The Sacramento Kings traveled down I-80 to visit the Golden State Warriors and (I apologize for being a little crass but this is the only appropriate way to express this) the Kings kicked Golden State’s ass. The team came out strong and never took their foot off the gas. Sacramento answered every Golden State run to try to close the gap, and the Warriors waved the white flag and cleared the bench at the start of the fourth quarter. This was such a fun Kings win, and a truly impressive showing considering the Kings were without De’Aaron Fox.
A few thoughts and observations from the win:
Monk and Domas lead the way
Malik Monk had 26 points, 12 assists, 4 steals, 3 rebounds, and 1 incredible soaring block. Monk was incredible in this game, doing it all for the Kings in Fox’s absence. Domantas Sabonis has 22 points, 13 rebounds, and 7 assists. Monk did that all in just 29 minutes, and Sabonis played just 30. Monk’s 12 assists tied his career high. Beyond the box score, Domas and (especially) Monk were simply leading the team in energy and effort and style. They put on a show, and dominated the Warriors.
Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Imagine not loving Malik Monk.
The Math Problem, Reversed
All season the Kings have been on the losing end of the math problem, where they allow opponents to hit threes at an absurd rate while being unable to convert their own. Tonight the Kings flipped that script. The Kings shot 44.2% from 3 on 43 attempts. The Warriors shot 34.3% on 35 attempts. The math was in Sacramento’s favor for once and boy was it fun. Monk was 5-of-8 from deep, Trey Lyles was 4-of-4, Keegan Murray was 3-of-8, and Kevin Huerter was 4-of-6. The Kings also converted 20-of-22 free throws for the game.
Quick thoughts on Devin Carter
Devin Carter finished this one with 13 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal. He played spirited defense in his 23 minutes as well. Overall, I thought he still looked very much like a rookie. That’s not a bad thing, per se. This was still just his second NBA game, but his 2-of-7 from three was tough to watch, and it seemed to me like the learning curve is still going to be slightly steeper than some folks had hoped after his strong showing in the G League. Carter reminds me a lot of a bigger Davion Mitchell. Considering the main drawback to Davion is that he was too small to handle switches and other teams could easily target him, being a bigger Davion is actually something I say as a compliment to Carter. I like his defensive effort, I really like how hard he goes for rebounds, and if he can find his shot at this level he could be a very good bench piece. I was not high on Carter in the draft, and I’m still not as high as some of my cohorts, but I think Carter’s worst case scenario is still a playable depth guy who is a defensive specialist. For a late lotto pick in a weak draft, that’s pretty good.
Doug was ready for a fight
With three and half minutes left in the third quarter Draymond Green laid Keon Ellis out with a hard screen. I don’t think Green was properly set, and he delivered a very hard screen to Ellis’ back. Ellis went down hard. There was no whistle, which I disagreed with but could actually understand. Blind screens can take dudes out and usually look pretty bad even when done in a fully legal way. Play continued, resulting in a Malik Monk shooting foul on Steph Curry. But when that whistle blew both coaching staffs were suddenly on the floor. Steve Kerr was throwing a temper tantrum, screaming that Ellis should have been called for a flop, and complaining that the Kings had flopped on fouls the entire night. Oblivious to the fact that 1) Draymond had not been assessed a foul, and 2) that Ellis in no way, shape, or form had flopped, Kerr continued his meltdown and got a tech.
Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
But as annoying as it was, my favorite part was that Doug Christie was on the floor and looked ready to fight Kerr. Kings players were trying to calm him down, and Domas led him off the floor. Doug was still pissed and Domas was laughing. It’s great seeing the coach ready to go to war for his players, and I’m sure it’s part of what has the Kings playing so hard under Doug.
After Doug’s first game (with less than day as head coach) resulted in a loss, the Kings have now won 4 straight and are playing with a fire they did not have before. The adjustments Doug has made seem to be working. It may be as simple as a new voice when the old voice was no longer being heard, but Doug has revived Sacramento’s season and (at least for the moment) restored hope that this season might not be over after all. I don’t know how long the improved vibes will last, but it’s fun as hell and I’m going to keep enjoying it.
