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
The Cleveland Cavaliers are having a remarkable season. They’re on pace for 67 wins, which would be the most in franchise history. They’re doing it on the backs of one of the best offenses in NBA history (1st in the league this year), and a top-10 defense. Kenny Atkinson has transformed this team offensively, as pretty much the same roster was only 18th in offense last season. They shoot a ton of threes (41.3 a game) and make them at the league’s highest rate (38.7%). They’re also the most efficient 2P% team at 58.1%. Donovan Mitchell is leading the way scoring wise at 24.1 points a game, but he has plenty of help as five of his teammates also average double digit scoring. Evan Mobley has also taken a leap, averaging a career-high 18.6 points and shooting 36.5% from three on 3 attempts a game while playing Defensive Player of the Year level defense. Mobley is part of a twin towers lineup with Jarrett Allen as well, who is leading the league in FG% at 70.1% while averaging a 13.6 point, 10.2 rebound double-double in just 28.7 minutes a game. The Cavs got even better at the deadline when they acquired De’Andre Hunter from the Hawks, and Hunter has been averaging 14.3 points on 49.6% from the field and 48.6% from three in 15 games off the bench with Cleveland. This is a Cavs team that is legitimately 10 deep and extremely dangerous from all over the court almost regardless of who is playing. The only regular rotation player they have who isn’t a legitimate threat to be an outside shooter is Jarrett Allen. Cleveland has 5 rotation players making 40% or more of their threes, and 12 making at least 37% (with Mobley just on the outside at 36.5%). That’s not ideal news for a Kings team that has struggled to defend the three this season, last in 3P% defense at 38.3% a game. The Kings managed to do a decent job of keeping Memphis from shooting too many threes on Monday, limiting them to just 30 attempts, and even then it was mostly just Desmond Bane being 7-7 that was truly damaging. But for Cleveland the three ball is a huge part of their identity, and the Kings will need to be extra focused on their man tonight to not give the Cavaliers too many easy, open looks which is easier said than done. Sacramento will once again be without Domantas Sabonis, now out with an ankle injury he suffered against Memphis. Cleveland would have been one of the few matchups where it might have made sense for the Kings to play Sabonis and Jonas Valanciunas together to try to combat some of their size, but now that option is off the table and the Kings will likely be at a size advantage for most of the game. Ideally the Kings would be putting Keegan Murray on Donovan Mitchell, but they’ll probably have to put him on Mobley instead as he’s simply way too big for someone like DeMar DeRozan to guard. That doesn’t leave a lot of great options to guard Mitchell or Darius Garland, at least in the starting lineup. The Kings might need to work in Keon Ellis and Jake LaRavia into the rotation a bit earlier and more often tonight. Malik Monk was a big part of Monday’s win, scoring 28 points on 10-17 from the field to go with 7 assists. It was nice to see Monk have a good game as he’s been in a bit of a slump over the last month or so. The Kings need Monk to be playing at his best to have a chance going forward. He’s been particularly bad from three this season, shooting just 31.8% from distance, his worst percentage since he was in Charlotte and second-worst of his career. Hopefully Monday’s performance gave him some momentum that will let him finish the season strong. This is going to be an extremely tough matchup, but I would have said the same the last couple of years as well given that Cleveland has always been huge, but the Kings have actually gone 3-1 against the Cavs over the last two seasons. A win tonight would be one of the best of the season, and would give the Kings some momentum heading into their own back to back tomorrow night. Prediction The Kings and Cavs threaten to break regular season scoring records in a barnburner. Donovan Mitchell and Zach LaVine both score over 40 points. Kings 151, Cavaliers 146
Bring the effort on both ends of the floor, protect the ball and hit your open shots.
Go Kings!
And so begins the Terry Taylor era.
Our savior! (of Vivek’s money)
I know that we said that we needed to tailor the roster, so maybe the org. just misunderstood.
Maybe Vivek thought he was getting Terry Tyler, seeing how far back he could milk fans’ affection for former Kings players.
Or maybe they thought they were signing Terry Thomas, to fill in the gap in the roster.
I always wondered if he was related to Conrad Pooh.
Cavs on a road b2b after a loss to the Clips last night. Now is the time. The time is now.
The Cavs in the East have no peer;
All year their play’s been top-tier.
There’s no sense to pretend
How this likely will end.
Just hope for some reason to cheer!
+1 Will the beam get lit tonight?
&ct=g
Hopefully, Sacramento can find the dawg in themselves
(Cavalier King Charles Spaniel)
Since we’ll be short-handed and they’re on a back-to-back, maybe some of the Cavaliers will sit.
