Update: 8:30 pm
The Denver Nuggets defeated the Sacramento Kings Monday 130-124. Russell Westbrook had a nice performance with 26 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists against his old team. The Kings had 7 players score in double digits, including Keon Ellis off the bench who scored 15 points on 5-8 from three. Zach LaVine had a quiet night in terms of his typical scoring output, finishing with 15 points. Dennis Schroder had 19 points and 9 assists. Domantas Sabonis finished with 13 points, 17 rebounds and 5 assists.
The Kings could never really break through the 10-point deficit they had much of the second half. The Nuggets repeatedly attacked the paint in the fourth quarter, getting easy baskets around the rim. The Kings offense couldn’t keep up with the offensive effectiveness of the Nuggets and the defensive deficiencies of their own down the stretch.
From earlier preview:
Despite all my negativity and pessimism, the Kings actually defeated the Bucks in Milwaukee on Saturday. It was the best they’ve looked all year, by far. They are in Denver tonight to face the Nuggets. Can Sacramento shock the world again? Let’s find out.
Who: Sacramento Kings (2-4) vs. Denver Nuggets (3-2)
Where: Ball Arena, Denver, CO
When: 6:00 PM PT / 9:00 PM ET
Watch: NBCSCA / League Pass
Everyone loves injury talk, so here’s more of it: The Kings will be without Malik Monk (personal reasons) and Keegan Murray (thumb) while Zach LaVine, Dennis Schroder, and Devin Carter are all listed as questionable. The Nuggets are pretty healthy, Jamal Murray is probable, and that’s about it.
The Nuggets are coming off a surprising 109-107 In-Season Tournament loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, so they’ll be plenty hungry to get back into the win column tonight. For the Kings, it’s all about momentum building. They’ve had a rough season, but several players turned in their best performance of the year vs. Milwaukee over the weekend. For as critical as I’ve been about the team, you’ve got to give them some credit when they play well. So here, take some credit.
Prediction: Kings 122, Nuggets 113
Dunk the Nuggets!
Up in Denver the road trip ends;
Where we’re faced with the Joker and friends.
Wonder what it will take
For Vivek to break
And show he at last comprehends!
+1 Joker sent a message to us Kings fans:
I asked Bob here, if we should castaway our hopes in the city that bears his last name
John likes your puns
Denver thinks they’re a Pyle
Can you “extend” a winning “streak” after just one win?
In all seriousness, I really like the offseason the Nuggets had. It’s what you normally see when a new GM takes over. Big changes and a new direction. Denver make a solid trade in unloading MPJ for Cam Johnson. Sure, they gave up a 2032 first round pick to pull it off, but they are about winning now and it saved them $18M. They then added quality depth Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown. They gave Braun good deal and oh… they added one of the best backup bigs in the game in JV. He’s averaging a solid 8.8 and 4.6 in just 12MPG. The guy they gave up has scored 5 points…that’s 5 points total. What a trade, Perry! What. A. Trade.
Tim Hardaway Jr has been so, so good for this to start this season. Comes in off the bench and gives them an immediately scoring punch and three point shooting threat. The perception of him got very skewed because he was overpaid on his last deal, but now he’s on a one-year minimum and is a real steal.
Funny enough, the worst move of their offseason for far has been Cam Johnson. He’s been part of good teams before, but it seems to me that he’s really struggling to adapt to being in a smaller role on a good team versus spending the last couple years as the main option on a team with no consequences. And the cap savings didn’t necessarily make their other moves possible, the cap savings were more about ducking the tax. There are benefits to maintaining your long-term competitive outlook if you can avoid getting into the repeater tax, but those are more long term strategy benefits than benefits for this season.
Since you are in Colorado, how have the Denver media and fans viewed the moves?
I don’t pay much attention to local media. Overall everyone thought it was a good offseason and I think that sentiment is still the same, but I think folks are frustrated with Cam so far.
