Update: 9:35 p.m.
The unintentional tank malfunctioned in Denver Saturday night as the Kings pulled off a surprising 128-123 victory over the second-place Nuggets. What was weird about this game was how the Kings actually competed for pretty much the whole 48 minutes. That came out of no where.
They shared the ball (32 assists) and took care of the ball (only 7 turnovers). They won points in the paint with 62. They dominated fast break points 23-8. And they won without shooting well from three (33%). The Kings scored 20 points off 13 Nuggets turnovers.
Russell Westbrook really likes taking on the Nuggets. He finished with 21 points, 11 assists and 6 rebounds, and made several clutch shots in the fourth quarter while chirping at the Denver bench. Keegan Murray started and finished with 19 points, 5 rebounds and 2 steals. Dennis Schroder scored 21 points off the bench. Six Kings scored in double figures.
This was a rare fun win in a depressing season.
From Earlier Preview:
We’re not even 20 games into the 2025-26 NBA season, and I’m running out of ways to describe how awful this basketball team is. Good grief. The squad formerly known as the Beam Team looked as disinterested as ever in Keegan Murray’s return, a 41-point loss to Memphis. And guess who is waiting for them on the other side of that disaster? Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. Good luck!
Who: Sacramento Kings (3-13) vs. Denver Nuggets (12-3)
Where: Ball Arena, Denver, CO
When: 7:00 PM PT / 10:00 PM ET
Watch: NBCSCA / League Pass
The Kings are cooked. The season is lost. Wins don’t matter. Losses are ultimately good. We’ve arrived here in record time.
I’d like to think these statements are so obvious at this point that even Sacramento’s historically delusion ownership recognizes it, but hey, we can’t say that for sure. They keep starting and playing their veterans a shit-ton of minutes like something is going to magically change here, so we’re left to wonder if they really understand how bad things are. Keon Ellis played just 16 minutes in the aforementioned 41-point embarrassment vs. Memphis. Devin Carter didn’t play at all.
Denver hasn’t submitted their injury report for tonight yet, so I won’t speculate about who may or may not miss this one for the Nuggets. I don’t think it really matters. For the Kings, Domantas Sabonis remains out with a partial meniscus tear in his left knee, so expect another healthy dose of Drew Eubanks.
Until Scott Perry wakes up and turns these underperforming veterans into anything younger and/or more interesting to watch, my snark and pessimism will remain. I’m expecting another painful one tonight.
Prediction: Kings 94, Nuggets 178.
For the third time the Nuggets we face,
As again our trip ends at their place.
Denver played late last night,
But the Kings have no fight.
What Vivek has wrought’s a disgrace!
+1 Even though the game will be at high altitude in Denver…
I forgot they even had a game today. Too busy prepping for Thanksgiving to even care.
Congratulations on your first (I think) kangs loss prediction.
Streaking to the top of the draft.
First time I can recall a preview article predicting a loss and saying “it doesn’t matter anymore.” This season has truly broken a lot of folks.
to be fair, Tony thinks it’ll be a pretty close loss
No way the Kings score 94.
Vivek sucks.
The only hope is that they continue to “compete” and the unintentional tank rolls on towards a top pick where they fall backwards into a good player despite their best efforts.
The Kings use the first pick to select shooting guard [fill in name here].
I think that’s a Doug thing. He doesn’t have the balls to sit the veterans.
He sat Zach LaVine some 4th quarters and played DDR low minutes, and Zach was pretty pissed publicly and DDR’s production dropped like a stone. No idea if DDR’s issues had to do with minutes/usage, but Doug is screwed no matter what he does.
I happily admit to not having watched a single Kangz games this year. I’m just going by what’s in the write-up that the vets are getting more minutes than they should.
He’s either a bad coach or doing what Vivek tells him or both. Clearly him and Vivek are dumb enough to think these vets will win them enough games to keep butts in seats but that’s obviously not the case. The unintentional ugly tank rolls on.
Sitting behind the kings bench tonight and you can definitely tell it’s coming from the top. Woodson looked like he wanted to kill Lavine and he tried to catch him coming off the court to say something to him and Lavine just blew him off walked right through him.
Also Monk is a great motivator on the bench and is trying to get Nique and Max pumped through mistakes. Monk and Westbrook are definitely engaged. DDR seems like a really good guy but you can tell he and Zach are done. Anything anyone asks on the bench is a shrug and oh well
Every younger player on this team should be soaking up as much technical and professional education he can from Russ and DeMar. They may be “old” but they know how to play and have unique talents.
The Kings eventually break all fans, watchers, writers, etc. it’s a tradition that Vivek has enthusiastically embraced during his tenure.
