Facing a close game heading into the 4th quarter, it was Trey Lyles – with some help from De’Aaron Fox – who stepped up to propel the Sacramento Kings on a 35-14 run to end the game and secure a 135-115 victory.
Lyles had 15 points and 6 boards on 5 of 5 shooting in the 4th alone, and Fox added 9 in the period to knock the Rockets out of orbit. Houston led 101-100 with 8:44 to go in the game, but the Kings offense heated up and put the scrappy young Rockets team away for good.
Fox had 24 points and 9 assists in the victory, Lyles finished with 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks, and Domantas Sabonis had a near triple double with 25 points, 9 assists, and 14 boards. Jalen Green led the Rockets with 26 points, and Kenyon Martin Jr. scored 21 points off the bench. Sophomore big man Alperen Sengun finished with a 10 point, 10 rebound, 10 assist triple double and looked the part of a young Sabonis for much of the night.
While the late-game run left the Golden 1 Center crowd elated with the result, the final score somewhat masked a truly disappointing defensive performance. This would have been a great game for the Kings to show some defensive effort and success against one of the youngest, most inefficient squads in the league – instead, they let the Rockets dominate them in both isolation and with off-ball movement for the first three quarters. Coming into the game, the Rockets averaged 21.8 assists (2nd last in league) and 17 turnovers (worst in league) per game, but had 16 assists and only 6 turnovers in the first half alone. They ended the game with 30 assists and 13 turnovers while shooting 45.8% from the field and 39% from deep. Across both this game, and the season as a whole, Sacramento’s awful defense continuously lets their opponents play up to their level offensively.
Rookie Keegan Murray finished with 16 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 threes against the Rockets and out-dueled the Houston rookie combo of Jabari Smith Jr. (8 points, 9 rebounds, and one poster dunk over Keegan) and Tari Eason (7 points and 3 rebounds).
What the game lacked in defense, it didn’t lack in physicality – Murray got hammered on a 4th quarter drive as Houston’s Garrison Mathews rightfully earned a flagrant foul while “going “for a block. Sabonis was also outwardly frustrated with the officiating all night, especially since Houston’s only answer to Sabonis in the paint seemed to be to rough him up. But the Kings stepped up when they got the line – they went 26 of 31 from the charity stripe.
Kevin Huerter sat out the game due to a non-COVID illness, and Terence Davis started in his place. Davis finished with 6 points and 6 rebounds, while Malik Monk had 11 points off the bench but shot just 3 of 13 from the field.
These same two teams will take on a rematch on Friday at Golden 1 Center.
Good win.
Now let’s make it 5 games over .500 on Friday.
I’m hoping we finally break the 5 games over .500 curse.
Playing these same Rockets again on Friday. It is time!
You just HAD to call it a curse didn’t ya?
Good teams beat bad teams.
Our Kings are coming together.
Looking at the 4th. quarter half way in. Hey we can play defense. Now if we can provide some of this over the entire game we will be in good shape, For 3 quarters we were playing down to the competition then decided we didn’t have to. Make it 5 games over 500.
Rockets ahead at I think 8:47 to go.
A win is a win but I would like to see effort, early and often.
What’s the old saying? 8th time is the charm!!
7th time. But yeah.
@Atl 11/23 (SEGABABA)
@Milwaukee 12/7
Charlotte 12/19
Washington 12/23
@Memphis 1/1
Atlanta 1/4 (SEGABABA)
Just for those wondering.
Also @ Knicks on 12/11. We went in 14-10.
https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/1613407179117105152?s=20&t=Ef6fGNMtjuzOW0kpbWJhTA
Rockets we’re grounded in the 4th quarter!
Houston, eh?
DANCE!
For three quarters looked like this would go to the Rocket(s) Man,
but in the end we were still standing!
A 41 point 4th Q is what good teams do to not so good teams. Part of that 20 point win was the 15 points from the FT line the Kings had over Houston.
Lots of no calls, yet the Kings clearly had the advantage- this time
Every time I think about Whitney Houston, I want to go back to 1984 and kill Bobby Brown.
