The Sacramento Kings wrapped up their six-game road trip with a statement win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, winning 124-111. It was an impressive start-to-finish win, with the Kings dominating on both sides of the ball.
The Kings were led by a fantastic effort from De’Aaron Fox, who finished with 36 points, 12 assists, and 7 rebounds. It wasn’t Fox’s most efficient night, with Fox taking 32 shots, but he came up big down the stretch.
The Kings secured the win despite a lopsided game from the officials. The Kings shot just 2 first half free throws, and only 11 free throws for the game. By comparison, Minnesota had 17 in the first half, and 29 for the game. Anthony Edwards shot 18 free throws for the game, making 17.
Ultimately, the Kings were buoyed by three-point shooting and second chance points. The Kings grabbed 14 offensive rebounds and made 17 of their 35 threes.
The Timberwolves are a good team, and the Kings authoritatively handed them their first loss at home for the season. This was a great win for the Kings, and a great way to finish this road trip. It also moves the Kings to 3-0 in the In-Season Tournament.
HB is starting to find his way since Keegan has been gone. With Keegan taking on a heavy load on defense, may be easier to ask Barnes to do more on offense once he returns. Less pressure on Keegan to do it all by Year 2.
Yeah. Keegan is hampering the development of Barnes. Something’s gotta give.
https://x.com/FCartoscelli3/status/1728271035525636402?s=20
Lol, Barnes is the perfect 4th option for this team of he would embrace it. The problem is good contending teams need the 4th option to either hustle and do all the dirty work or be a sniper or above avarage 3 and D guy that sometimes or better said often wont be flashy on the Stat sheet. The problem with Barnes is he’s not good enough to be the 3th option on a contending team and he’s not a good enough multifunctional scrappy guy nor defender to be the 4th. He’s definitely the ultimate role model and professional which all teams need but he’s sorta the odd man out for our timeline and needs.
Great team effort. Glad I was wrong in the prediction contest.
Came to say the same. What a big one!
Same.
Yep, I predicted a loss, and even though I get less Nostradumbass points, I’m happy to be wrong for that.
Same here. Tonight’s win really makes up for the two Pelicans games. Now it’s win and you’re going to Vegas. Have to step it up against the Warriors.
Purple royalty > Minny !
Oof that was touch and go there for a bit, but they reached down and pulled it out.
Games like this make me wonder how embarrassmemts like NO and HOU happen.
Denver just completed a 1 – 5 road trip, losing to NO in the first game and losing by 15 pts in HOU to finish the trip tonight!
Exactly. It is the NBA. Every team has their bad matchups and periods that they struggle. I am super satisfied with where the Kings are at right now, especially with key players missing time and a road heavy schedule.
That’s to be expected from budget Sabonis and the rest of his crew, though.
More touch and foul then touch and go, amirite?
Dang – That beam was even brighter tonight!
Refs whistling like the Lakers are still in Minneapolis.
Sabonis – one free throw? Disgraceful officiating – they won’t be ashamed but they should be
ANTman as he’s walking to the free-throw line.
The dude had 18 FT attempts to the Kings team total of 11. Cry me a river.
Yup and 4 of them were at end of game when Minne was trying to foul. Going’s are 9-6 with 10:road games and Fox out of 5 and Keegs missing 3 lyles missing 13
Didn’t he get a lot of late whistles tonight too? I remember one where Domas had the ball and was 2 steps up the court and then the whistle blew.
The officiating overall this season has been bad, and the late whistles even more annoying. Add that to the whining on every possession about being fouled, the league needs to make some changes.
I’m just glad we got to overcome that huge free throw lopsidedness for once.
he had more makes and attempts than Kings had attempts. He is getting a dud-like attitude of entitlement.
I thought this was a great win. The team seemed so composed for most of the game, whereas against NO they were discombobulated so easily.
Fox had 36, but emotionally it seemed like he dropped 50. When is he going to start getting superstar calls? He is probably a top 15 player in the game right now.
Minnesota is a good team, but their ceiling is absolutely set by having the two dumbest talented bigs in the game in KAT and Rudy. Yikes. There is not one crucial possession that one of them will either make a dumb pass or commit a dumb foul. They need to trade one of them for a few wings and some draft capital. I don’t understand the shape KAT is in. His body looks like a guy who plays in an over 40 league. He is probably the one that is easiest for the Wolves to moob along and get some depth and bolster a weak guard line.
9-6, with a slew of home games in the next few weeks. GO KINGS!
So what you’re saying is the Kings found their combobulation in Minnesota tonight
KAT, who was injured much of last season, is owed $36M this season and then for 2024-25 starts a $222M/4yr deal ($55M/season). (CAA Sports)
Minny had to pay a Sac Tax equivalent.
Rudy gets $41M, Mike Conellly $24M, AntMan $$13M, Naz Reid $12M
Their roster salary is $163M and with cap hold at $34M which makes the total $197M
KAT has a James Harden contract. which may turn into pre-Clipper Westbrook or even John Wall.