I love beating the Warriors
The Golden State Warriors went on a run to close the gap in the second quarter. With 9:44 left in the 2nd Steph Curry was fouled on a three by DeMar DeRozan. He made the three, and made the free throw. The Kings missed their next shot, and Draymond Green made a three on the following possession. After a Kings turnover, Curry made a long three and was fouled by Domantas Sabonis. Before making the free throw, Curry took the time to do a long, exaggerated celebration for drawing the foul on a three yet again.
Jan 5, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) reacts after a three point basket and drawing a foul against Sacramento Kings center Domantas Sabonis (11) during the second quarter at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Curry made the free throw and cut Sacramento’s lead to 4. It was 40-36 with 8:50 left the 2nd quarter. The Warriors then went scoreless for two and a half minutes as the Kings extended the lead to 51-36 and never looked back. I’ve spent too many games watching Steph celebrate big shots like a jackass even when his team was behind, because with Steph on the team the Warriors never feel like they are out of a game. It was really goddamn fun to shove this win in their face and convince the Warriors to give up early.
Low minutes totals
One of the funniest moments of the game for me was midway through the fourth quarter. The game was a blowout, the Warriors had cleared the bench at the start of the fourth. DeMar DeRozan was bringing the ball up and called a timeout, basically subbing himself out of the game. It was a very funny veteran move of “why the hell am I still in a game where I’m being guarded by Pat Spencer?” DeRozan finished with a team-high 31 minutes. It’s great that the Kings were able to keep everyone’s minutes low, as the Kings were in the first game of a back to back.
Up Next
The Kings host the Miami Heat on Monday, January 6th at 7 PM PT
Um…
Did they move the Chase Center to Stockton?
The sideways I-5! (I-80)
That’s why the Warriors didn’t show up.
Nice
It looked like Curry, Green and the Santa Cruz Warriors out there. Maybe they actually came up highway 1.
lol did I mix it up? I even meant to check that before publishing. Been too long since I’ve lived out there.
It’s I-80 from Sac to SF. No biggee.
Yes you made an obvious mistake
but we don’t shoot our wounded.My favorite thing is that it led to a thread re-enacting a The Californians sketch where we discuss multiple routes to get somewhere and argue which way is faster.
Stuart! What are YUUUU doing here?
Devin (Carter)???
For sure!
Just 1.5 games out of the 8th seed now. Would have liked a redo on some of these recent losses at home but oh well. Just keep up the current intensity.
I got my ticket for the Carter bandwagon. I think he’s going to be a really nice piece for this team. No shade on Fox, who has really improved on defense the past few years. But I really felt comfortable watching one of either Ellis or Carter on the floor to provide defensive intensity against the Warriors guards. Both of them are very aware of their assignments but recognize appropriate times where they can sag off their opponent and provide additional help defense elsewhere. And that rebounding by Carter. Huge difference in the comp with Davion, aside from the wingspan which will lead to blocks.
This game was just plain fun. I yelled out loud several times and giggled at the absurdity of the beatdown they administered to the Dubs. Go out and get shit done again tomorrow, fellas.
Kings +2.1 point diff is 6th in the West, 9th overall. Too bad we’re not playing in the East!
Do bulls say yes to fox for colby white and patrick williams? Do the kings?
nets: cam johnson and dayron sharpe?
Char: miles bridges and trey mann?
Wiz: Kuzma and saddiq bey?
spurs: vassel and sochan?
you get my point, can we take sum of parts and get better.
these all can have picks going either way but i just mean the pieces to help win now and future.
Those are all awful trades other than the Spurs. Trading a dollar for a few quarters never works in the NBA. If you’re trading Fox, than you trade for young players and draft picks.