Can I go with you?
Trey bien, monsieur Lyles!
Laser beam destroys rockets.
Is that Mr.
BeanBEAM?Metu had a nice little game when he was in. He has to work hard during practices to provide a little more punch and D while he is in the game for Sabonis. If I squint I can see a few good things in his game as a 5 backup.
I think Metu just has to concentrate on being active, I thought after a good start he got a little flat footed and watched the game a bit.
Since he has more talent than skill at this point, I think his effectiveness is going to be tied directly to his motor, and take advantage of what is a pretty dynamic athleticism.
I think he is our best option as the backup big, at least until or unless a Plumlee or Hartenstein shakes loose, I think both would fit very well in Brown’s system.
Maybe Charlotte feels like Holmes could be productive with a creative PG like L. Ball, he would be a great lob threat for him. The Kings have plenty of second rounders, which are a pretty fungible currency in today’s game, maybe Holmes and one or two second rounders to offset the extra years in Holmes’s contract could pry Plumlee loose.
a win is a win. Not pretty. Not efficient. and too lackadaisical
Green took a ton of shots to get 26. Kings let Martin loose too often and Gordon got points.
Need to tighten up on Friday
BTW- both Dozier and Ellis hit 3’s.
Having Ellis makes Dozier even a bit more of a head scratch addition
I agree with you there. Dozier may be a big bigger, but Ellis is built like Gumby, hits the three, and wrecks ballhandlers as a defender. There’s no risk and adding PJ, but on the surface, it’s tough to understand.
Caveat: Monte McNair knows what the eff he’s doing.
I already like Dozier. 🤷♂️
The fact that Jordi believes in him and see the plus side of him over another guy he’s coached in Moneke who was released to pick dozier up goes a long way in my book.
in my opinion: Monte should trade Terrance Davis. It’s not that I don’t like TD it’s that the team has 2 guys to replace him already in Dozier (now) and Ellis. TD’s contract is expiring, might as well trade him and try to gain some assets or improve at another position with a different player that might be on an expiring contract as well or simply a future 2nd round pick and an end of bench dude. (pretty solid run on sentence!)
Get something for TD. Seems like a smart move to me.
A side note on TD, he does some bone headed stuff sometimes that frustrates me. I’m always worried when he has the ball. Buddy like. Not anywhere near as bad as buddy but he definitely has some Heild ding dong traits.
TD and a 2nd for Reddish. See what he can do in backup SF minutes.
I’d just offer TD for Reddish straight up. No reason to give up two assets for Reddish. Let each team kick the tires. Reminds me of when the Kings traded Skal for Caleb Swanigan. No other parts involved.
That would be better.
I’d expect it will have as much impact as the Skal-Swanigan trade. But why not.
Don’t be too sure. Mike, Jordi, and the others seem to know how to teach, how to help players who want to get better get better.
User name checks out. 🙂
Might even be better.
IMO Reddish has a future in the NBA.
If they work out over the year thjey are probably in the King’s future plans.
They’re completely different players. Ellis seems like a 3 and D guard right now. Dozier seems like a utility player (borrowing a baseball term for that guy who can play middle infield, outfield, third base, and even catcher in a pinch). He does something of everything. It’s extremely valuable to have on a roster.
Houston seemed to play kind of reckless at times. The Matthews foul was especially bad but I felt like there were several other unnecessary hard fouls. Garuba and Eason each had one instance that I can remember thinking “I’m less nervous about losing to this team than I am about someone getting hurt”
Sengun does play a lot like Sabonis, only with a body that needs to fill out to be more effective. But he is a very skilled big. Just needs to get bigger and stronger.
It was nice to see Dozier and Ellis each get a couple of minutes and make a basket.
The refs were hating Metu tonight. Two of his four fouls were terrible calls. That one where Gordon dives into him was total BS, especially. I thought they were trying to take that out of the game.
