Update: 9:48 p.m.
The Sacramento Kings stopped the Utah Jazz on the final possession of the game with 5 seconds left on the clock to win 105-104 in front of the Golden 1 Center crowd. Shots were falling most of the night for the Kings as they battled the multiple 7 footers on Utah’s roster throughout the game.
Given the size advantage it isn’t all too surprising that the Jazz dominated rebounds and won the points in the paint battle. The Kings made up for that by going 43% from three and forcing the Jazz into 20 turnovers. Utah shot just 31% from three.
Domantas Sabonis returned from his injury and tallied 12 points and 12 rebounds. Zach LaVine scored 31 points, Malik Monk was on fire from three (6-9) off the bench and ended with 20 points. Dennis Schroder had a solid 33 minutes, finishing with 17 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.
From Earlier Preview:
After a disappointing season opener against the Phoenix Suns, the Kings continue their 2025-26 campaign against the Utah Jazz tonight in Sacramento for their first home game of the year. Let’s get to it.
Who: Sacramento Kings (0-1) vs. Utah Jazz (1-0)
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
When: 7:00 PM PT, 10:00 PM ET
Watch: NBCSA, League Pass
The big story heading into tonight’s matchup revolves around who is and isn’t playing for the Beam Team. Domantas Sabonis has been upgraded to questionable, and if you heard him discuss his injury earlier today, it sure sounds like he’s playing. However Keegan Murray (thumb) and Nique Clifford (hamstring) are both out.
For the Jazz, they are mostly healthy minus Isaiah Collier (hamstring) and Georges Niang (foot).
Utah’s season opener might have been the most surprising result of the NBA season thus far. They destroyed the Clippers 129-108 behind their massive frontline: Lauri Markkanen had 20 points, and Walker Kessler chipped in with 22. This presents an interesting challenge for Doug Christie and the height- deficient Kings.
Clifford started game 1 for Christie against the much-smaller Suns. I’m expecting Sabonis to return, so that’ll take care of some of the size issues, but I’m very curious to see who starts next to him. Isaac Jones missed the Suns game due to an illness, but he’s off the injury report now. Maybe Christie goes a bit younger in that spot, and starts Jones for more size? Dario Saric and Maxime Reynaud are options, too, but I didn’t think either of them looked great against the Suns on Wednesday.
The topic of rotation conundrums brings me to my last point: Keon Ellis only played 13 minutes against the Suns, and that’s a problem. For reasons beyond my comprehension, this organization just doesn’t seem to value what he brings to the table, despite how often they preach it. He remains their best perimeter defender and most consistent shooter outside of Zach LaVine. For the second time, first Mike Brown, and now Doug Christie, Kings coaches claim they need to see better results on defense, beg for better effort defensively, and then bench one of the only guys that’ll bring it on that end every night.
Russell Westbrook, on the other hand, played nearly 19 minutes and shot 25% from the field. And yes, I’m being a bit unfair here – it’s not that Russ was bad. He was OK. But he should not be playing over Ellis, and what happened against the Suns was my biggest fear when the signing was announced. The Kings willingly made the guard logjam worse, and are now squeezing out the wrong players. Hopefully Doug figures this out quicker than Mike Brown, or he will likely suffer the same fate.
Yes, I will be writing about this all season until something changes.
Prediction: Kings 118, Jazz 109.
Thought this was a win we might snatch,
But the Jazz have size we can’t match.
Expect Vivek’s presence—
With his losing essence—
We so wish he would leave with dispatch!
+1 Just how big is that Jazz starting lineup?
LFG 30 Beams
Has any team ever gone 0-82?
I am really looking forward to an amazing half of a basketball game!
Up 17.
We would have won that game against PHX if Sabonis was there. Gave up way too many offensive rebounds. Need Isaac Jones too. He’s a tougher player than Saric.
Another loss tonight to a West bottom feeder and we are on our way…will be 4-18 before you know it!
Don’t screw around with a hamstring injury. Can feel like it’s okay to go and then you tear it and are out a month or two.
Scary , especially since Domas only plays one way . All out .
I hate this team.
I’m always gonna be a Kings fan, but…
I hate this team.
Please do keep writing about it until it changes. I for one, want to have a paper trail when Keon goes elsewhere and eventually becomes one of the best 3 and D guards in the league.
I hate this organization.
My son asked me today (he’s 8)…
“How much does The Beam cost the Kings to use it after a win”?
My answer “Not a lot this season.”
I actually thought Russ was pretty bad, but to be fair, must be rusty….although that’s up to Christie to limit his mins till he gets the rhythm and conditioning back. Didn’t like his 3 To’s in his first 3 mins, and going 2-8….most of those shots were bad misses. Why limit our stalwart defender in favour of Russ who is just giving the ball back to the other team?
Rusty Washedbrick
Kings look like they haven’t practiced, or had a camp, or a preseason.
Not Young Superteam running hard. How many flat tires 2nd half?
I am thoroughly enjoying the bottom of the 6th inning.
Need AI to replace these stupid zebras
This offense appears to be just a few passess and then someone does some iso shit or whatever.
Utterly uninspired.
Thoroughly enjoyed the times when Sabonis came to the high post, was passed the ball and the four others just looked at him with hands on their knees.
KINGS WIN!!!
NEVER A DOUBT!
I LOVE THIS TEAM.
SUCK IT YOU HATERS!!!
GIVE VIVEK A STATUE!!!
Jazz dropped. Kings Win! Everyone Dance!
LIGHT THE BEAM
I had never heard Dennis Schröder speak until his post-game interview with G-Man tonight… and it’s probably a comment on my lack of wordliness and exposure to German speakers – but it just reminded me of “Now’s the time on Sprockets when we dance!”