Also, why the hell would you want an asshole like Bridges on the team???
Always feels good to beat the Warriors but especially so when you see Kerr out they defending Draymond on that screen he set and acting like Keon flopped.
What in the world was Kerr mad about?
Just me perhaps, I thought he was being the illusionists distraction from the hard foul committed by Draymond bringing attention to himself and off Green should the refs decide to review the play.
What Kerr didn’t count on was DC coming out first to protect his player, but giving the Dubs coaching staff the death stare as he walked toward Keon.
As Greg noted it was a message that DC was sending to Kerr while also being interested in checking in on Keon.
Playing Chess with the Dubs on their side of the board in SF.
The Kings Gambit, if you will.
I had visions of Christie giving Kerr an uppercut. Christie had that quiet rage inside him during that sequence.
Spot on, “quiet rage” captures his mood exactly.
I love this about Christie vs Brown. Christie looks like he wants to rip someone’s heart out, where Brown looked confused much of the time.
Good take JP
Happy New Year to you and your family Michael.
King’s Gambit!
How clever HJP!
Imagine if he done it for the Rook.
Funny how Uppercut Doug is in the shadows. Love that Domas guided/restrained him back to the bench, to me that was the highlight – support from your All-NBA player is a precious commodity.
UTQ,
Uppercut Doug was going Castling….
He is a fighter in all the good sense of that word.
I was watching without sound. Green had about three hard non-basketball fouls in a row. The screen itself was a foul that he stepped into. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t called a foul. I thought Kerr was arguing because it was called a flagrant.
It looked like a cross-check in Hockey. It was so blatant, and I thought an offensive foul was called, but apparently that’s allowed in the NBA by certain teams/players.
I watched the Warriors postgame just to see if Kerr would sheepishly admit he was an idiot in that moment. Nope, not a word and it didn’t seem like the reporters even questioned him about it. But it was funny that their postgame show almost seemed like a Kings postgame show, given how many Malik Monk highlights they played.
Draymond Green is such a garbage player. At one point, he stood there berating the refs for like a minute straight like he always does without a T getting thrown. It’s really frustrating when Kings players will get a tech for looking askance at the refs. The NBA’s double standard is infuriating.
Same. I am baffled at how Green gets away with so many obviously dirty plays and so much screaming at the refs without much consequence.
Is it the rings? Are the refs scared of him? Proximity to Curry, an all-time great?
Seems jerks get by with more ref abuse because they heap it all the time and refs don’t want to call techs each time . See: Cousins, Dillon Brooks, Embiid .
I get it. It’s a vicious cycle, Draymond is always loudmouth jerk and the refs let him be a loudmouth jerk.
The inconsistency with how different teams and players league wide are refereed is infuriating though.
The plus side is when the W’s tried to make it dirty the Kings held their ground, kept their foot on the gas and kept stomping them.
Yeah. That type of moment could have inspired the Warriors, got the crowd back into it, and swung the momentum. But the Kings just kept rolling.
I think that was the whole point of Kerr’s outburst, last ditch effort to salvage the game.
IMO:
He takes a lot pages out of Phil Jackson’s coaching book. Totally fine accepting the calls in his favor but calls out the refs instantly when they lose.
Jackson benefitted from calls more than any coach ever between MJ, Kobe and Shaq but if they lost would call the refs out every time.
I think Kerr’s tirade was meant for future games against the Kings. He saw Keon’s ability to anticipate screens and get to the spot before screeners were fully set, making those screens that are often borderline illegal moving screens into clearly illegal moving screens. My guess is he’ll go to the refs before the next Kings/Dubs game and call the refs attention to Keon’s “flopping”.
The funny part about that entire saga is how blatantly obvious Curry’s flopping is on three point attempts whenever anyone is within a foot of him. He falls down in the most ridiculous manner constantly. I’m not sure I can recall seeing Keon flop once in the entirety of the time I’ve watched him.