&ct=g
Crazy how a good coach can make all the difference, I remember writers on TKH saying Atkinson was a legit potential coaching candidate for the Kings a few years ago.
And sometimes it’s just fit and/or a new voice. J.B. Bickerstaff has done great with DET this year.
I heard he bickers with the staff a lot though.
Thanks Vlade
They’re not booing, they’re saying Luuu…
Nope. Yep. They’re booing.
IIRC, Kenny Atkinson, working on the Warriors staff (with Kerr and Mike Brown), gave the Vivek Kings a flat not interested response.
Seems like a pretty smart guy to me (though he may be available soon – he’s the odds on favorite for CoY and as Rik_Smits has reminded us, that is an award and a curse)
Yeah but what do those jerks know
March Madness prediction?
I don’t see this ending well for the Kings. I am expecting the Kings to be down big by the half. A great 3pt shooting team that has size in the frontcourt and a good bench? Recipe for disaster in SacraKangzo.
Get ready for Game thread 100 comments, Postgame 200, Recap 300
Given that we have given up 537 more points than we have scored beyond the arc this year, I wonder if opponents know our town as the City of Threes.
I thought Giants in the City of Trees was not until the 4th of July
This is an amazing, singular stat. The Kings are -8 per game from the arc, while having an overall point differential of +0.9. Imagine if this team was just average at shooting or defending the three. The league average is around 36%. The Kings convert at 35% and give up threes at over 38%(!). Bring both to 36% and that -8 becomes -2.8. That is cavernous.
The modern NBA is more about the 3 pointer than anything else. And we can’t make ’em. Or defend ’em.
That’s a really good argument for adding Keon to the starting group in place of Monk or DDR.
Monk is now down to 31.8%. That is sub-Fox.
And among the current core, Monk is 2nd in attempts (0.3 per game behind LaVine) but 8th in conversion rate (behind LaVine, Ellis, Domas, LaRavia, DeRozan, Lyles and Murray).
Is there a stat for step-back-3s? From eye test those mostly clangs out
Looking at some splits from the last 15 games, not a perfect sample for post-Fox, but pretty close and relatively easy to pull. In the last 15 games Monk has gone 22/79 from 3, 27.8%.
On step back threes he’s 4/13, 30.8%.
The biggest thing that stands out if I compare those numbers to his Pre-All Star splits is that 73 of his 79 threes are Above the Break, where he’s shot 28.8%. Pre All Star he also had the majority of his threes above the break (282 of 326) and also shot poorly (29.4%), but he doesn’t have the boost he previously got from corner threes. Pre-AS break Monk was 13/26 (50%) on Left Corner 3s and 10/17 (58.8%) on Right Corner Threes. Those corner threes were still a small part of his overall usage, but they brought his overall percentages up (even though his shooting has been pretty bad all season). As the primary creator, Monk has even fewer opportunity to take kick-to-corner-threes like he did before.
By the way, these trends hold up for last two seasons as well. He mostly shoots above the break threes, despite shooting way better from the corners. He just made more of these shots in years past.
A final note because I was curious. 6 of 79 threes works out to 7.5% of his three point attempts being corner threes over the last 15 games. Over the last 3 seasons it’s normally been about 15%, but they’ve had a big impact on his 3P%. 44.13% on corner threes the last 3 seasons.
Man, it feels like someone should be scheming to get Monk more looks at corner threes.
I am sure that my Kangz bias is strongly at work – it sure seems that that Sac gives up more corner 3s than any other team, and certainly, opponents seem to take a multiplier of corner 3s over Sacramento’s attempts (just thinking about the Warriors game from last week has me cringing all over again).
I always wonder, how my butt on the couch can see this problem but none of the 6 or 7 coaches on the sidelines can not. Maybe they see it but have not figured out how to minimize it. I will tell you through my own coaching experience, that yelling at the TV absolutely does not work!
Thanks for the stats Greg! Interesting numbers
add a four flat (a typical Monk end of a quarter scenario) and I bet the number goes down even further.
No Zach tonight.
Ouch. At least Keon should get more minutes.
BREAKING: Terry Taylor to start, Keon to handle out towels.
legit LOL
Peon Ellis
OMG!
Keon Thebench.
Beat me to it Kfan!
Game over, man! Game over!
We tag teamed that perfectly. Cheers!
Great movie!!
The silent tank?
Im here at the game with friends. Not gonna get upset at the result. Already a scheduled loss in my mind.
Nice reverse Jinx!
Badge Legend