The Kings continued their holiday home stand tonight by hosting those annoying downstairs neighbors who call themselves the Los Angeles Lakers. After a disappointing loss to the Charlotte Hornets in front of a sold out crowd on Monday night, the Kings looked to redeem their hometown hero status in front of another jam packed arena, and the stage was set nicely for them to do so. The Lakers came in clinging onto the 37-year-old shoulders of LeBron James, as Russell Westbrook and Austin Reaves sat out tonight. And the earth is still round, so Anthony Davis has been out with a foot injury. All signs pointed to a Kings’ victory, and no matter the day, no matter the time, and no matter the injuries, it is always a beautiful day if the Kings beat the Lakers. Let’s see how they did:
Quick Stats
Outcome: Kings win, 134-120
Sacramento Kings: 134 pts, 50.5% fg, 36.2% 3 pt, 75.0% ft, 29 ast, 46 reb, 12 to
Los Angeles Lakers: 120 pts, 50.0% fg, 45.8% 3 pt, 83.3% ft, 25 ast, 39 reb, 15 to
It’s a BEAUTIFUL day, folks! Bookended by a slow start and a chaotic finish, this game was ultimately controlled by the Kings and their explosive offense. There were a ton of exciting moments that came from every part of the roster, from De’Aaron Fox to Neemias Queta. We are officially 30 games in, y’all, and the Kings are 17-13! LIGHT THAT BEAM!
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
the Good
- Everybody Eats: Four of the Kings’ starters scored 20 or more points tonight, with Domantas Sabonis coming in next with 13 points. Don’t be fooled by Sabonis’ point total – this dude still went bonkers, finishing with his second triple double of the season – 13 points, 21 rebounds, 12 assists, and two hits to the face. Kevin Huerter led the team with 26 points on 3-7 from the 3-point line and nine total made field goals. The best part of Huerter’s performance was seeing him find his points elsewhere as he rolled up his sleeves and did some dirty work inside the paint. Harrison Barnes turned Black Falcon tonight with 20 points and eight rebounds. And before getting ejected (more on that later), De’Aaron Fox made himself a comfortable home in the midrange, hitting seven made field goals and going 8-9 from the free throw line for 22 points. Last but not least, probably the most fun performance was from Neemias Queta. In just 11 minutes, Queta finished with 10 points and a perfect 5-5 from the field, all of which were dunks. Selfless setups from Malik Monk gave Queta the spotlight to shine and it was the icing on the cake for this Kings offense tonight.
- Bench Defense: While the Kings’ bench scoring was quieter tonight, the defense was LOUD. During the Lakers most productive runs, they were able to carve up the Kings’ defense with penetration and quick passing, often finding an open man underneath the basket for easy dunks. But once Davion Mitchell, Malik Monk, and Terence Davis stepped on the court, this all changed. With more ball pressure and primary containment, the Lakers weren’t able to misshape the Kings’ defense and were thus forced into tougher looks. Davis also had two huge blocks, one in transition on Kendrick Nunn, and another from weak side help on LeBron James. The defensive spark the Kings’ bench provided was invaluable.
- Responding to the Madness: The Kings held a comfortable 16-point lead in the final three minutes of the game and “Light the Beam” chants were raining down in Golden 1 Center. Then all hell broke loose. After getting clobbered by two Lakers on a drive, De’Aaron Fox lost the ball and Kevin Huerter was forced to take a clear path foul on Dennis Schroder. Fox, vocally frustrated, then received two technical fouls, equating to an ejection. Paired with Huerter’s clear path foul, this meant four free throws and possession for the Lakers, which ultimately cut their lead down to 13. It felt like a bad omen, like we were about to be punished for those early beam chants. But, luckily, the Kings responded. Instead of folding under the pressure of a bad situation, the Kings responded by getting two defensive stops and draining two 3-pointers in a row, officially icing the game.
- Doing it for the Fam: Both Domantas Sabonis and Keegan Murray got to play in front of their families tonight, and both sure did show up for the opportunity. Sabonis got his triple double, while Murray was the team’s second leading scorer with 23 points. Seeing them show out for their families was just another reason to love tonight’s victory. Happy holidays, indeed.
The Bad
- Nervous Start: We’ll keep these short since who the heck cares about bad and ugly things when the Kings beat the Lakers?! It seemed like the Kings had some nervous energy to get out in the beginning of the game, as they let the Lakers hang around for about 26 minutes before finally turning on the jets.
The Ugly
- Leaving the Helper Hangin’: The defense still needs work, but we already knew that. LeBron James led the Lakers with 31 points and Thomas Bryant logged a double double with 17 points and 10 boards. But, again, WHO CARES because we BEAT LA!