I think Keon has begun to “exaggerate” a bit the effect of contact over the last few games. He wasn’t getting many calls from illegal screens as he should have, so calling attention to them as they happen has become necessary. (DC, as I recall, was pretty good at that tactic.)
Curry has a unique ability to contort his body while still in his shooting motion to draw fouls and still make the shot. Others (Trae Young comes to mind) draw the fouls but don’t make the shot consistently. And I agree that many of those “fouls” result from little to no contact.
You’re right, I hadn’t thought of that as flopping but now that you mention it, there has been some exaggeration on Keon’s part lately. I’ll have to remember to keep an eye on that. It’s a part of the game and I appreciate it when Kings players use it effectively. I just hate watching Curry crumple like a smashed spider on every contested three.
Keon is selling the call. Curry is flopping =)
DDR does the same as Curry, falls down after almost every shot.
By falling every time, Curry makes it harder for the refs to call him for an offensive foul for using an unnatural shooting motion.
For sure, ala Phil Jackson, the complaining was for the next game (game 6)
It was effective. And I just threw up in my mouth a little bit over the memory.
I don’t know about anybody else, but I thought Devin Carter looked awfully good for just his second NBA game. The defense and hustle are there and he seems to have a sense of where the ball is going to be which allows him to get the rebound and be in a good position to defend.
I am very optimistic about him playing a big role in the King’s future. I think he is already much better than we saw in Davion Mitchell.
I loved the effort. He still looks rushed and out of control a lot of the time but that’s probably rust/rookie jitters. The rebounding instincts are top notch. I’m hopeful.
He crashes the boards hard, and seems to out a body on a defender almost every time.
Agreed. Saw his G League game vs the Memphis Hustle and Carter was all over the place. Tweaked his ankle late in that game, so that may be slowing him.
Once he gets his conditioning up to par, the 3 point shooting may rise as well. The form starts a little lower than textbook but seems to be working for now.
Liking what Doug is bringing to the team…
Played really well, the defense is really active….
even the bench players were playing excellent defense in garbage time…
Fun game from the start. Energy was high, ball was moving, defense was rotating well, players looked confident when shooting. Christie era basketball has arrived.
Lineups involving Carter, Keon and Fox could become a staple of this team. The defensive potential makes me giggle.
My hope is that the intensity on defense from Keon and Devin will rub off more on Fox throughout the game. He can exert himself throughout the game and not need to try and save his energy for offense in the 4th quarter because they might have bigger leads with better defense throughout the game.
Didn’t we say similar things with regard to Davion’s intensity and Domas’ non-stop motor?
It’s only been two games so take this with a grain of salt but Carter looks like the defender we hoped Davion was.
Davion moves his feet well and competes but his lack of height and length allows opponents to shoot right over him most of the time.
And 1, one play caught my eye with Carter. 3rd quarter I think, Domas was going for a rebound and Carter swooped in over him. And Domas gave a quick look like WTF was that.
My comment was not so much about Carter but how his defensive play/intensity would rub off on Fox.
Carter looks promising (approved by the SSSI).
My bigger question is will Christie hold Fox to playing full speed more of the time?
If those other 3 guards are all doing it, that makes it much easier for him to stand his ground with Fox.
This. During the postgame interview in his last game in Stockton, Deuce mentioned that he was 6’2″ and Carter immediately said “six foot three, I’m six three”. He is 3 inches taller than Davion and has 5 more inches of wingspan. The comparisons to Davion won’t be happening by the end of this season, imo. Dude is going to be a major contributor to this team once he learns the ways of the NBA.
He already positions himself on defense as well as Davion did in his third year in the NBA, honestly maybe even a little better. Davion averages a little less than 2 rebounds per game over his career. In two NBA games, Carter has pulled down a rebound every three minutes. I don’t know about his scoring yet but his dish out to the wing for a three last night (can’t remember the player on the perimeter) showed excellent court vision. And he’s clearly not afraid to take his shots in the flow of the offense. I think Carter’s going to be one of the absolute steals of the draft.
