Lucky for me, I was busy on Sunday afternoon and wasn’t able to watch the return of the Kangz in New York. Sounds like I really dodged a bullet on that one. After suffering what sounds like their worst loss of the season, the Kings had little time to wallow as they faced the Philadelphia 76ers tonight. Marking the start of the back end of this road trip, tonight’s matchup against the Sixers was the first of a brutal back-to-back for the Kings. And Joel Embiid, averaging a career-high 33.4 points per game, was not expected to make this an easy night for the Beam Team. Let’s see how they did:
Quick Stats
Outcome: Kings lose, 103-123
Sacramento Kings: 103 pts, 41.3% fg, 23.8% 3 pt, 85.0% ft, 21 ast, 48 reb, 17 to
Philadelphia 76ers: 123 pts, 51.2% fg, 45.7% 3 pt, 77.8% ft, 34 ast, 42 reb, 12 to
I dodged Sunday’s bullet but got hit square between the eyes by tonight’s. That was pretty torturous. Joel Embiid took control early, living at the free throw line for most of the 1st quarter, and Philadelphia never let up after that. The Kings had a few runs here and there that made me raise an eyebrow, but nothing felt sustainable for them all night long.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
The Good
- Bench: Despite the return of De’Aaron Fox, the Kings starting unit struggled to find any flow or consistency together. The rare bursts of success the Kings did have mainly came from their bench. In one of the few categories they won, the Kings’ bench outscored Philly’s bench 47-29. Malik Monk (16 points) and Terence Davis (12 points) used their time on the floor to push the ball, look for quick offense, and capitalize on a Philly defense still on its heels. Much of the game was played in the slow, half court setting that Philly prefers, so the change of pace provided by the Kings’ bench put the Sixers out of their element and gave the Kings some of their best looks of the night.
The Bad
- Ice Cold from 3: Although the Kings looked pretty bad overall, things could have been different if they didn’t happen to shoot absolutely horrendously from the 3-point line. Finishing just 10-42 tonight, the Kings suffered all night long from missed shots, long rebounds, and the Sixers consequently capitalizing in transition. The Sixers finished with 23 fast break points, most of which came off of the 32 long misses the Kings had from deep. The Kings got a lot of good looks, but weren’t able to convert. Had a few of those gone down at opportune moments, the Kings might have been able to use that momentum in their favor to make more meaningful runs. However, each of their runs were easily stymied by the Sixers once the Kings shooting dried up once again.
The Ugly
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- No Kinds of ‘Fense: Offense? Nope. Defense? Especially nope. The Kings looked awful on both sides of the ball tonight. Early foul trouble set them up for failure on defense, as Domantas Sabonis, Keegan Murray, and Neemias Queta picked up a combined seven fouls in the 1st quarter trying to contain Joel Embiid. The Sixers enjoyed a dominant start from Embiid who ended the 1st quarter with 16 points on 8-9 from the free throw line. This foul trouble altered the physicality the Kings were willing to risk on defense, thus allowing Embiid to continue dominating inside for the remainder of the night. Embiid finished with 31 points on 10 made field goals and 11-13 from the free throw line. To add salt to the wound, the Kings weren’t able to capitalize when Embiid did get his rest, as James Harden got hot as soon as he realized he could keep the ball in his hands. Harden finished with 21 points and 15 assists with four made 3-pointers. Tobias Harris also added 21 points himself to go along with nine assists. The Kings failed to fully execute any defensive schemes successfully. Whether it was double teams, a zone look, or straight up coverage, Philly quickly picked their defense apart for easy looks. On the offensive end, the Kings couldn’t find any rhythm. Philly’s defense disrupted the Kings’ movement early, deflecting a lot of those sneaky passes we are used to seeing in the paint for easy layups. Add that to the their inability to make any wide open 3s, and the Kings’ offense was easily halted. To sum it all up, this game felt like a slow, painful death by a thousand free throws and missed shots.
The King of Kings
Domantas Sabonis logged his 18th double double of the season, finishing with 22 points and 10 rebounds. One thing I love about watching Sabonis play is that you will never see him quit. For every minute he was on the floor, he was willing to go to war in the paint.
