Welp, seems to me like there was some lingering tryptophan in the legs of the Sacramento Kings in their loss to the Boston Celtics. I’m out of town, in a spot with very sketchy internet and so I was unable to watch more than a quarter of it, so let’s paint by numbers this bad boy a bit.
This was their third game in four nights and that one night off was Thanksgiving. Playing on the road in those circumstances are never conducive to winning and doing so against the best offense in the league shaves down the margins of likelihood even a bit further. Hmm.. positives… positives… search for positives. Domantas Sabonis rolled into triple double territory tonight with 18-10-6, so that’s nice. Keegan Murray found himself drowning in his recent quagmire of woe and wound up hitting a single three in garbage time. Combine that with Harrison Barnes having one of his “I’m definitely the fifth option” games ( 12 pts, 5 boards) and the bench coming up empty… It’s a surprise they didn’t get Brooklyn Nets’d tonight.
The story of tonight is pretty simple. They shot 9/36 from deep and turned the ball over nine more times than the Celtics. That 16-0 run in the third quarter wasn’t the best look for a Kings squad who had been fighting through a rough night, but if you can’t knock down shots and can’t take care of the ball, you can’t beat the best team in the East.
Congrats to Jayson Tatum on his 20-games-in MVP award and scoring 30 tonight. Congrats to Jaylen Brown for scoring 25 points with zero feet-in-mouth opportunities before or after the game. The Celtics are legit.
Okay, maybe someone will write up something better for this game tomorrow, but if they do… they’ve wasted precious minutes of their life on a disappointing showing and I’m disappointed in them. We’ll still have that Summer League Championship over them. That’s forever.
On to the next, everyone.
#SacramentoSad
Midway through the 3rd I was thinking the Kings might win. Then the roof fell in. Were the Celts just toying with the Kings up to that point? I hate to think that, but I wonder if there is that much difference between the two teams. They turned up the defensive pressure, and the Kings did not respond.
I hope that the Kings can learn and grow from playing a team that, right now, seems a lot better than they are.
They’re going to have pull the trigger on Murray’s minutes, and sooner rather than later. It’s 4 on 5 when he’s on the floor, and it’s costing the team.
Even though he was the 4th pick, (like we saw with Bagley) he needs to prove to be worth the minutes he gets, rather than simply being gifted them due to draft position.
I’m not there yet. He is still productive elsewhere on the court, it’s just that the shots aren’t falling. When looking at his form and shot selection, it seems fine. He’s taking open jumpers within the flow of the offense, it’s just that he’s had so many shot rim out. He’s not missing badly, it’s just a slump.
I say let him continue to shoot. The shots will fall once again.
If he was shooting, his poor play would be a less bitter pill to swallow. Way too much time flat-footed in the corner, just watching the game go by.
Is that him or the offensive role he has been given?
He does need to get to rim more, mainly cutting and getting easy looks from fox or sabonis. It will keep him more involved and increase his confidence. He is a scorer, and being relegated to just shooting 3s is not good for him or the team.
That’s a good question. I’m leaning toward him, because the rest of the team (1st & 2nd strings) mostly move around.
his shot is flat- that’s why it “scoops” at the rim. He needs more arch/ and he is aiming it, rather than shooting it.
and he has no force on his drives and does not want the ball when he cuts/ Other than that, fine.
it is curious that they put him on some tough opponents, and he has not developed a rep as a defender
and he just stands around. Lost all confidence
I’ve noticed the same when it comes to defense. Against ATL they had him pick up Dejounte and against Boston it was Brown. Those are smaller tough assignments for a rookie.
Definitely not moving or very tentative. Flat shot. Again, this had better be a shooting slump or slight injury otherwise he’s essentially a useless pick
Did Murray go through shooting slumps in college?
Who do you play instead of him?
They need him.
At this point, anybody else.
The problem they have is that “anybody else” on this roster that plays his position is not much different.
They counted on him from the day he was picked. Problems of a team that lacks talent.
As a longtime fan of this team, there are a shit ton of things to constantly worry about – will Fox continue to play well, will Barnes regress, will Huerter continue to shoot well, will their interior defense woes start to become glaring, …
For me right now, Murray’s development, or lack thereof, is my biggest worry.
It’s definitely disconcerting. You can’t miss on the 4 pick.
Hopefully Murray reverts back. Otherwise, the initial fears of drafting low ceiling player are true.
I
And yet the Kings are 10-8 and if this is your biggest worry? I call that good, even normal. We’re just not used to that around here. Give it time, we’ll get there.
Best team won and tonite Celtics bench was better when it counted and this team needs the 3 ball to win . Was not there tonite and Murray has to play better soon to stay in the rotation .
