On a day when three of the NBA’s nine scheduled games were postponed as COVID runs rampant through the league, the Kings took the court Sunday without seven of their players — including six for health and safety protocols. They made the most of it and defeated the Spurs 121-114 at Golden 1 Center to end a three-game skid against San Antonio.
Buddy Hield hit 7 of 9 3-pointers and led all scorers with a season-high 29 points. Tyrese Haliburton had a double-double with 27 points and a career-high-tying 11 assists, and Damian Jones scored a career-high 23 points to give acting coach Doug Christie his second victory in three games.
Dejounte Murray scored 25 points to lead the Spurs, who hadn’t lost to the Kings since March 29.
Some observations:
BUDDY BUCKETS
Hield wasn’t much of a factor on offense in the first half, making just 1 of 5 from the field. However, the league’s No. 2 man in 3-pointers made got hot after the break.
Hield went a perfect 6 of 6 from 3-point land and scored 18 of his 24 second-half points in the fourth quarter.
HOT HALIBURTON
Starting at the point, Haliburton controlled the offense early. To go with 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting, he was credited with 12 assists at one point, but that number was knocked down to 10.
Playing much of the second half with four fouls, he looked for his shot more and helped Sacramento pull away and hold on for the win after San Antonio took a third-quarter lead.
JONES PROVIDES A SPARK
Damian Jones didn’t get the start for the short-handed Kings on Sunday, but he was a major reason Sacramento pulled out the victory.
He led Sacramento with 14 points at halftime en route to setting a new career scoring high and was active on the glass. He also hit two 3s for only the sixth of his career from beyond the arc.
AVOIDING THE THIRD QUARTER COLLAPSE
The Kings have had notable struggles in the third quarter of games. When they went down Sunday, things could have gotten out of control. But they kept their cool, entered the final period with the lead and never looked back.
Next up to end this back-to-back is a trip to San Francisco to face the Golden State Warriors, who have the NBA’s second-best record.
Is Fox taking the ball out of Tyrese’s hands? 😉
Halli has been outstanding since Fox has been out. This is a pretty good indicator for Monte to make his decision if he wants to trade Fox.
Hali has always seemed better suited to a primary facilitator role (i.e. traditional point guard) than an off-ball secondary facilitator. He has great size for a pg, not to mention BBIQ and passing skills. Wouldn’t be mad about giving him the keys to the offense and flipping Fox.
This is my official new gif from the last game recap. Hand Hali the keys.
Hali walking into Monte’s office:
Are we sure Monte has an office? Or if so, that he’s even be there?
my thoughts exactly. sitting on his hands gm. just dont know if Vivek is limiting him
This is your new signature GIF, after “Youngman!”
They are a bad pairing. Fox takes away from Hali because Fox can’t shoot and doesn’t cut-
He can’t play off ball. How/why he hasn’t improved his shot is beyond me. Or learn to cut etc.
He needs the ball to do anything and rarely , kicks it out to Hali, thereby not using Hali’s shooting strength.
Hali defers-isn’t aggressive w Fox out there because Fox gunks up the gears. The O is centered around Fox -dribble -drive-shoot-pass only when forced to.
I only wish Vivek(whoever else) would let them trade Fox-amd others-and build w Davion -Haliburton-Holmes-etc. I’d even keep Buddy but I see why people wouldn’t want.
Metu needs to be included in your ect. A rising star.
Kings are undefeated this season when a teammate lashes out at Buddy. Tomorrow someone needs to tell Buddy Steph is the undisputed 3-point King just to light a fire up his butt.
Pop addressing his team after tonight’s game:
He appeared magnanimous with Christie after the game.
DC clearly told Hali to stop passing up his shot to pass the ball. The emergence of Hali and Damian Jones as offensive forces should make the Kings stronger when the others come back.
Hopefully Jones will play when everyone gets back.
