Congratulations to the Sacramento Kings are in order. By doing the most Kangz thing possible and beating a team they didn’t have much business beating on Thursday, the Kings have extended that glimmer of light in the hearts of a small corner of their fanbase and made it rather annoying for all the other curmudgeons in this looney bin. They rolled the Pelicans, answering every run that they put together, shooting themselves out of every single instance that in the previous game would have spelled utter doom for them, en route to a 140-125 victory against the Pelicans. They’ve now pulled themselves within 2 games of the ninth seed (their only real hope for a chance at the playoffs) with the Spurs and Suns a half game ahead of them, Portland as close to a lock for the eight seed as their can be right now, and the Memphis Grizzlies dropping like a hot rock without Jaren Jackson Jr.
The Kings aren’t getting to that ninth seed and forcing a two game series to get into the playoffs. To do so they’d pretty much have to win out and hope the Suns, Spurs and Grizzlies all drop at least all three of their last four games. But some of you can sure as hell pretend and in the most micro view of this bubble, I guess I’d rather watch winning basketball than not, just so I can tell the nagging voice in my head that all this time I’ve spent on this team wasn’t surely wasted for a fun opportunity of the coaching staff to go to Orlando.
Sacramento will be facing off against the Nets, who are missing everyone. I mean everyone. Don’t look it up, just trust me. The Kings will be taking the court against the idea of another basketball team, but in reality everyone else has either opted out or was injured before these final eight games. Just be prepared for the game to be played solely in the realm of imagination, and be prepared for the Kings to lose that game.
Let’s talk Kings basketball.
When: Friday, August 7th – 2 pm PST
Where: “The Arena”, ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, Kissimmee, FL
TV: NBATV, NBCSCA
Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
So when I said no one on the Nets is available to play, I lied to you like the monster I am ( I owe you nothing, heathens). There are professional basketball players available for the Nets, they’re just dwindling in droves as each day passes. Let me just list out here who was not playing the other night when the Nets took down the Bucks: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, DeAndre Jordan, Taurean Prince, Nicolas Claxton, Wilson Chandler, Caris LeVert, Joe Harris and Jarrett Allen. Joe Harris ended up coming back to play during the Celtics 149-115 bushwhacking of the Nets on Thursday but will again probably be sidelined with a bruised left groin sustained during that game. They’ll also now be missing Jamal Crawford, the ageless wonder, who is still a few games away from returning from bruises all his own. So what then? What’s there to worry about?
Well, besides the Kings being the Kings, the Nets are a win away from clinching their playoff spot. A team as topsy-turvy as the Kings is ripe for a thrashing, especially coming off of no rest and the emotional high of finally doing something positive in the Bubble. We’ve seen the Kings look past teams before and this would be a ripe opportunity for a team with literally nothing to lose and no one to lose it for them to come up behind the Kings and boot them in the ass. I won’t be name dropping the eclectic cast of characters for you that will be coming out of the woodwork to attempt regicide Friday afternoon, but I will give one or two to watch out for. In their loss to the Celtics, the unheralded point guard Jeremiah Martin came off the bench to score 20 points and dish 4 assists in just 16 minutes. With even more time opening up, watch out for a repeat performance. I’d also recommend keeping an eye on Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, who only scored 4 points against the Celtics but prior to that was averaging 19.3 points in Orlando. Also, just for old times sake, watch for former King and all around great teammate, Garrett Temple, who is getting minutes for the Nets.
I’m not going to break this game down at all. The Nets are entirely to scattered and the Kings entirely too inconsistent to even give you all numbers. Bogi literally went from 1-15 to dropping a career high 35 points in the span of 48 hours and I don’t know what to do with it, or anything, anymore. If you’re still hoping for the Kings to make the playoffs, pray. If you’re indifferent, no math can help you today.
Prediction
After consulting star charts and a blind psychic, I believe Buddy Hield will score 24 plus points and Bogi will score right around 15. De’Aaron will again go for a double-double with thirty plus points and Nemanja Bjelica will hit 4 plus threes. I have spoken.
Kings: 129, Nets: 111
Given the current state of the Nets, this is much more a must not lose’ game than a must win’ game.
Found this comment by MikSmith on TheNetsHerald.com:
Given the current state of the Kings, this is much more a must not lose’ game than a must win’ game.
Hahaha, you can’t make that shit up.
Question is, who is the delusional one?
I don’t know.
Wow are you sure one of you didn’t peek? The most interesting thing I see in this game is whether a group of players from the scrap heap can outplay Vlade and Luke’s actual team. They already beat the Bucks and the Wiz, so maybe that lets off the pressure to beat the NBA version of the Bad News Bears.
I am pretty sure it was a joke. I don’t think there’s a Nets Herald.
Found this comment by RikSpots on ThePetsHerald.com:
Given the current state of the humans, this is much more a must not go extinct’ game than a must take over the world’ game.
I’m really interested in seeing if we can play better defense today.
Yesterday was a nice win, but seems to have come down more to us actually hitting shots than having a better offense or gameplan.
But we still wound up in a shootout. The Pelicans do have a good offensive team, but we are going to be hard pressed to make a lot of progress next year if we are allowing teams to score at will and are relying on hitting 54% of our FG and 49% of our threes in order to win games.
We will do that sometimes, but we will continue to be a 35-40 win team if we do.
If ZIon isn’t going to play defense or rebound, he’s virtually in the same boat as Bagley. He won’t be able to play more than spot minutes at Center. And Zion’s ideal position in my mind is as a Center.
Which is funny, because that was one of my comments around the draft. Zion and Bagley are different players. But in some ways, Zion’s game has a lot of the same weaknesses as Bagley’s.
However, he does have better handles and passing coming into the league. But he does need to slim down to be able to guard the perimeter better, as he doesn’t have great defensive awareness and won’t ever be a true rim protector.
I wish I payed more attention to Charles Barkley when he played. I expect he didn’t have much of a defensive game. Barkley and Zion are around the same size at the start. Offensively, the lack of strong defensive centers in todays game helps him. He is undersized, yet I remember Adrian Dantley being 6′ 4″ and he is in the Hall of Fame and didn’t have Zions weight. He ran 208 lbs and played power and small forward. Bagley at least has the stats in size, moves well to play defense. But probably not at center though.
If we watched all the tapes like Coach Luke;
We would see how the losing’s no fluke.
Now facing the Nets,
What team will we get?
If their G-Leaguers beat us, we’ll puke!
Vlade built this team to win,
Lol that phrase makes me grin,
I hope today our boys don’t yield,
Some buckets might even fall for Hield,
Either way the tape won’t find Walton,
And I can’t say I really fault-him,
This team is so completely done,
We can’t even end it in Golden One,
All I can think about is that fucking pick,
Blegh, hold on, I think I might be DonÄiÄ.
Chicken wings,
Go Kings!
Rec for Herzog
CHICKEN WINGS!!!
Chicken wings!
Yo
Jman’s palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There’s vomit on his Kangz sweater already, mom’s spaghetti
He’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, like Bogi, but he keeps on forgettin’
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out
He’s chokin’, how, everybody’s Jokic now
The clocks run out, times up, over, blaow
Snap back to reality, oh there goes Doncic
Oh, there goes Divac, he choked
Jamarcus Russell’d with the tapes!
4-0!
I have spoken!
Is that the score after the first 30 seconds, Nets 4-0?
Sorry you didn’t like the joke, Vlade. 😉
You got me tripping! ð¤£
And Luke, and Vivek. 😀
I have zero idea what will happen in this game. zero.
The warm-up practice games felt more meaningful than this!
Gearing up for another game.
Time for pure Kangz.
Badge Legend