Will is out of town everybody. luckily there is the game thread
I’m ok with the loss, even the eventual blowout, as long as the team learns something from it. Holiday plus 3 games in 4 nights makes it a difficult circumstance, so I’ll cut them a bit more slack. However, if they’re getting ready to follow up the 7 game win streak with an extended losing streak then the whole Kangzy aura will be back in full force. Gotta learn from these losses and get better.
The Kings woke up in their beds Monday morning. They woke up in a Memphis hotel Tuesday morning. They woke up in an Atlanta hotel Wednesday morning. They woke up in a Boston hotel on Thanksgiving Thursday morning. That’s the type of thing that kicks your ass in the NBA.
An excuse? Nope. But it’s the reality of the NBA and these are games you are likely to drop if you’re the Kings still figuring things out. And if you don’t have your legs, you aren’t making your shots.
Mike Brown might have seemingly settled into a rotation but here came KZ Okpala roaring back from the dead!!! And that really is the main story of the game. Brown might be able to figure out how to go deeper into his rotation rather than remain in a rigid 9 man rotation. We’re only 18 games in, you gotta figure outta way to use all these guys.
The Kings are in the midst of a difficult (I think the most difficult) stretch in this season. @Memphis, @Atlanta, @Boston, Phoenix, Indiana, @LA Clippers, Chicago, @Milwaukee, @Cleveland, @New York, @Philadelphia, @Toronto and @ Detroit. The Clippers and Bulls are a b2b. The Philly-Toronto games are a b2b as well. You came into this stretch 9-6. I think if you’re the organization, you’re hoping to be .500 at least by the time you play Charlotte Dec 19th with makes you 14-14 record wise. By the end of this stretch, you’ll have played 11 of your 15 road games against the East.
Which is then followed by 15 of 19 games at home. From mid Dec to late Jan.
Worried? Nah. But as the season goes, you have to evolve with it and we are potentially seeing things evolve into a positive direction. String some W’s a together again, this all gets forgotten. Simple as that.
Kings ORtg: 116 (2nd), Kings DRtg: 114.2 Kings Net Rtg: 1.8 (10th)
Scary thing is our next shot at a win might not be until NY. Then Detroit after that.
I don’t know, I think they’ve got a pretty good shot at beating Phoenix and Indy at home. They have absolutely shot the lights out at home. This was a particularly brutal road trip and I was really just hoping for one win out of these three and if they were going to win, Memphis was the most important one to get.
get the Western one.
Agreed. And the easiest of the 3 games to win, too. I still think they carried the ending of the Memphis game into the Atlanta game and there was a bit of a success hangover on top of that.
Mike Brown said after the Pistons game (I think) that he wanted to see how this team handles a bit of a losing streak. Well, he got what he wanted. But I think they’ll be fine. They’ve got 2 days off at home with nice weather in NorCal this weekend to enjoy.
I’m still not entirely convinced they can beat good teams. Cleveland & Memphis are the only ones they managed to get a win against, so far. Small sample size, yes, but not one that instills a lot of confidence.
Sure but most good teams don’t beat good teams with regularity. Only the truly elite teams do that regularly and the Kings aren’t that. But I also don’t think this version of Phoenix is elite and I definitely don’t think Indy is anywhere near that. Indy has played the easiest schedule in the league by far and I think we are the very least even with them from a talent standpoint.
The Kings are not elite, not yet. They have quite the ways to go to accomplish that. But….they are good on offense and have shown they can do it in a few different ways already. That’s always a good sign.
Plus this team is at least good at the G Spot so you know the Beam is going to get lit whenever the team is at home for the most part. I like that!
Like FKC said, I don’t think so BTB. Phoenix is beatable, Indy is definitely beatable. Especially at home. Plus the Clippers/Bulls b2b isn’t nearly as tough as this b2b in Memphis and Atlanta was. Clippers might not have George or Leonard, Bulls aren’t exactly killing it either.
I get that we’re used to the Kings losing so it’s tough to remain optimistic. But I find it difficult to believe that they could manage to score 84 points on Boston with 4 mins left in the 3rd and somehow manage 20 points over the next 16 minutes to close out the game. And not have that largely be fatigue related.
It is what it is. But being in CA for a week will likely help this team more than than you might think.
These are good points, but I think the fact that they came roaring back in the second quarter and played well for most of the third indicates they had the energy and skill to compete throughout the game. They just wilted under pressure from a better team.
I don’t think Boston really did them in. The Kings starters, in particular, just bonked. Huerter missed 3’s he’s been making all season, for instance.
