Entering their first season opener with true expectations in over a decade and a half, the Sacramento Kings jumped off the 2023-24 campaign against the young Utah Jazz squad and lit the beam with a 130-114 victory in Salt Lake City. Sacramento’s offense ignited early and stayed lit throughout the game, knocking down 19 three pointers and dishing out 29 assists on their 47 made buckets. Harrison Barnes led the way with 33 points, Domantas Sabonis had 22 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 assists, and De’Aaron Fox finished with 18 points and 6 assists in the victory.
The Jazz were led by 24 points and 6 assists by veteran Jordan Clarkson, who repeatedly torched the Kings on the perimeter, and Lauri Markkanen had 19 and 10. While the Kings defense was pretty successful in the first half, holding the Jazz to 35% shooting, Utah took advantage in the second half and repeatedly blasted past Sacramento’s perimeter defenders on the way to layups. Utah finished the game with 64 points in the paint, and despite the victory, Mike Brown likely has a bunch of defensive tape to show his squad tomorrow.
The Kings got it going early and kept their foot on the gas for most of the game; Fox scored the first bucket of the season off a beautiful drive, followed up by a behind-the-back assist from Sabonis for a Barnes three and a driving layup by Domas against Walker Kessler that gave the Kings a 7-0 lead to begin the game. Barnes’ offense was key to the Kings hot start, as Harrison had 28 of his 33 points in the first half while shooting 10-11 from the field and hitting 5-5 from deep. It was great to see the Black Falcon get hot early and attack with confidence, especially after an inconsistent preseason. Keegan Murray had some strong moments, especially in the first half, and finished with 15 points and 8 boards.
Game Notes
- Malik Monk had a rough game, scoring 10 points on 4-12 shooting, but had the play of the night with a tomahawk dunk off a steal and feed from his buddy De’Aaron.
Credit: Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports
- Sasha Vezenkov had a strong start to his Sacramento career – he hit a lightning-quick three pointer on his first possession and had some strong defensive possessions in the first half. He finished with 8 points, 2 boards, and 2 steals in 16 minutes. It’s unclear if Sasha will get as many minutes once Trey Lyles (who missed the game with a left calf strain) returns, but it was a promising first game for Sasha considering all the hand-wringing over his inconsistent preseason performances.
- Kevin Huerter had an inconsistent night – 7 points in 24 minutes on 3-9 shooting, including 1-5 from deep. While he had some physical moments on the glass (5 boards), he and Monk were both victims against the Jazz’ determined drivers. Meanwhile, Chris Duarte had 9 points (all threes) in 15 minutes, and while Davion Mitchell didn’t score a bucket, he had 4 assists and did a strong job of keeping the Kings offense moving.
- The Jazz played zone defense for most of the night, and it took a while for them to deviate from it despite Sacramento’s offensive success.
The Kings fly back to Sacramento for a matchup with the Golden State Warriors (yes, again) at Golden 1 Center on Friday.
Me trying to get info on the Kings first game while at work…..
Me after getting home and turning on the game after halftime….
Black Falcon landed with a lot of impact in SLC!
Sorry, Jazz. Better luck next time!
Are we having a jazz dance thread?
Can you dance to jazz?
Victory…Raise the purple antenna!
Me personally? Maybe.
Only if it’s disruptive jazz…
Not Brubeck, but in most cases, yes.
If you’re a good enough dancer you can dance to anything
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If you’re a bad enough dancer you can dance to anything
This, strangely enough, is true.
ok game-Got lead, kept lead, did not allow a big run or at least one that mattered.
New guys-Sasha- 8. Duarte 9 and JaVale 8. Not bad.
DS + Fox- mostly standard but Malik, Huerter and Mitchell down games.
Keegan mossed some bunnies but looked pretty good- D was good, got 8 boards.
Clean up some stuff, go into G1C with an attitude vs. duds.
LTB !
The main improvement I’d like to see is better paint defense.
It’s a start.
The Beaming
“You have to bleed to win”
&ct=g
I really liked what I saw from Javale McGee today. The Jazz seemed to hesitate a bit more near the rim and he altered some shots.
(SSS caveat)
I honestly cannot believe how much I like McGee on this team. I did not see that coming.
Congratulations to the Firm….. Salt lake celebrating their 50th season. This is not a slight.