Is there any way that Davion and/or Okpala can learn to play a little offense? Davion actually showed stretches last year of being modestly serviceable on the offensive end. What happened? He hasn’t scored in double figures since November. When Monk is off, someone on that second unit has to score to open things up. It feels like the bench is tailing off a bit through the middle part of the season.
Agree – as a long time Kings watcher I have seen this style that Houston displays, before:
High Talent Rec League.
Just my butt pulled guess, but Silas (who unfortunately lost his HoF Dad, Paul, just one month ago) won’t be Head Coaching Houston after this season, his 3rd of a 4 yr deal.
Everything this guy just said 👆
Davion has game. You’ll see.
You have Lyles.
Remember when…
You getting Trey
I was thinking during the last half of the 4th that trading Marvin for Lyles was a damn good trade
Since the trade Lyles has played more minutes for the Kings than Bagley has played for the Pistons.
What I want to know is which player is headed to Detroit because they did that favor resigning Bagley. I still don’t understand why Detroit reupped him to a 3 yr deal at 13M AAV.
His social media game is pretty good.
After one game of Trey Lyles in a Kings Uniform I knew Monte won that trade.
Trey over Marvin and it’s not even close.
It’s kind of funny, because you have your stars, Fox & Sabonis, making a ruckus like baseball cards on the spokes of a bicycle tire, and the whole time, the axis is rotating around the quiet guys, Barnes & Lyles.
You can always improve, but I love the feel of this roster.
As do I, but I’d still like some tweaking on the periphery. Keep the core and improve the bench help.
That could be Reddish.
Agreed. There is about 20m in contracts with TD/Holmes/Len, and plenty of future seconds, hopefully Monte has some luck with some value moves as teams throw in the towel.
Seems like there are going to be more buyers than sellers at this point, I think it will be a weird and fun time up to the deadline.
And not only that Mike, if that remains so the price to acquire anyone will be ridiculous and teams simply won’t make deals.
Trey Lyles has entered the MVP race.
Investigator: Uhm, do you have some pictures before the incident happened?
Rockets:
Well done!
Lol Sabonis bro
I wish we had another year of control on Lyles.. he is a very nice backup
Props to Lyles for a great 4th quarter. A little worrying though that is what it came down to for the Kings to win. We should have been way better in the first 3 quarters (especially defensively).
I sought the beam. I got the beam.
The Kings dodged a bullet. That wasn’t a good game, but apparently you can outscore Houston.
I like seeing TD get some run, even if it’s not a lot, Brown should keep using him. Yeah this defense does continue to disappoint but I’ve seen the Rockets beat good teams, there’s not much disparity usually in pro sports and especially the NBA this season. The Kings continue to do what good teams do, win and take over when it matters. I prefer to stay in the moment and take this game by game, we’re #4 in the West!!! That’s all I’m thinking about and feeling right now. Basking in the glow of that beam!
Davis was the right call, given the athleticism that Houston has. Once that team begins to run through Sengun, it’s going to be a highlight circus.
Very nice Kings segment on the SVP version of SportsCenter last night with Tim Legler. Big props for the Kings, with Legs saying we’re the surprise of the league so far.
Maybe somebody already mentioned this, but I saw a blurb today via RealGM that Holmes is officially on the blocks. Anybody else hear that?
I’ve seen this reported as a rumor.
https://clutchpoints.com/nba-rumors-kings-make-richaun-holmes-available-for-trade
He’s been available since the Sabonis trade…
True to a certain extent, although Richaun Holmes up until last season would likely have been the best backup center in the NBA. That was a guy that you go out of your way to give 20-25 minutes a night.
He may need a change of scenery, although I’d love to see him get right in Sacramento. I don’t think that a team needing 25-30 minutes from a big is going to balk at the $25 mil he’s owed after this season, especially with the cap going up, which is a thing I think I heard.
For him to work here, I think it will take the Kings running pick and rolls when he is playing, or trade him to a pick and roll team. That’s the only system that seems to work for him.
He does thrive in the P&R, it’s surprising that Brown doesn’t call those more frequently when Holmes is in.