Operation: MCNAIR – Season 2 Watch
No beam tonight, but we can still light up our community with some generous donations!
Tonight’s chosen charity is Opening Doors Inc. who support immigrants, refugees and survivors of trafficking!
Up Next
Wednesday, December 14th @ Toronto Raptors – 4:30 P.M. (PT)
This trip has definitely been tough
Just not a good game. I could have played tonight, it would not have mattered.
How the heck haven’t I used this line before?
After this trip, the Kings only have to come out East for 4 more games. That’s the upside of being bad on the East Coast. You only have to do it on an extended basis 4 times a year.
That ain’t bad.
Hard to believe this is the same team that beat Cleveland just 2 games ago. Hopefully just some growing pains on the road to decency and not a return to Kangzhood.
After watching tonight, how are Philly just not rolling to the top of the Eastern Conference. Embiid seemed effortless in his performance, Harden didn’t force anything and got an easy 15 assists. FWIW, the Kings had 21 assists as a team compared to Harden’s 15. Crazy.
The way we’ve played the last two games is a little concerning but we’re still 14-12 and we’ve played a pretty brutal schedule, I have no complaints. There’s ups and downs for every team
Injuries, your-turn-my-turn offense, and their shooting is not as good every game as it was tonight
Yeah and Tobias putting up 21 and 9 was very much a tbt for the Kangz. He’s not doing that every night, or they wouldn’t have been trying to trade him for three years lmao
Welp, being a good team was fun while it lasted. Now it looks like we embark on the slow slide back to the familiar comfort of the 11th spot.
Oops, that is not how you react after a bad game.
Now they have to regroup and react to two bad games.
Come on coach Brown. Get it done.
But seriously, what could we realistically get in exchange for Fox?
Trading Fox now would be bad, unless you wanted to see a rebuild for the 3000th time. This road trip was always going to be a mix of good and bad
What’s going on? Someone putting too much chili in the food? Turkey sandwiches for lunch on game day?
I put this team at an 8 to 11 seed coming into the year, still gonna be tough to be much better than 8th. A lot of real amateur fans and bloggers around here if you think this team is just going to get above 8th overnight. As I’ve said before teams go on streaks in this league, good and bad. We played at our ceiling for awhile but that is not sustainable. Regardless I like the direction of team, style of play, and group of guys. Fox needs to return to his All-Star level dominance ASAP.
The Ringer has a new top 100 NBA players ranking.
Fox comes in at 28 and Ox at 37.
Interestingly, Hali comes in at 21.
Perusing the list makes you realize how much talent there is in the NBA right now. The top 50 is stacked and then you seem to have a clear drop off after that.
https://nbarankings.theringer.com/
I’d have Sabonis ranked above Fox. The things he does for this team are criminally underrated. If the Kings look pedestrian without Fox, they’d look downright awful without Sabonis. There is no one on this team that can replace what he does.
Simply put, is someone else on this team gonna makeup up for his 11 boards and 6 assists per game? What about his screening? Paint defense? hockey assists? May god help the Kings if they loose Sabonis for a few games.
Its silly to put Fox ahead of Sabonis.
i hate rankings, but it’s silly to have Fox and Sabonis so far apart. They are so close in value, more than any 2 teammates right now in the NBA IMO, that you should basically have them both in the top 25 (or before De’Aaron’s whatever induced slump kicked in).
it is what it is. I hate these rankings, but Domas is way too low at any rate.
So I guess the positivity police has to come out and strike this place upside it’s head again. Were I the Kings, and I’m not, I’d sit Fox, Sabonis, Huerter and Barnes. They’ve all played a ton of minutes, Fox is coming off a stress injury of some sort (or that’s what it seems like), Sabonis could use a day off, it’s a SEGABABA where the Raptors have the rest advantage, it’s the 3rd game in 4 nights, and yeah, you’re not winning tonight. Sit your top 4 guys. There’s a long game here.
