It was a roller coaster of an opening game, but the Sacramento Kings pulled off the 124-121 victory in Portland! We were joined by Kings Herald’s own Will Griffith to break down everything from the season opener. After celebrating the victory and calming down from that near 4th-quarter-Kangz, we did a deep dive into the game, including:
- The Kings fantastic 1st half defense, followed by the medicore-to-bad 2nd half defense that almost surrendered an 18 point lead
- De’Aaron Fox’s aggressiveness on both ends
- Harrison Barnes’ career night and brilliant second half
- Richaun Holmes breaking through his lackluster preseason and showing up when the Kings needed him most
- Davion Mitchell’s defense against Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum
- Buddy Hield’s strong bench contribution, and Terence Davis’ disappointing night
- Tyrese Haliburton’s no-good very-bad game
- Why the Kings need to stagger Fox and Haliburton’s minutes, and why Haliburton needs to play with any of the bench three guard lineups
- The atrocious night by the referees
- The Kings almost making Will change his preseason win total prediction by halftime
After the serious basketball analysis ended, things went off the rails, which is expected when Will joins the show. Topics included:
- Tim Maxwell trying to jinx this game
- Assistant Coach Doug Christie’s exuberance from the bench
- Louis King vs. Robert Woodard moving forward
- Will trying to gift Brenden a Jahmi’us Ramsey cutout
- Does the Matrix trilogy hold up by today’s standards?
- Brenden trying to end the podcast multiple times before he was successful
Our Overtime question of the episode: would you rather have bionic arms, or bionic legs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
The Kings Pulse podcast is available on all major listening platforms.
Solid road win and seems Kings improved on Defense and Bench ! Also. Blazers may find like the Pacers did that firing a proven winning coach ( McMillian, Scotts ) is not very smart !
Maybe it’s time to start considering starting Davion Mitchell over Haliburton. Top 5 on-ball defender? Might be nice against, oh let’s see, Donavan Mitchell tomorrow night? And it’s easy to stagger the minutes of Fox and Haliburton. And yes, the Matrix holds up. Y2K, internet, sort of a pretty big worldwide change.
Might worry about the shooting ability from Fox and Mitchell together, based on last night’s performance.
But maybe it’ll help Haliburton to go against the second unit?
It’s only been one regular season game though. I feel like Tyrese will come back to form.
Yeah, I believe in Tyrese also. It helps having a ball mover with the starting unit, who can space the floor, but Mitchell is showing he can do that also. Then there’s Haliburton’s rapport with Holmes, and his playmaking, which is better at this point than Mitchell’s. In terms of coming back to form, we were hoping he’d improve his on-ball defense from last year, which would require changing his form. Look at that game where Cory Joseph had a career night against him. Was the same in the third quarter last night.
Ah, I don’t actually remember too much the Cory Joseph game you are referencing, but good points 🙂
The back up point guard for Orlando also went off against him. Basically, a guard who likes to drive to the hoop but is a subpar nba player for the lack of a good 3-point shot suddenly becomes a mismatch capable of dominating stretches of a game, when matched up against Hali. But a guy who wants to shoot 3’s is annoyed against Hali because he contests well from weird angles with those lanky arms.
Good takes, guys.
I rewatched the game with the Portland feed and they really were talking up Davion, a lot. They thought we got kind of screwed on the Buddy and 1. And They didn’t come out and say it, but the way they described the Nurkic smash no call, I think they thought they caught a break there too.
One thought on Fox not moving the ball as much as I’d like. He and Dame were jawing the whole game. I think maybe Fox was trying to rise to Dame’s old man trick. I like the confidence, but don’t fall for that crap.
Ooh, I think I’ll rewatch the PDX feed, as you did. I started off switching to watch them after thinking the Sac feed was the only one that was chugging (stupid League Pass), but then switched back to see how Kayte was doing.
Roman Holiday. Watch it with someone you love.
(or watch it alone)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is another black and white you might like.
And of course…..Sunset Boulevard. (make it a double feature and watch Lynch’s Mulholland Drive right after and let your brain have fun)
Also: Night of the Hunter (and you can watch Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing after, to see the connection/inspiration for a character’s accessory)
……..
How about a bionic brain?
……
Enjoyed the show! Hope you do this for all of the games.
Is it too much of a stretch to predict the 5 guards will average 40% 3s made this year? If so, it’s going to be quite a year.
Badge Legend