And because of Gobert, they have little in the way of draft capital.
KAT likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon
If I had to guess, he’ll end in LA (C or L) or New York (K or N).
Minny’s salary cap situation is an utter mess. They have good players I’d be trying to poach if I’m MM (Naz, McDaniels).
I can’t see anyone trading for Kat, Rudy or Conley.
Kat is known to not take ball seriously his whole career. It is who he is. Minny was dumb to give him a max contract. He’s the type of player that should have clauses in his contract for weight and body fat.
KAT’s physical shape is just bad. I mentioned to some people that he has no muscle definition, walks/runs hunched over, barely seems to get upnthe court, has almost no lift when jumping.
Dude is wasting his prime years. Push away from the table and hit the gym.
Northern Lights the Beam
I am pretty much done with the Duarte minutes. There are 40 versions of him in the league, he is one of many barely adequate players at his position. I would rather Kessler get some more time, for the Kings to play a little bigger, and see what his size, athleticism, and motor can bring to the table.
I second this. I’d rather see Kessler get Duartes minutes. Duarte always looks in scramble mode or something.
Agreed, I was hopeful he’d reignite some of his play during his rookie season. I’d even give some minutes to Colby Jones, he looks apart and is 21 years old. Duarte is an older rookie at 26 and I don’t see much upside other then a slghtly obove avarage 3 and D guy coming of the bench. Brown is hard on rookies and after one bad game he was sent down to the
G-league. Once Keegan returns this point is mute since Duarte is likely to be the odd man out of the rotation.
Colby Jones is not ready for any time but spot mins. He still plays like he’s in college. He needs a little more time to learn and catch up with the speed of the NBA. Looks a little nervous out there more than less.
Daurte seems like a player that will end up packaged as salary filler in a larger deal come the trade deadline.
Was Sasha injured or was it a DNP-CD?
Injured hand.
Thanks
Box score shows
Wait, does CD mean “Coach’s Decision”?
I always blamed Carmichael Dave!
Given the temperature in Minny tonight our dance thread should be an ice dance thread!
15 games played and losses to only 3 teams. 4-2 feels so much better than 3-3 after wining the first three. Now to smash the Warriors on Tuesday.
So is my math correct that the Kings can lose no worse than by 24 points to the Warriors on Tuesday to win the group? That means, the can fall to the Dubs by as much as 23 and still win the group?
No, if I understand it right the point differential only comes to play if 2 teams are tied and if head to head isn’t in play. It plays more of a factor for the one Wildcard opening on each conference. Let’s say the Dubs win and so do the Wolves, then point differential plays a factor since 3 teams have the same record and head to head advantages to each other. But if the Dubs win and the Wolves lose, then the Dubs clinch since they have the head to head match advantage to us. As far as the Wildcard is concerned, The Sun’s are in the best position to take it with a plus 34 if we lose. So all in all, it’s win to clinch or if we lose, lose by a small-ish margin and hope that Wolves win by a small-ish margin and we take the point differential between the 3 teams.
Only if the Twolves beat OKC on Tues. If that happens, and we lose to the warriors, it’d be a 3-way tie and none of the 3 teams have a head-to-head advantage over the other two so it would go to point diffential. However, if the wolves lose to OKC and we lose to the warriors, it’d only be a two-way tie with us and GSW and the duds would have the head-to-head advantage over us. Let’s just beat the duds and roll into Vegas undefeated in tournament play.
No sir. No ifs or buts. We need to beat the Warriors period. In season tournament or not.
Great win for the Kings, who played some fantastic basketball at times (especially in Q1).
Look at this absolute beauty in the opening minutes. In fourteen seconds:
[Italian gesture]
Also one of the worst officiated games I’ve seen in a while.
Truly beautiful basketball. A possession like this can’t be defended against, and all that the defense can do at the end is hope that the shooter misses a wide-open look.
The offense is the equivalent of a highly-choreographed dance routine, and everyone has hit their mark.
Tremendous win, easily the game of the season so far.
I gotta say, the in-season just doesn’t work for me. It is extremely gimmicky, and the players that “get up” for those games need to look in the mirror and do some soul searching. If they played that hard all season, then maybe they would be winning more.
Also, the point differential is disrespectful to the game. Being up by 10 with with just seconds left, jacking up shots would never fly in a normal game. I hope this tournament goes away after this season, but I don’t think it will.
It made no sense from the start. Of course it’s a money grab.
The courts are hideous and make the games annoying to watch. The jerseys are ugly.
Fans don’t care about gimmicky crap.
If ratings are up, the in season tournament will stick.
The NbA will never do it, but decreasing the regular season to 70 games would increase tv ratings and interest. The season is just too long and uninteresting and repetitive.