I was dismayed when they selected him due to the redundancy but I’m already pretty hyped about the pick after watching him play in a few games.
I’ll add:
Sprinkle in his basketball IQ and family pedigree, I think he’s going to be a baller. Yeah, he and Keon are going to push Fox to compete and may very well force a trade, whether Fox is discontent or not.
Only been two games so I will temper my excitement but so far I love what I have seen and want to see more.
And if he continues this type of play I will think of him a lot like I think of Keon, he does a lot to contribute without needing to take a lot of shots. Basically any points they score is a bonus. That is a good thing and winning teams always have guys like this.
I will not curb my enthusiasm, lol. We Kings fans have had so little to be excited about since the Beam season!
For sure! I am afraid I will jinx it if I get too excited. Basically, being a long time Kings, Raiders, A’s fan will make you second guess some shit.
For example, they won 3 in a row and I finally bought a new Kings hoodie, then they lose 6 in a row and fire the coach LOL
Oh, I’m totally with you! I had a feeling before last night’s game that with the Warriors on a SEGABABA and the Kings’ need to play two lockdown defensive PGs on Curry in Fox’s absense, that we might handily beat the Dubs. But I dareth not speak that out loud before the game!
We did, but I think Devin is a better defender and actually makes a difference. I always thought Davion looked like he was playing defense, but didnt usually have an impact.
Devin rotates better, rebounds better, and can guard multiple defenders.
I get the comparison to effort and intensity, though.
100% if Fox can buy into the play full speed the whole game strategy (which is what Christie is asking for) the Kings could give a lot of teams problems.
Imagine Fox, Monk, Keon, and Carter rotating in and out going full speed and mixing in some full court and 3/4 court pressure
I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming.
Only thing that would’ve made it even better was if Monk or someone had done a night night to the Warriors.
Malik Monk, all class, all balls.
Love this
Ball movement has been consistently impressive. Over the last 5 games an average of 30 assists.
Getting the best possible shot. Very similar to how the Celtics are winning.
Kings, of course don’t have the same talent or length. But the offensive philosophy is a great one to emulate.
My only concern with the offense is Fox. Is he going to be willing to give up touches. As his numbers will naturally go down. Will this bother him in a quest for All NBA.
Regardless,
I believe this is helping the offensive 3pt average increase ar least a little. 44 percent over the last 2 games. 35 percent over the last 5. Not great. But certainly better. The 3pt defense has been a little better as well over the last 4 games. Teams shooting under 40 percent from 3 is a step in the right direction. Only Memphis and Lakers have shot over 40 percent from 3 over the last 5.
Gauging the talent and Christie’s coaching acumen will be upcoming: Games against the best of the East.
Bucks, Knicks, Celtics, Sixers again probably with Embiid
Some tough West matchups: Rockets, Nuggets, Warriors revenge game
The team is playing better than at any point all season.
It’s only 5 games. So I cannot tell if this is a honeymoon period. Team playing hard for new coach or teams don’t have much film on Christie’s new offense? Or Both.
We’ll know by the end of Jan.
Some great points!
I have the same concerns with Fox, basically will he buy in and put out the same effort for the team.
I think upping the pace helps with the 3pt defense. What I mean is playing at a frenetic, almost chaotic pace helps the Kings, they seem to thrive in the chaos. If the opponent gets caught in that pace they might start rushing their 3s just a bit and now the percentage goes down.
I think the 4 guard combo of Fox, Monk, Keon and Carter can thrive in this style and wear teams out. If Fox buys in and plays consistently like the other 3.
And 1, also agree on the honeymoon period comment/question. Is this sustainable?
2 of 7. 13th pick in his 2nd NBA game. Tough to watch.
3 of 8. 4th pick in his 3rd NBA season. Contributor to the good math.
Good win. For all the reasons.
Badge Legend