I have nothing to back this up, other than observation and conjecture, but ever since Holmes took damage to his eye, and began to wear eye protection, his game has suffered. His PnR lobs to the rim are often mishandled and his push shot has fallen off a cliff. Could it be he suffered some permanent damage to his vision? Are the goggles a hinderance to his game?
I just feel that since that injury Holmes has never been the same. FWIW, that injury took place in early December of 2021. He didn’t return until almost XMas. He then started just 10 games before the Sabonis trade. In those games his numbers took a significant hit, before he took the rest of the season off to deal with personal issues.
That certainly could be true, and understandable.
Been toying with an idea Sims.
Atl gets: 2023 & 25 1st rd picks from Sac (top 4 protected; current pick in ’24 would have to be renegotiated as well), Duncan Robinson, Alex Len
Mia gets: Holmes, Terence Davis
Sac gets John Collins
The finished trade needs work to meet roster requirements. But I can see everyone thinking that deal might work for them.
I would not trade two first round picks for John Collins. If I had to I would rather have OG Anunuby but I don’t have to.
It’s really just 1 pick you’re sending away Jack. And you’re renegotiating when you’re sending the 2024 pick to Atl so you can send it to them a year sooner in this scenario (2025).
I go back and forth on John Collins all the time. On the one hand, I’d like to get someone better for the cost, because I’m not confident he’s what gets the Kings into that upper echelon. On the other, those guys can be tough to get in Sacramento.
But on another hand, we did get Damontas Sabonis without including draft capital.
For sure Sims. I tried coming up with something that would make Atl satisfied enough to deal Collins (renegotiating the Huerter pick and adding another) while also perhaps getting them a wing shooter they are looking for.
Collins has a large contract that’s tough to move (3 years, nearly 80M with a player option on the 3rd year) but they are also asking ridiculous prices to move him. I was looking for the happy medium that gets the deal done.
To me, an egregious overpay would be to include Barnes. That would be ideal for Atlanta.
Is Collins the right guy? Eh, I don’t know. Sabonis has never had the year he’s had from a rate metric and analytic standpoint. He’s having career highs in WS/48, TS%, 2pt%, 3pt%, he’s near his career high in total rebounding, DRB%, and he’s right at his career best mark in assists. I know Domas came in as a better, more accomplished player. But, I think here’s the key difference: You’re adding Collins with the idea he’s a core player. You still have Keegan Murray and you hope he could be better than Collins I would assume. You’re not asking John Collins to be a top 2 player on your team, you already have those. Who is the 2nd best player on Atl’s roster? Murray? Capela? Okowongu? Certainly not Collins this season. He had a 63.2 career TS% before this season and is 5 1/2 percentage points worse than that this year (57.7 TS%).
If the Kings believe they can unlock a better version of John Collins (get him better shots from 2 and higher quality looks from 3 tha he’s getting in Atl), that’s the same type of deal we’re talking about with Kevin Huerter where you don’t even bat an eyelash at the cost.
The guys I mentioned are ancillary pieces. You aren’t giving up a key rotation player to do this, you really are adding another 1st rd pick to the one you already owe and you’ve moved up the timeline a year so you can trade a 1st rd pick beyond 2025 sooner (in 2026 done under the right circumstances).
Whoever you’re going to get, it’s almost a guarantee that half the fanbase will like it and the other half won’t. This is not a simple, straight forward move however you look at it.
I am a Collins truther, no doubt, with the caveat that his nagging injuries forces him to miss too many games. One, he is obviously done in ATL. That is not a good situation for him, and the constant trade rumors have probably got to him, besides the fact that Trae Young is a problem on simmer about to boil over, and FO is a mess.
I think Collins is a player, once on another team, that will quickly regain the luster from a few years ago, I think playing with Sabonis, Fox, Keegan, and Huerter in the starting five would absolutely be a lane he could succeed in.