Keegan is fun to watch. LaVine is so bad defensively. Completely loses his man on defense
All and I mean ALL of the open 3’s have been Lavine’s man or guy he’s supposed to
switch to.
It’s even worse when Demar and Zach are in the same side of the court defensively. Both shooters are left open!
They just don’t even make any second effort to switch. Dont fight over any screens.
conversely the Keegan block in the first couple of minutes of the game at the basket was due to both of them leaving their guys and Keegan fighting over a screen and switch to block DDR’s guy while DDR was still standing behind the 3 point line where his man made his first move.
Lavinia is being told to stick to his man 43 feet from the basket. He gets high picked every time and loses his man going down hill. Terrible strategy. Let them shoot from 40 feet! With the exception of Steph Curry, that’s a low probability shot for anyone.
Here at the game tonight, watching Lavine in person is sooo much more painful than it comes across on tv. He does exactly zero of the little things unless he has the ball in his hands. He’s a 50mil catch and shoot player. Mind blowing he got paid for this.
That’s Vivek’s man crush!
He’s throwing up bricks tonight.
Kings Win! Mile(-y) High Dance!
Ok. What went wrong tonight?
#SelltheTeam
I hate this team
I wish I could actually cheer for Westbrook instead of losses
I wish it wasn’t a win on the backs of 37 year olds
I wish Keon actually played minutes
I wish this team knew how to tank
I wish I cheered for another team…
It’s crazy that even wins seem like losses, or at least empty calories, this season. I hate it that I can’t even be happy about what should be an impressive win. If it’s Westbrook and the elders playing the lion’s share of the minutes, then meh.
To root for wins is to root for continued drudgery.
the only hope (albeit slim) is to be so bad that the owner and the team have to do some thing. Like rebuild.
The worst case is being neither horrible, nor good. The Vivek seer spot
sell sell sell. Amd fuck off .
OT: RIP Rodney Rogers.
18 year paralyzed. Some things are hard to comprehend.
What the haters don’t understand is that by beating the recent NBA champs on a SEGABABA while missing two of their starters, this Kings team has proven to be a championship-caliber team.
Yeah, that’s all the Kings need is a couple of minor tweaks.
By having Keegan in the starting lineup, it’s makes it even more obvious that the other 4 starters are bad defensively. Keegan was rotating, following his man around the court, fighting through screens, etc. All the stuff that Zach, DDR, Russ don’t do.
It will be interesting to see how long a player can maintain his defensive intensity when the other around him DGAF and the coach is only giving lip service to defense and accountability.
Jeez, we can’t even tank properly.
Just play like that every game!
Fun win!
Your Sacramento Kings: Somewhere between a stopped clock and a blind squirrel.
We can find our nuts twice a day!!!
half glass full: everything’s all right
half glass empty: only finding what’s left
A much needed win.
However I have to say the Kings offense is stagnant and isolated despite all the assists and points in the paint. Watch the last 5 minutes: every set, 1 guy with the ball and the other 4 standing on the perimeter. Zero cuts, zero movement.
Can’t win too many games with that. Offense coach should be fired. And Doug needs to realize this.
FWIW.
Did Keon actually play 0 minutes while available and not injured? Makes no sense to finally have your 4 return and have him guard their point guard. Keegan was repeatedly high picked and chased the other Murray downhill all night. Sorry, I know the Kings won and Aaron Gordon was out but IMO that’s not a winning strategy.
Keon is being held accountable by the coaching staff.
Westbrook played out of his mind in this one and Keegan is starting to look like he’s ready to start leaving some marks on this defense. The one player that really bothered me was Lavine. He just didn’t seem to play in this game. He’s in a slump and I actually feel like unlike a lot of the unfair statements made about Huerter, he really doesn’t do anything unless he’s scoring. Hopefully with Murray in the starting line up, he can focus on what he does best, which is putting the ball in the hoop.
Missed the game last night because my wife and I went to see Evil Dead: The Musical, which I can recommend highly. Was happy to watch the replay for free on league pass today.
I gotta say, Jokic is the ultimate “Ref Ball” player in the league. The refs buy it every single time. I know he had a big game last night, and he’s generational and all that, but it’s incredible how fucking dumb the refs must be to fall for his flopping possession after possession after possession after possession after possession after…
I know you can “whatabout” a lot of players, but we played the Nuggets last night, so I’m going to point my ref ball critique there.
So Keon is also on his way out, if this is true? Not surprised. There will be many suitors for his services, but not sure you’ll get something for a half-year rental.
Good, let’s do it
Keon is extendable
This is unacceptable. We need to trade someone or change the rotations or something so we can get back on track…
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