65 game season. Every team makes the playoffs or tournament. Seeding will depend on record and conferences are eliminated during this period. We keep the conferences during the regular season for rivalries. First two rounds are the best 3 out of 5. There would need to be some time off after the first two rounds (maybe one week) due to flying schedules. The later rounds are the best 4 out of 7. Whoever gets hot during the tournament can make some noise. It also helps in the years where the conference finals were better than the actual championship. It would be set up similar to the NCAA tournament with the higher seeds playing the lower seeds early. I thought about one game elimination rounds, but that’s too risky and the NBA wants that money.
All details have not been worked out, but here’s the proposal.
I guess I don’t see what was wrong with the way things had been for decades.
Agree, and get rid of the play-ins. Plus, I don’t see any team owner taking the chance of playing less than 82 games. Anything less cuts into their profits.
Still, if changes were to be made, maybe take the 65ish game idea then the best of 5 rounds and create a consolation bracket for first round losers that gets it’s own playoff run. Winner of consolation bracket gets paid like the IST or gets an additional lottery pick? Anything to make the games worthwhile and engaging for the fans. After all, it does currently suck when you have a stinker of team and the season is basically over by game 65. I can’t imagine too many Pistons fans tuning in to see their sorry team play after the all-star break.
I wonder if a study could be done to ascertain the financial impact of a 65 to 70 game season instead of the 82. It’s assumed that substantially less money would be made by franchises. But maybe the increased interest and significance of each game would increase ratings to the point where less games wouldn’t mean less money. Who knows.
My guess isbthat prices would raise to cover the lower number of games revenue. We all know it’s about money.
The money is still there when you add up the total games played.
Probably more seeing that once the playoffs or tournament starts, ticket prices go up anyway. 🤷🏽
It has been pretty easy to ignore and just remember it’s just another regular season game.
I have no interest in learning whatever the tournament actually is beyond a frivolous marketing stunt designed to take more money from fans.
How would you say that, with the exception of the single additional game set aside for the championship, that the tournament “take(s) more money from the fans?”
And focusing more closely, how would you say that the tournament “takes” more money from fans than, say, any non-tournament game?
The in season tournament is literally for the league, the media and the players in that order…. Fans will pay for it all.
Gobert apparently thought the refs were biased in favor of the Kings!
Officiating was terrible on both sides. No-calls, bad calls, just a lot of inconsistency.
This is a madman we’re talking about here, so on the basis of that, I guess it all makes perfect sense.
Gobert is French
I enjoy listening to NbA pods and reading Nba articles but the amount of attention and excitement for other young teams like OKC, Pels, Pacers and Magic compared to the Kings is astonishing. It’s almost as if we’re deemed to not be good or boring even though we have the most exciting brand of play in the association.
Why have the Kings been blacklisted?
I mean, the national media who stay up late enough to watch our games are more likely to instead watch the Lakers or Warriors. And the whole perception of Sacramento as a small-time cow-town is still shockingly prominent.
That said, it seems like some younger fans in the know are very aware of our team. I’ve had a number of college freshmen students over the past 13 months who are hard-core NBA fans here in upstate NY who are quite aware of the Kings and especially Fox. But I’m guessing those fans are much more tuned into social media than the traditional media, and maybe the Kings get more traction with the former.
I get it…. the national media can’t make money on the Kings being good. Got it.
After last years run we certainly should have had a ton more nationally televised games, so yeah perhaps money related to some extent.
Seems like most of these talking heads have absolute hard ons for OKC. Guys like KOC, Lowe and the ringer in general come to mind.
They are getting a ton of NBA TV games this year so far. I don’t think all of those are set at the start of the season, though, so maybe the people making those programming calls are seeing the Kings continuing to be good and fun and embracing them.
Phrasing is not a thing anymore?
Mr. Giddey would phrase it as “I’ve had a number of high school freshmen students over the past 13 months.”
…said Ripley to the android Bishop.
Who’s to say how I may have intended it…
I wish there was an open forum on the great Kings Herald thingy…Like a fan forum within the forum.
What would you discuss?
Amazing things like blacklists and the in game tournament posting somebody else’s amazing pics and gifs……….. Hold up.
I agree. Would be nice to have a Fan Posts section like there was on STR.
Win over Puppies was important. 4-2 is far better than 3-3. And T wolves gave Kings trouble last year. McDaniel’s out and not guarding Fox helped.
While this was a big win, I think the most important game was game 2 vs. NOP. Kings had been kicked in game 1 but bounced back in game 2, to make a game of it. That showed heart and resiliency and good coaching. Game was sort of close. Kings had a slight chance to win but demonstrating a strong effort got rid of the stink of game 1. This was different than the 2-game dump against Houston.
Now rest for a few days and then the duds. This time, we break the curse and beat their sorry asses. Day-ay will be back and on his worst behavior- just to prove how tough he is.
9-6. Won half 5-5 on road and are 4-1 at home. Solid.
Keegan has disappointed lately. Need him to be the #3 guy and he has not been that. Defense is clearly improved, and he does have more of an all-around offensive game but results are poor.
Want Keon back. Davion just goes north south and not east west (attack the hole)
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