Gentry, Kings players discuss shooting woes and turnovers

The Denver Nuggets defeated the Sacramento Kings 128-110 Thursday night in front of the home crowd despite a 33-point and 14-rebound night from Domantas Sabonis. A lack of shooting (particularly from three), untimely turnovers, an off night from De’Aaron Fox (in terms of what he has been doing in recent weeks) and the inability to stop the Nuggets cost the Kings its third loss in a row.

Following the game, Alvin Gentry, Sabonis, Davion Mitchell and Fox spoke to media about the loss as well as the team’s support for Alex Len, who is from Ukraine and has family and friends who live there and are dealing with the current conflict. He tweeted out a joint statement yesterday with Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk. Before the game, the Kings and Nuggets stood in a moment of silence together in support of Len. This was also addressed in the postgame.

Turnovers

Alvin Gentry: “The live ball turnovers that we had, I thought that was a huge factor. They ended up with 18 points [off those turnovers], but I think it was the timing of the turnovers that we had that was really tough.” “I think we can do a better job in our decision-making so that those are cut down. This is not a team that you can turn the ball over against.”

Domantas Sabonis: “We had a lot of turnovers during the whole game, which really effected the game because against a team like that if you turn it over, they are going to convert on the other end, and they just made a lot of threes that really hurt us.” 4:38: “Turnovers were a big part throughout the whole game. I feel like they were silly ones, especially they were live ones, so they could go out and run in transition, that’s the main thing for us. We would have had a lot more possessions, we could have cut their points down by a lot.”

De’Aaron Fox: “They have great length as a team, but still just getting a feel for each other. We’ve had three practices, five games, I mean those things will definitely get better with time.” “15 [turnovers] is not horrible, but it’s not where you want to be, and I think most of them were live balls. We had a few that kind of just went through people’s hands and went out of bounds, but most of them were definitely live ball and they capitalized on it.”

Davion Mitchell:  “We just made mistakes. Some of the turnovers we can learn from. Honestly, I don’t think it’s learning to play with each other. I think we have a good feel for each other now, but I think we just made mistakes, that’s it.”

Shooting Woes

Alvin Gentry: “We have to shoot the ball better. I know we shot almost 50%, but it was the way, and then the three-point shots – we have a lot of open looks and we miss; they come down and make and that is a little bit disheartening and that’s where the separation starts.” “We’ve got guys I think are good shooters, but if they’re not going to make them then we’re going to have to try somebody else because I think if you look at the shots that we’re getting are good shots and we’ve got to make more than nine out 30 of those. I think Sabonis is doing a real good job of creating shots for us and we’re just going to have to step up and make them.”

Domantas Sabonis: “In that fourth quarter, they made a couple threes in a row that really hurt us and then we couldn’t convert on the offensive end, and then that led to long rebounds, which led to them running out and getting layups or there was I think two or three And 1s, which we can’t allow.”

Support for Alex Len 

Domantas Sabonis: “We stand with Alex Len, our brother you know, we support him and we want him to know that we are there for him.”

Alvin Gentry: “This is something the whole team said they would like to do. Alex is so well respected on this team and like I said, our main concern is that his family and everybody is safe and we’re going to support him in every possible way that we possibly can to help him get through this.”

Davion Mitchell: “It’s definitely hard for all of us, just seeing a teammate down like that and his family. We’re praying for him. Him and his family and we’ve got his back.”

De’Aaron Fox: “We had our first practice and Alex wasn’t there so me personally, I wasn’t really thinking anything of it at the time until yesterday and I’m like wow, well that’s probably why he is not at practice. Obviously, no one wants to be at war, and I don’t really have a lot to say about it, but it’s something that obviously effects everybody. It effects the entire world. We feel for him, and we pray for him and his family and his country as well.” “Having someone on your team that it is happening in their backyard it definitely hits you different. Him and  Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk are the only Ukrainians that I know in my life. Knowing people that it definitely hits home and they have people that still live there, family that live there, and friends that live there it definitely hits them different.”

A Few Takeaways

• Outside of Sabonis, Fox and Barnes, the Kings don’t have enough scoring help. Everyone else aside from those three were a combined 15-38, with Jeremy Lamb being the only other player in double digits with 11 points. As a team, the Kings shot 31% from three. Outside of the Kings main three players, they don’t have anyone you can consistently count on for 10-12 points per game. Moe Harkless, Justin Holiday and Donte DiVincenzo are good defenders, but the team needs more of a scoring punch from the rest of the roster. In his four games with the Kings, Donte DiVincenzo is 31% from the field and 25% from three. Davion Mitchell has proven to be able to score at a decent clip, but isn’t able to do it consistently yet. In the big trade, the Kings lost their two best shooters, and it is showing.
• Keeping Sabonis or Fox on the floor at all times is a goal, but there was a stretch when that didn’t happen Thursday and the Nuggets gained momentum. Here is what Gentry said: “We wanted to have one of those guys [Fox or Sabonis] in the game at all times, but they took Joker [Jokic] out and we just felt like Sabonis had played a lot of minutes and so we just felt like we needed to get him some kind of break. I think if you go back and look, we got Fox back in the game right after that. I don’t know what the stretch was, but it was less than two minutes where one of those guys wasn’t on the floor.”
• When asked if he is still figuring out the balance of running the offense through Sabonis or Fox, or switching between the two, Gentry said: “I think we go back and forth on that, but a lot of it is through Domas, but I think we also have some other things that we can do where we can go through Fox also. So, it’s not a totally dominate thing that we go through Sabonis all the time, or that we go through Fox all the time. I think it is a matter of from a coaching standpoint of looking and seeing where we can have the biggest advantage. I thought one of the things we needed to do a little bit more is have a little more ball movement when we didn’t have him in the game, and I didn’t think we did enough of that tonight. When he wasn’t in the game and we weren’t playing through him – one pass, shot, two pass, shot. I think we have got to have a little more ball movement than that.”
• The Kings clearly need to focus on getting the right mix of players around Fox and Sabonis in the offseason. Though it worked in the first two games that Sabonis arrived in town, the last three games have shown some glaring holes in the current roster construct.
• Certainly sending best wishes to Alex Len and his family during these scary times.

The Kings get these same Nuggets in Denver Saturday night.