In that scenario, would you want to re-sign HB? I would think he will get offers this season, but I think they would be more similar tot the Bojan extension of a larger salary over shorter years. Maybe the vibe is so good that he would take a four year guarantee to stay with the Kings. Would he want to be the first wing off the bench? Maybe, if the thought it was a fifty win team. He would definitely get 2000+ minutes, with the trust of Brown and injuries. A Keegan-Collins-Barnes trio sharing the 3-4 slot with a KZ type player picking up the spot minutes and matchup issues would work just fine.
I guess the other thing I would ponder if they swung such a trade, would be if Barnes wanted to be paid like a starer, or balked at a probable bench role, would it be better to sign and trade him, or even just let him walk and bring Sasha over as that 3-4 first forward off the bench? You could sign Sasha and Lyles for what Barnes would probably earn. I am a HB fan, but I think I would like that scenario better.
Sasha is never going to play NBA ball, full stop. That integer can be erased from Kings’ math.
I do like the idea of Barnes as the first big off the bench. The real hangup is that Collins will be making $26 mil, and if Barnes can be re-signed, I can’t see him taking less than $16-18 mil per year. Then you have Sabonis who will likely be offered a max extension, and frankly, I’d prefer to keep Tre Lyles around after this season.
If Sacramento is able to act quickly in free agency to get (?), then you can offer the Bird guys their money, and go from there.
After the season, ownership should not hesitate to get deep into the tax if necessary. Things are shaping up in a way that could be sustainable, and if there’s a shot to make a big jump, there’s simply no justification for not pursuing it.
Hoops Hype had a quote from Sasha yesterday that said his new contract has little bearing on whether he will jump to the NBA. The buy-out is only 1.5m, so I think it will come down to if he sees a situation he can succeed in, and make a fair amount more than he would. I wouldn’t think he would come over to be a tenth man, even for a few million more.
I think it will be a couple of seasons before they have to worry about the tax. The latest projection I saw on NBA.com was that 23-24 the cap was expected to go up to 134m (an 11m bump), and the tax going all the way up to 162m (a 12m bump). Even with paying Domas, or re-signing Barnes, or even paying Collins, I don’t think the tax will be a factor for a bit.
This is where I think Monte has done really well. He has a mid rotation guy locked up at fair (or better value) in Huerter. Sabonis is locked in at a steal next year for a shade under 20M. Monk is a shade under 9.5M.
If you move Holmes, Len and Davis, you’d still have close to 20M to work with in the off-season underneath the tax. That’s why you don’t re-sign the Bogi, DDV’s of the world. If they aren’t going to sign for reasonable value, you have to look elsewhere. If they are signed to reasonable value (I think Bogi would be if he played 10 more games a season), than you have to make the money work.
Finding role player on fair value deals is the name of the game. That’s why the Kings, IMO, won’t trade Barnes for Collins. It doesn’t solve their bad contract problem (Holmes) and puts them alot closer to the tax with little recourse to solve it. (Sound familiar? It should. This is exactly Atlanta’s dilemma right now.)
It is what it is. But I don’t think the tax is in play until the 24-25 season when Sabonis’ new contract (he won’t be signing an extension next year so don’t sit around hoping for such) and likely max deal kicks in. But, I have faith that Monte can keep this group together even as the cap goes up and with new deals/money coming in along the way.
I will absolutely defer to your superior knowledge of cap knowledge.
They are in a mess. Jake Fischer basically put out the Jazz want a 1st rd pick to trade for Collins (LOL) and the Pacers don’t seem ready to deal for Collins to make the Hawks life easier.
The Hawks FO doesn’t want to have a repeat of the Huerter deal because that deal just has been so bad for them. But, it’s the price of not paying luxury tax. And they keep signing their guys to extensions but not wanting to pay tax at the same time. It’s a tricky line to walk and they haven’t walked it well enough.
But really, the issue there is Trae Young. Ownership won’t allow the FO to address that either, I suspect. And here we are.
I think so, too, but I don’t think it’s worth trading Barnes + a 1st to find out. If you trade a contract with little value like Holmes in the process, and ancillary players like Davis and Len, it’s worth doing. Anything more than that? I pass. We’re not talking about Giannis Antetokounmpo here.
