The Sacramento Kings have taken their Roy Al-less act down the road today and are in LA today visiting Steve Balmer’s 2 billion dollar ego boost, playing inside another 2 billion dollar ego boost! They’ve got The Wall (fairly empty), they’ve got seven times the bathrooms of most other arenas (mostly empty) and they’ve got… well… no that’s about it. (Their video board is pretty cool.)
Watch in amazement as James Harden increases his grasp on second place all time in NBA three pointers made, with absolutely no consideration for the game going on around him! Gaze in wonder as Ty Lue makes competent decisions throughout the game, regardless of how bad a player they give him! Gasp in fear at The Only Man Who Deserves Being Bald himself Steve Ballmer as he fills you with such dread and anger despite doing absolutely nothing irregular!
Let’s talk Kings basketball.
When: Friday, November 22nd, 7:30 PM PST
Where: Intuit Dome, Inglewood, CA
TV: NBCSCA
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
Three is Better Than One: Are we back? Are Kings fans safe to have expectations for this game against the Clippers, considering that both Domantas Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan are supposed to be returning tonight? Because, as fun as it was watch Fox play like a man possessed and go supernova for a 1-2 record, I think I’d much rather just see this team with their guys healthy and kicking ass together. If, that is, they are actually healthy and actually playing together.
This game is going to start to answer some questions about the impact of Sabonis and DeRozan not playing for the last week, specifically, did it help the bench shoot their way out of the collective slump they started the season with? Sure, the Timberwolves game with Sabonis playing, the Kings shot a limping pedestrian’s 32% from deep as a whole, but those next two games the Kings were 43% and 46% respectively. Trey Lyles shot 57% on 14 attempts, Doug McDermott was 44% on 9 attempts… Hell, Keon Ellis, who might have cost the Kings with his passivity in OT against the Wolves and earned absolutely all the time on the bench for most of the Kings victory against the Jazz, came into the Hawks game ready to show a little something and wound up dropping a career high 9 threes on 15 attempts for a game high 33 points. That’s progress. That’s at least enough to break the ice on any assumptions that these shooters were going to be frigid from deep all season, if not for the fans then at least for themselves. Did those few games sans a few stars solve all the Kings shooting woes? No. Keegan is still shooting like absolutely shit. Kevin Huerter went 0-3, 5-12 and 1-10 from deep during that run of games and so his roller coaster shooting has now dropped him to 31% on the season from deep… but for both of those guys, I will stress for the hundredth time this season – it’s still early. It’s so early that Keon went from near bottom of the pack percentage wise to leading the team in shooting it from deep and all it took was a one game explosion to progress him to the mean. We know Keegan’s shooting usually takes the month of November to get going historically. Huerter is a much more complicated story, but season one Huerter is still out there, still happened and so there’s still hope for season three Huerter to go out there and be him again. So fingers crossed, I guess.
Tonight’s game against the Clippers will again be without Kawhi, and, crazy as it is to say, more importantly, will also be without Clippers leading scorer Norman Powell, who is out with a bum hammy. I won’t celebrate the loss of Powell too much – as long as this game has Ty Lue coaching on the other side, the right strings will be pulled and players will step up into that role and fill it. James Harden is a powerful weapon against any opponent but I legitimately think Ty Lue is the most consistent star for the Clippers. The Clippers find a way to win and be competitive, regardless of who is in this game, so don’t be surprised when Amir Coffey goes for 22 or Kevin Porter gets hot.
For the Kings, I’m just plainly excited to see if they can finally meld the three stars into a game of quality long range shooting. They’re so close to being a juggernaut offensive team that blends scoring at all three levels in a beautiful way, they just.. need to hit open long balls. A little assertiveness from Keon, Trey and Doug, plus a slump buster for Keegan and/or Kevin and this teams record starts climbing quickly up the Western Conference ladder.
Prediction
A random Clippers bench player is going to go nuts to keep this game close for James Harden in the 4th, but Fox and a rested DeRozan play a game of hot potato in clutch time and it’s the Clips that get burnt.
Kings: 124, Clippers: 118
SO nice to have D&D back.
With our Big 3 again intact
We should have an advantage in fact.
The Clips won’t have Powell;
As to Harden—don’t foul.
And then don’t let their Wall distract!
+1 Leave the Clippers abuzz!
No Powell? As long as Murray can keep those fouls at bay against Harden (good luck) this game should be a laugher. Likely means a clutch time game, but would love the Kings to prove me wrong.
Will be very interesting to see how Fox handles working Sabonis and DDR back in following his crazy heater and likely reduced usage.
I don’t know, Ty Lue has been coaching his ass off down there. Harden and his gang of role players have one of the best defenses in the league. They beat a fully healthy Kings squad pretty handedly a few weeks back in Sac. I’m not expecting any sort of cake walk.
Every time I see Lue it reminds me that Brown is not great at adapting or handling his players well overall.