The King of Kings
I wish I could Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls this one and give the Kings of Kings crown to everyone. I mean, I guess I could, this is my recap and Greg is probably drunk right now (Editor’s Note: Correct), so he wouldn’t catch it in his review… but I’ll keep it classic and stick to one guy. I feel great about giving this one to Keegan Murray for playing with a confidence that led him to shoot 6-12 from the 3-point line. He never hesitated in his looks and always seemed to make a shot just at the right time to make Golden 1 Center explode. We even got to see some fun emotion out of Keegan when he took a charge in the 4th quarter and he graced us with a subtle fist bump while he was still on the floor. Don’t forget to say your six Hail Murray prayers tonight for his six made 3-pointers:
Hail Murray, full of treys, Kings fans are with you; blessed are you among sixth men, and blessed is the fruit of your hustle, buckets, now and at the end of regulation.
— Greg (@gwiss) December 22, 2022
Keegan also earned tonight’s DPOG Chain:
the rook earns his first 𝑫𝑷𝑶𝑮 chain 🔥 #BeamTeam pic.twitter.com/lkDIAgya57
— Sacramento Kings (@SacramentoKings) December 22, 2022
Which he may have broken?
Coach Brown on Keegan Murray *possibly* having broke the DPOG chain and some additional comments about the rookie’s swag or lack thereof. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/KCTsz4FYQi
— Brenden Nunes (@BrendenNunesNBA) December 22, 2022
We love Keegan.
Up Next
Friday, December 23rd vs. Washington Wizards – 7:00 P.M. (PT)
How perfect is the universe that now the Kings have a Fox, and the Lakers have a Christie
they have a ….ahem, “king”.
And we are THE KINGS.
Not a fan… Kings didn’t win hard enough
Given that our flamethrowers off the bench, Monk & Davis, were rather ineffective on the offensive end, this was a tremendous team victory.
And give me those Davis splat blocks all day.
I don’t know who “Davis” is?…. Is he a basketball player?
It doesn’t seem like you’re being ironic, but on the other hand, I can’t imagine that you’ve never heard of Terence Davis.
Don’t you just love beating LA!
Pictured: WINTER
Laker Fan ..
Solid win. Took control when they needed to and kept them at arms length long enough to mostly coast to the W.
&ct=g
LIGHT THE BEAM!
(hope Domas didn’t sustain as bad of a neck injury as it seemed – it looked bad. Also nice job by Barnes, Heurter and Murray. Fox was also “just right”.
I thought Neemias was okay. Not expecting special, but I was hoping for something more. Maybe he just needs more court time.
I’d be surprised if his neck wasn’t pretty painful tomorrow. Maybe put him in a soft collar for a couple of days.
The neck of an Ox.
Beat the Lake(rs) dance!
He sure does!
Yeah, Queta’s 10 points on 5 shots look more impressive on paper than they did during the game. He was simply okay, which is completely fine given the minutes he has played with this group. He boxed out, grabbed a couple of rebounds, played with energy, and finished around the rim.
His fouls and specifically the way he fouls (in the NBA) are worrisome and doesn’t seem to have improved much since last year. I feel like he could improve significantly when it comes to simply staying big and using verticality to defend. This was also the second game in a row where he fumbled rebounds on multiple occasions, which is potentially worrisome at that position. I haven’t seen him enough though to know if that was a fluke or if he has a bad pair of hands.
I do think his play of last night has earned him minutes against Wizards. Will be a good test for him, since he’ll go up against one of the better back-up centers in the league in Daniel Gafford.
U don no ’em Bruh!
I like Q or I like the idea of Q- big, mobile to a degree and talkative.
I want him to be more than he is but big guys take time. He did indeed look better than D. Jones.
The lob-dunks were impressive.
Less athletic than Metu but much bigger.
and he has poor hands- just never a great rebounder for this huge size. Set
s a good pick and his dribble hand off extends out to Yuba City- long reach
have to wait and see
2 games back of the #1 seed. Let’s get that done by NYE.
Glory Glory Hallelujah
That game made me feel funny in my swimsuit area
Like the Lebron LA Lakers ESPN is pure garbage.
Still can’t believe we got K-Von for a mid-late first.
FTFY.
Some fantastic performances all around tonight, but Murray especially stood out to me. Drew charges, contested shots, recovered loose balls, got to the line, oh and hit six triples. Simply played winning basketball, kudos to him.
After thirty games I feel confident in saying this team is pretty good, which is fantastic after so many years of straight shite.
I hope McNair can wiggle his way in another trade and find the Kings an eighth (or ninth if you see Lyles as one) rotation player. Preferably a center, but another big guard/wing would be welcome as well, seeing as that would probably push Davis out of the rotation. He shows flashes, but I feel like his bad (dumb fouls, TOs, poor defensive positioning) still outweighs the good (shot-making every now and again).
Let me ask you, because I agree that Murray had a nice game:
Does it bother you at all that his rebounding numbers are pretty low, and assists are all but non-existent?
In his last five games, (all but one he played 30+ minutes), Murray has twelve rebounds and only two assists. On nights where he drops half-a-dozen threes, it’s easy to live with, but that’s not going to be the norm. A player with his size and skill ought to have more robust numbers, and I’m thinking Coach Brown may need to light a fire under Murray about contributing in other ways.