Go Kings! I am so excited for this season. I suspect there will be some serious growth overall in year 2 with what Mike Brown and staff preaches, as well as the core being together again after a marvelous first go-around.
Some thoughts:
Go Kings!
Light the beam! Light all the beams tonight!
Hmm… Kings win by 16 but 5 out of 7 player highlights reels of the game on nba.com are of Jazz players, including a monster (/s) 5-point performance from Kelly Olynyk. I complained about this sort of thing quite a bit last year and I’m guessing I’ll be complaining about it a lot this year too.
If it were a win against the L*kers, we’d have 0 highlights
I’m impressed. They have a deep team and a real bench. So many weapons on this team. Was nice to get a lead and not let it slip away. This year could be real fun.
Great win. Love the new beam graphic you’ve added to the site, too. 1 down, 81 wins to go.
97 wins to go.
Enzymed
HB40 with a Samuel Clemens type (The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated) performance.
Sasha had a nice debut, but I don’t see him replacing Barnes in the line up any tine soon (like in – never gonna happen this season).
Domas and Fox looked comfortable, content and competent.
Keegan had 8 boards and 2 blocks to go with 15 pts and his 4 of 9 from 3. Who’s the DPOG?
If Huerter doesn’t un-slump in the next four games, his tightening leash will choke him out of the starting line up, me thinks I hope he does and expect he will.
Solid win- and an away win.
Love the Beam graphic!
Definitely not perfect, but
Offensively the Kings haven’t missed a beat, churning out good shots all game long. That’s why I never felt the Jazz could come back when they cut it to…twelve (?) at one point. The Kings just missed a couple of good shots. If you produce enough of those, you’ll score eventually.
I think it already showed that the Brown has more tools now compared to last season. Duarte, Vezenkov, and McGee aren’t ceiling raisers, but I feel like they raise the floor. Simply three decent to good NBA players in areas of need.
The defense on the other hand still needs work. Huerter and Monk in particular, like Bryant already mentioned, were targeted multiple times and didn’t do very well. This defensive possession by Huerter was inexcusable in my opinion:
So yeah, all in all a pretty good start to the season. Looking forward to the next two home games, to see how the Kings stack up to teams with loftier expectations than the Jazz.
Good stuff.
Can you tell me how you record and post such short clips of possessions, please?
I’m a bit embarrassed to share this, because I feel like there are way smarter and quicker ways out there that I haven’t discovered yet.
But I usually note the time/quarter when I see something interesting. I go to an NBA replay website (games are usually up when I wake up in my timezone) to make a quick screen cap, because I can’t use League Pass for that. I upload the screen cap on Giphy and share it here.
If anyone sees this and thinks ‘that’s really dumb’, please educate me in ways that are more efficient.
Makes me laugh-almost. Huerter runnin around with rag doll arms…just flopping at his side whilst on a stroll in the park.
AND AWAY WE GO!
What I love about the DOY candidate was how Fox was totally set up to dunk it himself but wanted something more. 🙂
Good to be back.
And I did think I saw significantly more intense D by Fox. Seems to have figured out how to body up, move his his feet and not flail with his arms.
It was obvious the Kings were more physical in defense. While it could always be better, I was really impressed with their team defense. It was noticeable. I was surprised by how well Sasha played on that side of the ball. Impressive for his first game in the league after all the struggles he’s been having getting acclimated.
This team is SOOOOOOO DEEP! Of course it was great to see Barnes go off to start the season. An aggressive Barnes driving to the hoop is a recipe for many many many Kings wins. It’s cool to think how regular rotation guys like Mitchell, Monk and Huerter had “bad games” and this team still scored 130 points. Every night one or more of Barnes, Mitchell, Monk, Huerter, Lyles, Duarte will have a bad game. On the flip side, every night one or more of Barnes, Mitchell, Monk, Huerter, Lyles or Duarte will have a “good game.”
A challenge but a luxury will be Mike Brown pin pointing which 1, 2, 3, or 4 of those guys is feeling it from game to game and allocating more minutes to the guy/guys that are.
While I say that, it should be noted that Spock just had a so so game. I fully expect significantly better games consistently (like averaging over 20 points) from him.