Metu’s the Man with the blocks and deflections
I like he is not taking too many 3………..
maybe Doug told Metu to go inside, and draw foul, rather than just shooting 3 with low fg%…
Again, Metu should be our starting 4, even if Bagley is back……..!!!!!!!!!!
On to back to back game ..
Hali brilliant as the point guard ! Hmm !
Ok I guess I’ll say it.
Hey, great win tonight. Lots of positives. Hard working, mostly smart, physically interested effort by an undermanned team.
Tyrese is a funny guy, he’s had a couple of appearances on JJ’s podcast
Good team victory. The Kings need more of these. Tyrese was great early, Jones and Rasmey changed the game in the late 3rd and kept the Spurs from taking control and Buddy’s heat check 3’s sealed the deal.
I’ll take it under the circumstances.
I think I saw two Kings dive on the floor for a loose ball, which I felt like was the first time this season and also tells you a lot about this game. The Kings didn’t play a particular good brand of basketball, but they fought like hell. I think we can all appreciate that.
They fought like basketball hell?
Seriously, I would love for this team to put that basketball hell meme on its head and have an intense, defensive, physical team that will make every other team dread coming to G1C (aka basketball hell), and not because of fear of a spectator puking on the court.
I hope they can build on this.
That’s such a good idea #omarmbasketballhell
Probeer maar eens de term “geuzennaam” uit te leggen in het Engels.
I’m pretty appalled at the editors for deleting all of the comments about how Hield is shooting 53.5% from three over the past five games. Or maybe the commenters are suffering from hysterical blindness.
Bag of chips incoming, I guess.
Just out of curiosity Sims, but what did you expect? It’s the same tone that’s been with much of this crew for the last 5 years.
I guess I’m just at that point where I don’t expect much anymore outside of whatever newer voices bring to the table I haven’t heard.
I guess I’d say that I don’t expect much, which isn’t a KH-specific problem. So far, we’ve spent the 21st century proving that we are not a serious people. We aren’t interested in science, math, or any concrete facts if they don’t prove what it is that we already believe.
But getting back to the site, I, of all people, don’t take issue with negativity, per se. This is me, after all. There are any number of legitimate issues with which to feel negative about the Sacramento Kings, which makes it all the more difficult to understand why people want to dig in on ridiculous premises like “Buddy Hield can’t shoot,” or “Fox sucks.”
Before I’m accused of telling fans how to fan, I am aware that this is how partisans behave everywhere in the realm of sport. People make an emotional investment, and we should not forget that “fan” is short for “fanatic,” a word that has inherently negative connotations outside of sports.
What I do not understand, however, is what good an editor thinks it does to egg on readers by lending their imprimatur to premises that are provably false. If it’s just about clicks, so be it, a site can’t run on pixie dust. I don’t really think it’s about that though. This is simply a substantial loss of perspective, and I don’t think that it does credit to this overwhelmingly excellent website.
I will praise buddy when he deserves to be praised and bash him when deserves to be bashed. He was great in the 2nd half last night, no doubt about it.
I think the following is true about Buddy:
He is playing slightly below contract value when you consider all things, but he does possess a singular elite skill (deep shooting/scoring at volume) that would make him attractive to at least a few teams.
His scoring ability would be missed around here. Everything else, not so much.
He is either our Evan Fournier, or Evan Fournier is NY’s Buddy Hield.
If you look at the catch all rankings that Andy Bailey does, Evan Fournier is 242. Buddy Hield is 102. FWIW.
If Fournier is Hield’s approximate value to the league, then perhaps the league is wrong on Buddy Hield.
They both make about the same amount, they both convert from beyond the arc at the same percentage, and they really do nothing more than that. Moving on.
But disregarding the fact that Hield takes and converts about one-third more three-pointers than Fournier this season, and last season, made only two fewer three pointers than Fournier took?
Even if Buddy shot only league-average from distance, his value comes on the sheer volume of shots that he converts. He is not remotely the player that guys like Curry and Lillard are, but for this statistic, he is absolutely in the conversation. No one is thinking about Evan Fournier.