You’re quite wordly.
“Now’s the time”
and just to be crystal clear…
… no, I do not want to pet your monkey
Re Keon, it’s pretty simple. One of the fundamentals of being a bad organization is the inability to identify and exploit talent. The only people who don’t think this is a bad organization cash Kings paychecks, directly or indirectly.
Nice 1pt win over Utah ????
RW with 2 TOs at crunch time but kudos to him for denying Lauri the last shot. The offense is Lavine-centric, which is non-sustainable against the better teams. DDR with low FGA and zero FTs? Has he checked out already or was it more of feeding the hot hand. I am not seeing the offense run through Domas at the high post, but rather he is being utilized more as a pick n roll guy by Schroeder, who runs the offense more.
Lackluster win, but still a win. Sac fans were loud and are still the best.
Was at the game tonight and really enjoyed it. Yes the Kings were mightily undersized, essentially playing 4 guards at times plus Sabonis. Westbrook and Schroder had to guard Markinnen on some possessions, and watching Russ box him out was quite a sight! Overall strong performance, defense is getting better, and seeing some real defensive effort from LaVine, Monk and DeRozan in addition to strong D from Schroder and of course Keon Ellis. A win is a win…and definitely fun when it happens!
Was not at the ganme but I watched the whole thing. Surprisingly, I agree with you. I was genuinely impressed by the defensive effort over the entire 48 minutes of game action. THAT IS SHOCKING! I can’t remember even thinking that while watching the Kings play over the last… 10 years? Zac was playing very hard on defense, again, shocked. The team collectively put out the effort I want to see. Win or lose I can be content with watching the games if they consistently put out that kind of effort. Will they? I would be shocked if they did. Especially when the losses start piling up and they start getting frustrated and complacent. Which.. Is what I am expecting. However, I wasn;t expecting to see what I saw in this game. Completely outmatched with size and length to a point that it looked weird watching it on the screen. Like Dad’s playing against their 12 year old sons with the one 12 year old who hit puberty early (the Ox).
Effort, as you said. It was there and it was refreshing to see.
Westbrook is… not very good at the moment but does bring some intensity, attitude and swag that this team desperately needs. The turnovers are BAD. My god man. How did this guy ever average a tripple double? hahahaha
I’m holding out hope that Doug Knows Keon should be playing more and is simply playing the political game with the management and ego superstar NBA fraternity bullshit and just simply letting Keon take the job/the additional minutes over Westbrook. This is my hope, that along with seeing continued effort like this game on the defensive end for another 80 games. Maybe more? Yeah… likely not.
Player of the game Ewwbanks
Lol at the +/- it looks like the starters except for Lavigne were getting killed all game
Keon plays 17 minutes. Westbtook plays 19 minutes. What is going to happen when Murray and Clifford return? Matt George said play Keon at SG against the Lakers. I say play Keon at SG against period. If not then trade him. There is something really wrong here and we probably won’t ever know what it is. Not only is he the best perimeter defender the Kings have he shoots over 40% from three. GO FIGURE!
The problem is that we think in terms of winning games and building a long term contender. Vivek thinks in terms of putting butts in seats today and who has a “big name.”
Westbrook sells tickets and is someone Vivek wants to hang out with. Ellis is neither, even if he’s a better fit for what this team needs to win games. Ticket sales and vanity are the whole story.
I didn’t watch, but it seems clear the Jazz clearly cheated. They are using twin bothers as a head coach/center combo. This is some next level Chauncey Billups level of cheating. Kings need to trade or Kris Murray.
On another note, anyone else having a really hard time navigating TKH lately? The page is running super slow for me.
Yep…I’ve been getting lots of “timed-out” and “bad gateway” messages the last few days. That seems to have started since the tests the mods ran the day we were seeing all those archived articles show up on the homepage.
Very slow…probably a WordPress issue.
OT: Is anyone’s browser loading TKH slowly? Both on my laptop and phone, when I click TKH website link it takes 1-2 minutes to load, and then clicking an article link takes like 1 minute as well. Just wanted to know if anyone else had this issue.
Yup and I blame Greg. Word is, he took the backup generators as well as the Keurig from the break room when he left. Rumor is he also stole Rob’s lone pair of pants from his locker. Poor Rob had saved up a lot of Ziller Bucks to buy those pants.
Oops, I didn’t see your comment above asking the same question, lol. I just saw the image and didn’t even pay attention to the words below.
I counted, it took 42 seconds to thumb up your comment. Adn yes. Same same on the loading for me. Been this way for a while now.
This site makes me laugh. Keon is ok but the comments indicate this is Scottie Pippen sitting on the bench. The Kings were plus 7 with Westbrook on the floor. We’d be 2 and 0 if we didn’t have to play a marginal D league player in game due to injuries. I like what I see so far and I enjoy watching a future hall of famer. Schroder a savvy, crafty veteran is also fun to watch. Yes the team has some gaping issues but they are playing hard for Christie right now.
Per basketball-ref, the Kings were minus 15 with Sabonis on the floor, but plus 16 with Eubanks. If DC had just played Eubanks more instead of Domas, the Kings would have cruised to victory!
Playing hard. You are correct. Very nice to see. Lets hope it lasts. Also correct on the starting a G leaguer at PF comment. The fact that you have 14 healthy players and there isn’t one is boarder line starting PF to put into the lineup at tipoff is pretty sad. But we knew this already.
The Kings were plus 7 with Westbrook on the floor because Keon played along side him for all but 2 minutes of his in game action. If Keon were not on the floor for those shared Westbrook minutes Russ would have been minus 26. If Westbrook were off the floor in that same time during Keons minutes then Keon would have been plus 67. Facts are facts
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