Tonight marks the start of a two-game stretch where the Kings will take on two of the worst teams in the NBA and arguably the last games of the season that the Kings are outright expected to win (depending on if Kevin Durant comes back for the season finale). This has been one of the most disappointing seasons in Kings history, so losing either of these two games would just be another cherry on top of the shit sundae.
Let’s talk Kings basketball!
When: Wednesday, April 2nd, 4:00 PM PT
Where: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
TV: NBC Sports California
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
The Wizards have been having a miserable season of their own, but they at least are on the rebuilding path. They’ve won 7 games since the All-Star break, nearly half of their 16 on the season. For comparison, the Kings have only won one more game in that same timespan despite supposedly being a much better team.
On paper, this should be no contest. The Wizards are dead last in offense and almost the same on defense. When they last played the Kings, they had more weapons (namely Kyle Kuzma and Jonas Valanciunas) and still lost by 23. But this is the Kings we’re talking about, and all they seem to do lately is find new ways to lose. On Monday, the Kings held a 14 point 3rd quarter lead against the Indiana Pacers only to see it vanish in the 4th quarter as they resorted once again to isolation play after isolation play. Domantas Sabonis, once the heartbeat of the franchise, has been frozen out of the offense for the most part since the trade that brought Zach LaVine to Sacramento. Just take a look at Sabonis’ averages since the trade:
14.6 points, 53.1% from the field, 18.2% from 3, 13 rebounds a game and 4.7 assists in 31.1 minutes.
Those stats are still ok, but a far cry from how he had been playing before. The Kings have taken the ball out of Sabonis hands and entrusted the offense more to their guards. He’s getting fewer touches, fewer opportunities to make plays for others and watching his All-NBA hopes flutter away. Now to be fair, he’s likely been playing hurt for a portion of this stretch, and his last few games have been more indicative of the Sabonis we have come to know and love, at least scoring and rebounding wise, but I’d really like to see the Kings once again embrace Sabonis’ playmaking, which has been the most impacted by the changes the Kings have made. Instead the Kings have resorted to dribbling the air out of the ball and playing more and more isolation basketball, better suited to the strengths of DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine.
This team is a far cry from a couple years ago, and the wholesale changes they made this season have made for difficult adjustments. At this point, even making the Play-In isn’t all that exciting because I’m not sure there are any Kings fans who think this team can manage to do anything even if they get there. But just for our sake and the team’s sake, it’d be nice to see this team at least end the season with some heart. Don’t drop games like tonight against a team that truly is just counting the days until the season is over.
Prediction
Jonas Valanciunas outduels Colby Jones in the battle of revenge games that is uncomfortably close.
Kings 123, Wizards 116
Yeesh, that Wizards injury report is crazy.
I see this and the Charlotte game as the only wins the Kings will pick up the rest of the road trip, and possibly rest of the season.
38-44? So I guess we’re not getting the big Five-0 wins like many of us were hoping for ????
Ha. By many of us you mean Vivek and Matina?
I knew this season was fucked up when they brought in DDR
Won’t lose game????
Of course, they CAN lose this game.
And stop calling me Shirley.
The Wizards are tanking it right.
Will they capture the Flagg? They might.
The Wiz don’t want to win,
But we may let them in;
This one could get ugly tonight!
+1 A chance to meet the Wizards!
&ct=g
Are the Kings the scarecrow, lion, or tin man?
Front office has no brains, players have no heart and Vivek has no courage to blow it up.
And Matina knows there’s no place like home.
Scarecrow=Monte McNair for brainless roster construction
Tin Man=John Rhinehart for heartlessly raising ticket prices
Cowardly Lion=Wes Wilcox who just abandoned ship
They’re all Vivek
The dismissive little munchkin.
perhaps the Kings can wand er in and learn to spell W
that could put them on track to be 9 3/4 favorites!
or at least weasley out a victory of some sort. Witch ever way, win or lose.
(at this point, I sorta wish they’d go full tank. It will make it easier to replace Doug Christie – because if this is all he can do, this team is ready to move on from him)
Coach Doug Christie:
To finish >.500
The Kings need to go 3-4
For the Team to finish >.500
The Kings need to go 6-1
I like the guy, but this season is on his resumé, and I wouldn’t hire him based on his performance thus far.
I appreciate the effort demonstrated by this preview. Were I in your place, Akis, I’d have submitted but one word: “Whatever.”
The Wizards have no incentive to win this game. The Kings are on the fence. Win it and stay in the Play-in race. Lose it and stay in the keep your draft pick race.
The Wizards have no real incentive to try to lose this game either. They’d have to win 5 of their last 7 and NOP would have to lose out to move into a tie and risk changing their lottery odds.
I honestly wonder how many of the Kings players care about making the play-in.
There’s probably extra pay for that game or games.
…weighed vs an earlier
end-of-seasonescape.Hard to find confirmation, but from what I could find it doesn’t seem like players make any extra money for Play-In games.
I couldn’t find anything either, but the owners make money on tickets and TV for the extra game(s). I’m sure the players get something.
I imagine they want to. Say what you want, but most players do care about winning and competing.
And while our team is bad and pretty poorly constructed with a lot of duplicative and mismatched parts, we don’t seem to have a lot of players just “going through the motions.”
People are putting in legitimate effort and playing hard… just not playing well.
So I imagine they want to make the playoffs. Our issue is just too many scorers who are best with the ball in their hands and who need to be making an offensive impact to offset their poor defense.
But since we don’t have a good motion offense or players who create well for others, we end up with a couple of those scorers standing around on any given possession and ending the game with only a few shots and being a net negative for the game due to their defense.
Doubt the Kings could out lose Suns at this stage .
Lose like ya mean it kings.
Lose, lose amd lose some more
Keep on Streaking!
Will the Wizards harness their Magic and beat the Kings by 30?
Is there any reason tangible reason the Kings should try to win this game? I’m just here for the, “They’re starting to figure it out!!!” comments after the Kings win by 30.
As an aside, the Kings figuring out how to lose one of the next two games would be a pretty big deal.
Sadly the most likely scenario. Wizards play bad defense. We hit 19 of 42 three pointers and a bunch of easy shots at the rim / on the break. We follow up with a similar effort against the Hornets.
We get a bunch of post game quotes about finally finding our grove.
And then we lose to Cavs by 30.
Yeah that would be incredibly on brand. I think our new reality is that we’re better than the worst teams but markedly worse than ALL of the good teams. It really is purgatory.
Hope they lose again.
Signed,
Not-a-real-fan
Honestly it’s brought back one of my favorite part of growing up a kings fan…
MOCK DRAFT SZN and hoping for the next lebron has carried me this far
That is a real fan. A real kings fan wants the Kings to lose. Because it’s the only way to get better.
And it’s the only way to potentially get Vivek to move away. No, I doubt that will happen.
every other fan base and organization knows that the worst place you can be is where the kings are. You either want to be bad or in the playoffs.
For all the love Booker gets I’d like to really lead his team to the 10 spot. The suns are a mess but if Beal can stay on the floor you’d THINK they could win some games. Basketball is a funny game though.
We’re going to beat the g league wizards by 25, kayte will tell us a win like this can spark a team, and life moves on
The suns are one of the few teams that has as shit in ownership as the kings.
I will be in attendance tonight for my one annual in person game. I’ve never had better seats, and I can’t remember the last time I was so disillusioned with the team. Such is life as a Kings fan.
Nonetheless I can’t wait to see Domas up close, who has become perhaps my favorite King since Peja. And since I’m mostly in favor of missing the play-in, Ill be happy with the outcome either way.
And as always, Go Kings!
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