Who the hell looks at these ratings anyway?
Andy Bailey? LOL.
He has like 300K Twitter followers. I don’t necessarily take it at face value, but there’s an interesting point being made about value.
So your saying confirmation bias is real when it come to believing and applying science and analytics? Now I hate agreeing with you …so I’m just going to say your science and data is the wrong scientific approach and the data analytics you are using are out of context…
im kidding and your point is very spot on ..
This. It’s not just this, prolly a combo of holidays and general personal apathy mixed in, but my clicks and comments are down the last month or so. Might make some happy!
Im sure it will come back and I love the site, but it hasn’t been much fun reading comments lately and there have been much worse stretches of basketball before that didn’t make me feel that way. Guess I contribute to that by backing off my own activity lately.
Do the comments trend more positive at all of the other sites where the team that is being followed has missed the playoffs for the last 15+ seasons? Asking for a friend.
The phenomenon that Wiz discusses is hardly new.
As I’ve said, it isn’t the negativity, something to which I’ve contributed my fair share. What’s going on here is more akin to a hate-follow on social media. If you can’t stand the players, the coaches, the front office and the owners, is there anything positive that you get out of any of it?
I still watch the games because on some level, I still very much enjoy them. I don’t bother with expectations because past is prologue, and I’ve found that it’s best to not have them, even for successful teams.
It’s okay to expect more, and under our circumstances as Kings fans, it wouldn’t even need to be much more in order to soothe us a bit. Given what we know, to allow their failure to do so to become an emotional ankle-weight seems unhealthy.
Thinking about it, I wonder how people would individually react to a credible threat of the team leaving Sacramento. I would be unequivocally upset about it. Each of us is entitled to our own response, but if your honest reaction falls along the lines of “whatever,” more power to you. But then why give it the power over your mood?
Been on this site the whole time and always lurked at STR. I expect negative comments about a substandard team.
It’s not the negativity but just the tone and hate watch/commenting vibe that Andy points out. It won’t last forever though. I think?
And yet, still no other NBA team has traded for him. In a league where shooting is at a premium.
Hmmmmmm
Reply meant for Sims.
No other team has traded for Tyrese Haliburton. What’s your point?
Uh. Buddy has been on the block for years, Hali hasn’t?
Maybe we really don’t want to trade our best overall shooter when we are void of consistent floor spreaders..
Right? Maybe the reason he hasn’t been traded is Monte is asking a lot in return?
If I am being perfectly honest, I would prefer to try to keep Hield if there was a trade for Simmons. It would be nice pairing an elite 3pt shooter with someone who is elite at setting up 3pt shooters.
Same. Right now I much prefer the backcourt of Hali and Buddy than I do of Fox and Hali. Adding Simmons to that duo of Hali and Buddy would be the icing on the cake, especially if you also have Barnes on the team. Give me three 40% from deep shooters around Simmons and I’d be a happy camper.
If you can manage to keep all of those guys, it’s certainly worth consideration. I think that may be a sticking point, unfortunately.
I agree. I’d think Philly would also want Barnes in a Simmons deal to go along with Fox.
Nice win and all… my fear is management is content with getting the 10 seed and nothing gets done at the trade deadline. A sub .500 record is NOT a successful season.
Unless you are the Kangz.. then slightly below 500 is successful
I saw this trade online: I think the Cavs will want something more. Probably have to throw in on Hield/Pick
what in the actual fuck
Why do the Cavs to that? Okoro is just beginning to elevate his game, at 20 and Barnes is rather redundant with their roster, and Sexton just makes no sense.
I could see them wanting Buddy instead, but I doubt they are sending out Okoro.
Yeah, I would think that Hield/Thompson for Love and a 1st round pick would be much more likely from the Cavs POV.
And that would make sense if Kings brass are 100% committed to a Fox and Hali backcourt going forward.
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