He hasn’t even played in twenty NBA games. Coach Brown wants him to learn which way to run when the ball moves.
Real teams develop rookies instead of rely on them to carry the team.
That doesn’t have anything to do with my question about his under-performance relating to rebounds and assists, but I understand that you needed to respond.
Happy Holidays!
“ A player with his size and skill ought to have more robust numbers, and I’m thinking Coach Brown may need to light a fire under Murray about contributing in other ways.”
As I said….I don’t think coach Brown is going to light a fire under Murray to do more. I think coach Brown is teaching him how to play in the NBA.
It doesn’t bother me, but I’m keeping my eye on it. Especially the rebounding is just strange when looking at his size, athleticism and wingspan. I mostly attribute that to him not being savvy enough yet using his body, while he also doesn’t seem too comfortable being physical. I expect we’ll see that improve though the more reps he gets. His low rebounding numbers could also be influenced by Brown having him defend guards much.
On the assists: I don’t know. From the bits that we’ve seen, he’s just not a natural playmaker. And he doesn’t have to be yet: most of his shots are either wide-open threes, or mismatches in the post. Two types of shots that don’t necessarily warrant an extra pass. At some point teams will start to guard him differently though and he’ll have to drive it more. The playmaking that ensued from that early in the season was…quite poor, but maybe he just needs to have it go wrong a couple of times before it clicks? Again, I don’t know.
Great answer, thank you!
LIGHT THE BEAM
Perfect.
Can’t wait til Kings YouTube drops the video putting the chains on Keegan 😂😂
I still think the fans should be chanting “BEAT LA”…………..
instead of light the beam………
This game was a team win….
The charge by Mitchell and Murray is amazing…
The 2 blks by TD is also very nice to see……..
The setup by Monk, and reserve layup by Fox is incredible……..
“Beam LA”?
Beat the Beam
Fun game overall, fun ending. Hopefully, the Lakers won’t get so many cheers in the future as they did last night. But, outside of De’Aaron’s ejection, I don’t have much to say at this point. The Kings actually killed the Lakers when they bothered to get into the paint, that’s my big issue. That, and I’d like to see De’Aaron and Malik get Domas succe easy buckets more frequently. But these are nitpicky, admittedly, and it’s not the end of the world.
Also, these Lakers aren’t all that good unless they can ride AD 38 MPG. I doubt they can.
Go get those Wizards tomorrow boys!!!
And get over that 4 game spread jinz.
There needs to be some rule where the fans can’t start chanting “Light the Beam” until below 2 minutes left and the team up 15 pts or more. Chanting with 6 minutes left, even with a decent lead, is courting danger to be riduculed and left with egg on your faces. With how the 3 ball is shot now, no double digit lead is safe in the 4th quarter.
NO QUARTER !
Let them have their fun. If what you say happens they will learn not to do it next time. Not a big deal.
Agreed. So many of us are just elated to have something fun.
it does leave us open for shit talking, though. No argument there. Especially the greatest piece of trash talk ever: “Scoreboard.”
“What King’s fans need to understand is…”
best play of the game: about 6:15 left in the 4th quarter. Davion guards Lebron. thinking it”s a mismatch, Lebron posts up and tries to push him around to get open. Doesn’t work. Lakers can’t feed him the ball. Instead they swing it to the wing on Lebron’s side. Pass to Lonnie Walker who drives. Davion steps over to take the charge. The replay from a different angle shows Davion’s side step better. Off the charts.
funniest play of the game: Keegan at the end of the 3rd quarter. just watch it.
I liked when Delly threw the entry pass off of a Laker’s lower leg and out of bounds to get a “kicked” ball and reset the shot clock from 2 seconds to 14 … crafty veteran 🙂
FYI there are quite a few seats left for the Wizards game, pricey though. If you haven’t gone yet this year that looks like one of the more available games I’ve seen in a while.
Ouch. That’s gotta Huert.
Lakers. A broken AD. Name a more iconic duo.
……..
The best birthday gift I could have asked for!
This honestly was one of my favorite games ever as a Kings fan. Sabonis is a top 5 big man in this league, Keegan being aggressive and showing why he was a top pick, Fox getting his shot whenever he chose to, Monk and Red Velvet earning every cent of their contracts, and last but certainly not least, BEATING THE HELL OUT of the Losers.
This was beautiful.
Sucking for almost 20 years was worth it last night
Happy birthday!
hope Wizards go 8 overtimes tonight and then get some turbulence.
and oh ? the duds most recent road trip- 1 and 5 you say??
Thank you!
This is off-topic, but ESPN Power Rankings of the Kings is just the worst. Kendra Andrews doesn’t even put in the effort it would take to read game recaps for the week.
For the second time after the Lakers losing to us, very professional approach by James Worthy and Robert Horry while analysing the Kings in the post-game show.
No mockery about the drought, they just said that Sacramento is a good team and should make the playoffs.
Worthy also said that no one is looking to face Fox and Sabonis in a seven game series. Both of them praised Keegan a lot.
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