Alvin Gentry: When you give up 133 points to a team ‘struggling to score then your defense is not where it should be’

The Sacramento Kings were up 130-120 with 3 minutes left in the fourth quarter Wednesday night. From that point, the Detroit Pistons, on the backs of Kelly Olynyk, Saddiq Bey and Cory Joseph, took over the game. The Kings offered little to no defense and only scored 1 more point, while the Pistons scored 13.

Following the 133-131 loss that showed us a new way to lose, Alvin Gentry also struggled to comprehend how his players managed to pull off the loss.

“It’s almost impossible to lose a game in the NBA where you shoot 53%, 44% from three, and have 7 turnovers for 9 points and still find a way to lose the game,” Gentry said. “The only negative was the free throw shooting. I think it’s very difficult to walk to the line and miss 13 free throws.”

The Kings gave up 133 points to a team that is 28^th in the league at scoring at 101 points per game. Cade Cunningham was in foul trouble all game and ended up fouling out. And so goes the Kings season.

Terence Davis scored a career-high 35 points, but said “it means nothing without a win.”

Gentry, Davis and De’Aaron Fox, who had 27 points and 8 assists, spoke after the loss. Here is what they had to say. The trade rumors swirling yesterday was a topic of discussion.

Defense

Alvin Gentry: “They had 33 the first quarter, and we talked about that during the first quarter timeout that this team struggles to score, and their best player is in foul trouble, we have to find a way to slow them down. And obviously we didn’t do that, they ended up with 133 points or whatever it was. And so, when you are giving 133 points to a team that is struggling to score then your defense is not where it should be.”

De’Aaron Fox: “We didn’t get any stops. I think they scored like 11 straight, but with the jump ball we had a chance to tie it up and we didn’t.” … “When you’re up 10, 11 it’s not about what you are doing on the offensive end, it’s about just being able to finish a game with defense.”

“Coming out in the third quarter it was either a foul or they scored for probably like the first four or five minutes of the quarter. So, we just have to be better at that. Sometimes we had them in a bad way and then we foul, just cutting out things like that.”

Terence Davis: “Down the stretch we didn’t do the small things. They got a couple of offensive rebounds and we just didn’t execute defensively, offensively we didn’t down the stretch when we needed it most.”

On The Trade Rumors

De’Aaron Fox: “When you’re on the court, you think about a lot of stuff going on during the game so nah, not really, I’m not thinking about that.”

“When I’m at home I’m chilling with my family. Things are part of the business. Am I worried about anything? No. Do I know stuff can happen? Yeah. But I’m not worried at all.”

Alvin Gentry: “That will be something that management will decide. Everything and all my energy is on coaching the team and then whatever happens, happens. But I pour all of my energy into trying to get this team to play better and finish games like tonight.”

A Few Takeaways

• No surprise Fox or Gentry really didn’t address the trade rumors.
• No surprise the defense collapsed.
• No surprise the Kings knew the Pistons struggle to score on the season, but did nothing to capitalize on that. The 133 points is a season high for the Pistons. Detroit has failed to hit 100 points in 19 games this season, and in 8 of those games they didn’t even score 90 points.
• No surprise the Kings are 18-29.
• No surprise Cory Joseph dropped 19 and 9 on his old team. Shout out to Cory Jo.

Back at it Saturday in Milwaukee. What could go wrong?