Kings vs Hawks Preview: Hunting for Birds

The Sacramento Kings are playing their third game in four nights tonight and will have to dig deep into their bench yet again if they want to beat a pesky Atlanta Hawks squad without three of their best players. Yes, the Kings will once again be without the services of DeMar DeRozan, Domantas Sabonis and Malik Monk and will lean heavily on De’Aaron Fox and his instant offense to carry the load tonight. Can Dyson Daniels cover the uncoverable De’Aaron Fox? Can the Kings afford to go 11 men deep and still win the game? Will Keegan Murray read the the room and put up more than six shots in 39 minutes?????

Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Monday, November 18th, 7:00 PM PST
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBCSCA
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

Fantastic Mr. Fox: I really had my doubts the day after Fox dropped sixty that he was going to be able to repeat any of what had occurred, not because I don’t believe in Fox, but because I believe in the concepts of muscle fatigue and you know, general logic. Then Fox popped off for forty-nine (should have been at least fifty-one ahemhem) and it’s all out the window for me. Tonight’s the third game in four nights and Fox is going to be without his three best supporting offensive weapons yet again. Does Fox have one more herculean effort in him, especially considering that if he runs the tank empty tonight, the next game isn’t until Friday? I’m not doubting anything at this point, I can say that much.

If Fox is going to pull off another monumental effort, he’s more than likely going to have to do it against one of the premiere young defenders in the league in Dyson Daniels. Daniels, cast aside by the Pelicans in the trade that brought the Pels Dejounte Murray, has had a great start to his third season in the league. Nearly tripling his scoring average this season to 15 points per game has been a boon for the 21 year old, 6’7 guard, but what’s really drawing eyes to him is that he’s averaging an eyepopping (and league leading) 3.7 steals per game to boot. He’s long, he’s quick and if he can’t stop Fox, there isn’t a guy in the league that can.

As for the rest of the team: I think we’re bound to see another night of some patchwork lineups for the Kings. Eleven players saw the floor for Sacramento on Saturday night, ten of them playing double digit minutes, with the exception being Mason Jones with eight and some change. Shoot, guys like Jordan McLaughlin and Isaac Jones were in there during clutch time in the fourth, each hitting big buckets that gave the Kings a tie or the lead and they’ve been edge of rotation or out of the rotation players altogether when the team is healthy. Credit due to Mike Brown: despite no playing time together for these guys, he found combinations that kept the Kings afloat and then let Fox pull them out there at the end. The Keegan Murray center experiment wasn’t great, especially with Len and newly healthy Orlando Robinson available, but hey, if it’s stupid and it wins, it’s obviously not that stupid. The Kings will absolutely need more firepower against the Trae Young-Jalen Johnson led Hawks, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see more jiggering of the lineup to smooth out the clunkiness we saw at times on Saturday, but, man all in all, great job from Brown.

This is a game the Kings should probably lose. Three of your top four players are out, a weak bench suddenly has to perform above standard for multiple nights in a row and the opposition is extra motivated to not be the third team in four nights to get national coverage of Fox going god mode on them. It’s a reverse trap game for any team confident enough to think tonight will be easy as well, so, take care of the ball, contain Trae Young and pray to the basketball gods above that Fox has legs in the fourth.

The Small Stuff

The Roy Al with Cheese Redux: Okay, well, this is what I get for praising the Kings for something! Sounds like the Kings were all set to introduce their new mascot in the previous game against the Jazz, but due to the response, especially from De’Aaron Fox, they cancelled the roll out and have done away with the guy altogether. This isn’t that serious a thing, but this is cowardice from a franchise that has always been too shy and TOO image conscious about themselves. There was nothing wrong with Royal Al. Fans had their fun talking smack about the new mascot and would have absolutely loved the weird little dude, hyped him up, memeified him and eventually accepted him as a goofy side character in the franchise. How much free press and brand awareness has Gritty brought the Philadelphia Flyers since he was introduced six years ago? What tangible detriments were there to having Roy Al out there, like 10-15 times this season? The same group that castrated the best social media team in sports at the top of their game a few years back, now too scared to own months of decision making because fans immediately were having fun with it. The Beam getting more than a couple games is a miracle, at this rate, and the decision makers hiding away something that could have developed into something stupid and funny and worthy of inclusion, is so par for the course.

Did I say in my last preview that I would absolutely gun him down in my driveway if I saw him creeping around on my Ring doorbell at 3 am? Yes. Would I have absolutely been jumping out of line at G1C and shoving small, crying children out of the way to get a photo with the guy? 100%. You thought you had King Cake Baby and the old Pierre T. Pelican mascot, but what you really had was gold (and we all know how much you like that). 0/10, cowardice reigns.

Prediction

Fox has legs in the fourth. 82 for the game. No one speaks of Kobe Bryant again. Roy Al smiles up from hell knowing that he was once a small part of the Kings team that created some basketball history.

Kings: 127, Hawks: 122