This team is scary. Period
I appreciate your optimism about the defense, but I didn’t see anything last night to convince me the team made any progress from last season. I WANT TO BELIEVE!
I assume by Spock, you are referring to He-who-shall-not-be-smiling
It’s nice to have a ho-hum easy victory to start the year. The game was never close or ever in doubt at any point. Considering that other than HB none of our guys shot well, that’s pretty impressive. Good start and on to the Warriors tomorrow.
Keegan went 4 of 9 from three and the new guys went 5 of 9 from three. McGee was perfect from the field, taking difficult shots. Sabonis shot 57% plus a three.
Fox, Huerter, Keegan, Monk, and Davion shot 32.7% combined. That’s usually a recipe for a loss. 57% for Sabonis was below what he shot last year. They shot 46% as a team which for them is middling to bad. The fact that despite that they blew out the Jazz is a good sign.
It took me back to the days where the Kings were routinely the favorites, and then took care of business to win. Last night was how I think a lot of games ought to play out.
It’s true and I haven’t felt that way in a LONG time. It’s nice!
Great win….
I really like Mike Brown putting Fox and Monk together on the court….they just got chemistry….
Sasha off-ball movement is really good…..and he got some active hands too…
Beat the teams you are suppose to beat. Utah is one of those teams.
Keegan looked more aggressive rebounding. I also liked that he didn’t shy away from Kessler at the rim and attempted that dunk.
Duarte has an edge to him that I like. Reminds me of Doug Christie in that sense.
At times the offense looked a bit out of sorts, but I will chalk that up to early season working out the kinks.
Defensively they gotta clean up the penetration from the perimeter. It was bad, and Huerter was not the only culprit.
from the SacBee:
“Barnes outburst was the highest-scoring first half in the opening game of the season by a Kings player since the NBA started tracking play-by-play data in 1996-97, surpassing Kevin Martin’s 24-point first half against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Oct. 28, 2009. Barnes became only the second Kings player with 27 points in a first half over that same span, joining Isaiah Thomas, who had 27 against Oklahoma City on Jan. 19, 2014.”
Harrison Barnes – new Pizza Guy?
I am totally locked in that the 1-4 PreSeason has the Kings already starting this season better, even though it is 1-0. Recall, One year ago, the Kings went 4-0 PreSeason and then 0-4 to start the Regular season. For this reason, after just one game – I am already hoping that the Kings go 1-4 or 0-5 next season for the guarantee for success.
Big brain shit right there!
Oh yeah –
3DChessCheckers level!HB getting twenty-seven in the first half provided enough separation that the Jazz were never really in the game, despite a few runs. He played a beautiful game.
If Keegan does 15 & 8 for a full season, that would be incredibly helpful. If he wants to do 19/6 instead, I will allow it.
Vez having a nice debut is important for a few reasons, but if it gives Lyles all the time he needs to get better, that may be at the top of the list. Calf strains can linger and recur if they don’t heal properly (Bengals fan), so I hope Tre and the team take advantage of this. And Vez battled on defense, grabbed some boards, not pretty, but great to see.
The entire world knows that DeAaron Fox is a superstar, with the sole exception of NBA referees. If last night was any indication, they’re going to let defenses beat the shit out of him. AGAIN.
Starting with a win feels great! Liked what I saw on offense from both first and second units.
The defense was still AWFUL.
Overreaction alert!
Unfortunately, Heurter may play himself right out of the lineup.
Luckily, two years ago, we traded Harrison Barnes while we could still get value for him. Oh wait.
HB often starts season killin it until his body starts wearing down. I’m hoping that’s why his playoffs were shitsville.
And hoping having Vez/Duarte will allow Barnes to be fresher for this year’s playoff run.
After the game, HB said in his interview something along the lines of giving up 114 points not being ideal. Then Matt Barnes made an excellent point about the Kings’ fast pace by default creating more possessions for opposing teams.
An offense like this skews many of the traditional benchmarks relating to defense. I suppose for Sacramento, defensive points per possession, and scoring differential will tell a more accurate story than simple defensive points per game.
FWIW NBA stats (after 1 game) places us at 13th with a DEFRTG of 108.6 just behind the Pistons (108.4). We’re 4th in NETRTG (15.2).
STOP THE COUNT
I Jazzed in my pants after this win.
Badge Legend