If this was the first game of NBA basketball you had ever watched, you would think that the Atlanta Hawks were one of the best teams in the league, not a team coming into the game with a 2-12 record. You would have thought Dewayne Dedmon was a future Hall of Famer, not a roleplayer. And you probably would have thought, yeesh, glad I’m not a Sacramento Kings fan.

46 points is the largest margin of victory in the history of the Atlanta/St. Louis Hawks

— Mike Conti (@MikeConti929) November 16, 2017

Unfortunately, we are Sacramento Kings fans, and that game was about as unappetizing as a three-day old egg salad sandwich wrapped in Shaquille O’Neal’s sweaty socks. The Kings once again came out and spotted the opposing team a sizeable lead before even deciding to score (it’s amazing how many games already this season have seen opposing teams go on big runs at the very beginning) and this time decided “to hell with it just keep it going.

The only quarter that was remotely competitive was the third, but by then the game was already out of hand. Nobody on the Kings can feel remotely good about their performance as the team shot just 35.2% and allowed the Hawks to shoot an absolutely ridiculous 63.3% overall and 50% from three. Eight Hawks players finished with double digits, compared to just two for Sacramento.

As an added cherry on top, Coach Joerger didn’t put in Skal Labissiere until there was 7 minutes remaining in the game and the Kings found themselves down by 43. In the past, Coach Joerger’s excuse for limiting Skal’s minutes has been due to matchups, but there’s no excuse where that flies in this game with the Kings playing so poorly against whoever the Hawks threw out there. There is simply no excuse for Skal getting so little playing time in this game, especially with how awful other guys were playing (discounting Zach Randolph’s offensive performance, he was a sieve on the other end).

If last week’s wins against the Thunder and 76ers were a step forward, this road trip has been a giant step backwards.