Start Richaun Holmes, Keegan Murray, Terence Davis, KZ Okpala and Davion Mitchell. Bring Matthew Dellavedova, Malik Monk, Chimezie Metu, Neemius Queta, and whomever else you can bring off your bench tonight in. (Note: I would also include Keon Ellis and Chima Moneke, but I’m not sure Moneke is available given he’s been in Stockton while Ellis and Queta are both with the Kings atm.) There’s no need to play anybody but those guys. It might even be good for them all to get extended burn ahead of the Detroit game tonight.
The Kings were almost always going to lose in Toronto win or lose in Philly last night. Maybe you pull off a miracle with those 9 and get a totally out of the blue W. It happens. It wouldn’t be a horrible thing to get Holmes lots of burn, Murray lots of burn as the hub of the offense (that’s what I want to see more of from him at this point), and see how that 5 man unit functions on offense/defense. There’s lots to glean from a game like tonight even if you’re not really aiming for a W.
Having said all that, the Kings are in the midst of a tough 13 game stretch dating back to @Memphis. Toronto will mark the 7th road game in the East played, Detroit the 8th since Nov 23rd. Every team goes through this, but since the game in Memphis the Kings are now 5-6 in what I think is the toughest stretch of the season (10 of 13 on the road including two East Coast swings).
But, for every tough East trip that presents itself is a long stretch of home games which the Kings have from Dec 19th to Jan 25th. They cross the continental divide twice in that span, once @Memphis New Years Day (how weird is it that the Kings have yet to play a Western Conference road game that isn’t in the division other than Memphis until after New Years?) which happens to be a b2b for Memphis (they play New Orleans on Dec 31st). The other is when the Kings go to San Antonio and the LA Lakers (whom they play for the 4th and final time) in mid January.
There’s some challenges in this stretch. You get the home date against Atlanta (Jan 4th) on a SEGABABA after playing the Jazz in SLC the night before (rest disadvantage Sac). You play Philly on a SEGABABA on Jan 21st (rest disadvantage Sac) after playing OKC the night before. You also play Denver back to back nights right after Christmas (that’s not going to be easy on Denver) on the 6 game homestand starting Dec 19th. That’s 3 b2b’s for the Kings during this 19 game stretch.
The Kings catch the Lakers on a SEGABABA on Jan 7th and 3 games in 4 nights on Dec 21st. The Kings also catch the Wizards at the end of a 6 game trip and on a SEGABABA (they play the Jazz in SLC the night before). Charlotte is on a SEGABABA also on Dec 19th (in Denver the night before). The Jazz come into G1C on their Dec 30th date on the front end of a b2b (they play in SLC on the 31st against Miami). They also catch Orlando on the front end of a b2b Jan 9th (Jan 10th is in PDX), Memphis on another SEGABABA on Jan 23rd (they’re in Phx the night before). Meanwhile the Kings literally catch Memphis twice, Lakers twice, Charlotte and Washington on a b2b and the Wizards at the end of a road trip. if this isn’t the definition of the soft part of your schedule, I don’t know what would qualify then.
Sure, the Kings have had a tough schedule to this point, and they are 14-12. That’s why I suggested not playing Fox, Sabonis, Huerter or Barnes tonight. They play the most minutes for you, everyone else plays backup minutes (outside of Monk who plays borderline starter minutes). You can afford to trot them out there (to quote a guy) for the 48 in Toronto. I get that Mike Brown doesnt want to give games away or create a ‘no accountability’ culture, but you have to be prudent in your approach. Tonight is just a bad night for you, the org, and so forth. Sit your top 4 guys and let the chips fall where they may. You might even get lucky.
Either way, get out of this trip intact, with a win in Detroit Friday, and come home and start your major push towards a playoff berth (I see 18-11 being possible between Dec 19th and Feb 14th when the ASB comes) and preferably a top 6 seed at that. There are lots of winnable games coming up. Just get through this goddamn trip intact. And for god sakes, don’t play your top 4 guys tonight.
Based on our lackluster play the last couple of weeks, I’m not optimistic about winning in Detroit. I’m just thankful that Mitchell and Love sat or we could be staring at an 0-6 road trip.
I think what we’re seeing now is a result of the league finally figuring us out, and they’re now able to easily counter.
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