Is Boston a better team? I think so. But not that good, not yet anyway, to keep the Kings to 20 points over 16 minutes.
Pretty much called it in the prediction thread. The only thing surprising to me was that they had a lead at the end of the third. Boston is a MUCH better team than the Kings and that’s fine because they are a lot better than all but about three teams in the NBA. And it was 3rd in 4 nights. Brutal spot against the championship favorite. Get some rest and move on.
couldn’t watch this one. is there any reason why the alpha of the pack only played 14 minutes?
Is this in reference to Davion…?
oh, yeah, I probably should just said that. I mean, road game against Boston. pretty tough game. might wanna play Davion.
I’m not too worries about this loss, nor too worried about the loss against the Hawks.
I always said that a real evaluation should be done around the halfway point / trade deadline of the season.
But likely the upcoming streak will tell us a lot about this team. If you are team fighting for a play-off spot there should be no scheduled loss, Segababa or tired legs excuses. Of course such losses occurt, but for losing teams it’s a continued cop-out. Fo winning time it is an occasional occurence.
There are in general some positive trends (mainly on offense), and some negative trends (defense, Keegan, defense) so far. Huerter’s hot shooting was never likely to be sustainable, but now we’ll see how much he’ll regress. Fox’s FT shooting looks real, so there’s hope he can also sustain a respectable 3p%. Davis is as inconsistent as he’s always been but Monk has been steady overall. Some positives, some negatives.
As someone else said, Keegan’s slump is worrying. Happy that he did a decent job on the boards last night, because if he can’t add much if his shot isn’t falling he’s a liability out there.
Really need to trade Holmes/Davis for a quality backup 3/4. I think the lack of size on the wing hurts. Who that player is, realistically, idk.
Holmes and Davis plus a second for Bamba and Okeke.
What makes the magic want that deal?
Davis might interest them, but probably not enough for Bamba. I can’t see the Magic wanting anything to do with Holmes, though.
I kept thinking last night that Boston could use a guy like Holmes or Len. They don’t have a lot of size and Williams III is still a month or so out and make take a while to return to form. If they lose Horford for any amount of time, they are up a creek when it comes to big men.
What do the Celtics have that would make the deal work?
Nothing really. They have Gallo’s injured deal with his PO next year, but that can’t be traded until mid-December. It’s hard to get numbers to work.
I do like Cedi Osman on the Cavs. Seems like a solid backup SF. Be nice to snag him
I keep wondering if the Cavs would swap Davis for Isaac Okoro.
I like the idea of Okoro, but man, he’s a net negative on the offensive end. I’m not sure his defensive chops make up for it.
It’s called taking a chance, not a guarantee. 😊
As much as I don’t want to bag on Keegan, the “slump” is starting to become more than a slump. His energy started to pick up a bit in the second half last night, and his shot will come back around, but his ability to finish at the rim, something he did very well in college, isn’t happening. He’s getting blocked, missing shots, and turning it over way too much when going to the basket. He’s just gone from world beater in SL, Pre-season, and the first four games to a net negative. It seems like forever since this board was filled with arguments as to whether he was the second or third best scoring option on the team. I was super high on him, and now doubts are setting in.
It’s been 18 games and he is adjusting to the NBA way of life and schedule. He definitely struggles more on away games. His home and away splits are like different players.
In 7 home games he is averaging 16 and 3 while shooting 42% from 3 and 52% overall at 32MPG
In 9 away games he is averaging 6 and 4 while shooting 21% from 3 and 27% overall at 27MPG
That’s crazy.
Wow, those are crazy splits. Maybe he is a routine guy and all the traveling is messing with his schedule?
Wow. That seems like an “adjustment to the NBA” issue. College travel schedules aren’t nearly as dense and bigger schools like Iowa don’t travel much at all outside of their conference schedule and tournaments (where you get a chance to settle in).
BTW, Murray was Iowa’s leading scorer in every home game last season – the only games where someone else was the leading scorer were on the road:
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/2294/season/2022
And taking a quick sample of road games (win or loss, leading scorer or not), his 3 pt shooting on the road in college also looked pretty bad. I couldn’t find full shooting splits on a quick google though.
So we’ll just have to make sure we’ll have home court advantage throughout the playoffs.
This game came down to Kings couldn’t buy a three pointer and for a large stretch at end of third and beginning of forth quarters couldn’t even score mid range or under the basket. The C’s didn’t tighten up on defense or anything, we had some open looks, just couldn’t hit. And during that time the C’s couldn’t miss, weather wide open or contested, they couldn’t miss. About a 30-4 advantage for the C’s during that time. Game over, Man, game over.
That Tatum guy, he’s pretty good, huh?
Badge Legend