Right now I think the Kings are better suited keeping Barnes for production and chemistry reasons and figuring out exactly what you can do with him in the off-season. The worst thing that happens is that Barnes leaves in FA like Bogdanovich did. It’s not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination. And speaking of Bogi, part of the reason the Hawks are having issues budget wise is because of that Bogi deal they are struggling to move. They spent money, but you can argue they did not do so wisely.
I don’t think Vezenkov is really a part of this equation at this point. Unless he is. His rights could be traded to Atl as well as far as I’m concerned.
Lyles is an interesting player to keep and I would lean towards keeping him. I like Metu more than other people around here, but that’s probably because I’m fine with what he is.
We’ll see how this pans out, we always do.
No thanks
The eye-ball test tells me that almost every game, Fox is pretty average in the first 3 quarters, and phenomenal in the 4th. Are there any stats out there to prove me right/wrong?
I think Omer (Prof Oak) on twitter pointed it out that it seems the gameplan for the Kings to run everything through Sabonis the 1st 3 quarter and then the 4th quarter they give the ball to Fox.
Part of that is Domas isn’t great at creating his own shot and that becomes more important in the 4th qtr than the first 3.
A lot of people talk about how De’Aaron has never played with anybody like Domas, but I think that’s equally true of De’Aaron for Domas. Nobody on Indy was like De’Aaron in terms of style or 4th qtr effectiveness.
Fox scoring by quarter:
this year: 4.6 6.4 5.7 7.3
last 15 games: 3.7 6.6 4.9 10.1
link:https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?sort=TEAM_ABBREVIATION&dir=1
Good stats. And there it is. He’s a 2nd and 4th quarter scorer this year.
I think he 2nd quarter jump comes from the fact that he is usually the first to sit in the 1st quarter and then leads the second unit to begin the 2nd quarter when Sabonis sits. He’s the focus when Sabonis sits.
The 4th quarter massive spike is just him asserting his superior skills. It’s almost like he lulls his defender to sleep for the first part of the game and then just turns it on at the end. I wonder if it is apart of Brown’s game plan because it is definitely new this year for Fox. He’s finding his spots at the elbow and running the show from there.
With Fox’s 1Q struggles, it looks like a stroke of genius by Brown to bench Fox so early in 1Q. Get him out there, break a sweat, get that 1Q behind him, and save him for the rest of the game.
Great info! Does it show his shooting % by quarter as well?
Click on the link and you have to sort for your preferred method. I suggest clicking on the Kings and then sorting by each quarter so you don’t have to sort 450 players at a time. But from there, yes, you can get any data you’re after.
Thanks, fascinating info! His shooting %’s by quarter are 43.4, 50.6, 54.4, 50.5. So, he definitely heats up as the game goes on, although he peaks in the 3rd, but shoots more in the 4th.
What I find interesting is how much less scoring Domas has in the 4th compared to the first 3 qtrs. It’s one reason De’Aaron is really important to this team even if the numbers don’t really show it.
I’ve seen Domas tell the media multiple times that he just lets Fox take over in the 4th. Looks like this is by design.
His nickname is literally “4th qtr Fox”
Nope, his nickname is “Foxy”…🤮
Would love to hear from Coach Brown on the (lack of) progress on overall defense, and how that puts pressure to have to score 125+ ppg to win games.
They seem to talk about it a lot lately, to be fair (both coach and players), but I don’t see any difference on the court.
This is to murraytant. What about Barnes and Len, expiring contract, to the Hawks for Collins? I understand Atlanta might be willing to trade for a really good wing player. What say you? I believe Collins could really improve going to a possible contender. Now you have Fox, Huerter, Murray, Collins and Sabonis. Doesn’t improve defense but gives us a good rebounder. Also what about Davis for Reddish. Bigger wing and better defender. I also IMO Reddish has a lot of potential. Also Metu for Koloko. IMO Koloko will be a better rim protector and has unlimited potential
1wichita
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