Ellis-case in point. Lue seems to find a way to get the most out of his players. Brown, not so much.
And of course Huerter didn’t shoot well when they needed him. He almost never does.
No Powell but they’ll make up for it with crooked ref calls going against the Kings because who’s gonna stop ’em?
Can we wait until a ref blows a whistle in the game before whining and using them as an excuse?
All depends on what Harden decides to do tonight.
Powell carries the load for them.
With the benefit of recent play, hopefully Fox, Keon and Keegan understand better how to minimize sending Harden to the Free Throw line. With Powell out and if Harden can be better contained, that doesn’t leave many break out options other than Zu Alcindor (Ivica Zubac). Least contest, LAC also feasted on the O-boards. That leaves an amalgamation of Nic Batum, Amir Coffey, Derrick Jones, Jr. Kevin Porter, Jr. and Kris Dunn to score on you. Oh, and
NoMo Bamba.It’s a 3 Point League:
LAC is shooting their 3PA at a 33 1/3 rate. They are rolling the rock at 38.2% 3FG.
As for Sacramento and the 3 pointer: heck if I know. I know we saw a healthy upswing these last few games and there is a much more acceptable 34.0 3FG% as of today. Will it last? Who the heck knows? The last time these teams met, I was at that game and it was 3/26 game (should have been 3/27 but Fox had his foot on the line for the last missed attempt). I hope to never witness such a feeble display of shooting again (it reminded me of the WNBA Finals). I still wish I could unsee that debacle.
I expect that as strongly on paper it appears that Sacramento should win this game, they will struggle and either barely pull out a victory or collapse like a wet deck of cards. I am resigned to the fact that predicting which team and how they will perform covers the roulette wheel of good and bad each and every quarter of each and every game for this team. Will Keegan have his third subpar game in a row? Will Domas’ back put up with Big Zu on the block? I expect LAC to put Kris Dunn and DJJr on Fox, will DDR respond with a big welcome back game?
Light that Beam! Go Kings.
Sabonis and DeRozan are officially back. Neither is on the injury report.
Monk is officially still out.
Great news!
The timing of this break was huge.
With a rainy night ahead in Sacramento, it seems like a good night to cuddle up on the couch and listen to the Clippers broadcast team.
Game muted, Beatles catalog queued up.
OT, which do you feel is the best Beatles album?
I personally love Rubber Soul and Abbey Road. The former is where I feel they really started to branch out from pop love songs to more experimental stuff, and Abbey Road was a kind of a nice hurrah for a band that knew their time together was coming to an end and it has a good mix of everything that shows why they were so good at their craft.
I got to fulfill a bucket list last year when I went to the UK for the first time and got to go to the Abbey Road crosswalk.
Did you wear a Navy Blue (sans shoes), Black or White suit or go for the Jeans and Chambray shirt?
I’m similar. I go for Revolver and Abbey Road.
For the record, my cats’ names are Sgt. Pepper and Penny Lane. My dog’s name is Abbey. My cat through college and early family years was Eleanor Rigby.
If I ever get a male dog, he’s definitely gonna be Jude, so I can yell through the neighborhood.. “Hey Jude!!!”
Revolver, Abbey Road, White Album are all up there for me.
It should be pointed out that this season, besides never having a John Ringo, Paul George is a missing piece and the Clips need Help!
Well done!
We aren’t getting hit as hard rain-wise here in the South Bay Area. It only really started this morning and we won’t be getting as much rain compared to the North Bay.
So far we haven’t had high winds which is nice. I got a new roof this year so FOR ONCE I can actually relax during a hard rain.
Side Note:
It delights me that a guy with unfathomable wealth has decided to spend the money and more importantly the time, to be devoted to NBA basketball. He overpaid by a good amount to dislodge and purchase the Clippers from their previous owner who is/was his opposite, Don Sterling (yuck). Of all the places to put a $2B structure in L.A. he spent the money to put it in Inglewood, which is a boon to that downtrodden area. And it was his money, no city bonds or public financing.
Just my opinion: I don’t get the impression that he has ever made the Intuit Dome about himself, other than his input to make it a spectacular venue to watch hoop. And it is pretty darn spectacular.
I don’t get the Steve Ballmer disdain.
He has been great for that team and the community.
In still liking the fact that he bailed on that dipsh!t Chris Hansen’s effort to try to get a team in Seattle.
And he doesn’t try to make basketball decisions or stick his nose in that part of the team. He hires people to do that.
Im looking at you Vivwreck. And he spends
Counterpoint, for Keegan at least – the crappy shooting included preseason, so 20 games so far, which isn’t too small of a sample size. He did have a couple of good shooting nights in there, but far more crappy ones.
Counterpoint for both of them – the crappy shooting happened last year, too, so it’s not necessarily just a too-early-in-the-season-to-tell sort of thing. This may just be who both of these players are – streaky shooters who get hot on infrequent occasion.
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