On paper, Cam is a less expensive option, similar enough as a shooter and known as a better defender. He’s had an injury ridden career but not injury plagued as has been the story of MPJr. (the Kings were going to draft Michael Porter Jr. until his back was deemed just too risky. Again, GM Vlade was not going to draft Luka. I am convinced that his agent, the very powerful Bill Duffy, forbade them from picking Doncic)
In the time it took this web site to record my upvote, ChapGPT can do an entire analysis of the bungled opportunities missed by the new Kings GM.
Sounds like someone should become a Patreon member to help support the continued hosting/maintenance/upgrades of the site we all know and love 😉
It’s refreshing to see other Social Media sites/apps including Bleacher Report shitting on Vivek. I think as of a few years ago, only TKH was highlighting Ruindiva’s incompetence.
Can Brodie bearhug Jokic and will the zebras again feel pitty for Viwrek’s team tonight?
Gore Kings!
Who dis?
Kings are at 15 rostered players, so someone would have to be moved to add Precious McDermott hasn’t seen the floor. What a useless signing he’s been, and he actually has size at 6’7″
Some rumor about waiving Isaac Jones. Ugh!
Ugh indeed.
But then the Kings would no longer have a Basketball Jones!
We need moar veterans! Is he old enough?
Swallow McBucketts and bring in Achiuwa
It would be Precious!
At least Dougie got to LTB with Vivek before Kicking the McBuckett.
I remember that like it was only two years ago. Crazy.
He’s far too young at just 26, but he does have a cool nickname: “The Big Sneeze”
Perhaps that is related to a certain David Sternutation?
He spent the last couple seasons with the Knicks, but I don’t think his time with them overlapped with Perry’s tenure.
Mike Brown coached Precious Achiuwa on the 2020 Nigerian Men’s Olympic team.
If we can just use the template that worked so well against MIL.
Injury update:
This seems like the perfect game for Cam Johnson to right the ship since he has been lackluster in his time with the Nugs. With that being said, he goes off for 30 pts, Christian Braun and Strawther go nuts offensively, while the Joker hangs a triple double casually.
Meanwhile, JVal goes to the Kings bench and tells them how happy he is to be out of basketball hell.
Let’s hear what dumb stuff the Kings broadcast has to say tonight.
Jokic is pushing everyone around. It’s going to be a long night.
Turns out Russel Westbrook doesn’t make a great power forward, who knew?
“The one thing the Kings don’t have is good size” – Nuggets broadcast
They’re way to nice to us
Jokic is doing Jokic things and we’re not doing anything to minimize anyone else
Good to see Nique take a few shots even if he is only 1 for 3 so far
You’d think that maybe the players themselves would get tired of being so terrible defensively year in and year out
Make sure you give Adleman a rediculous amount of time to review that out of bounds call.
She
never
shuts
up
A bit wordy tonight. A bit unbearable as well.
Unbearable? I think she had an edible.
She is talking nonsense over gameplay pretty bad tonight.
I think unbearable is a decent word to use in this context. It’s hard to even focus on the game when she’s talking souch.
Last night was the first time I really noticed it. Did anyone catch when she tried to cut to break early in the game? She got cut off into commercial while she was still talking..I LOL’d. Can’t remember the last time I’ve witnessed something like that.
I ask this about 5 times a season, but have we ever run a competent zone defense?
Kayte clearly doesn’t need Kylie. Or anyone else. She can clearly call the entire game by herself.
Why interrupt her with a game in the first place?
There has to be an app to measure broadcast team Yappiness. Yap Yap Yap Yap
Enjoying Nique minutes. Keep going rook!
Yup. He needs all the minutes right now.
Denver scheduled win activated. Tank resumes
Not much you can say about the defense at a certain point. Just absolute ass in every facet
Taking Keon out with the hot hand is kind of ridonculous
Christie hates young guys, I feel like we’ve learned that pretty well this season
Russ kept us in this for a lot of the game but he also maybe singlehandedly lost it with that charge.
Like obviously it’s a big defensive failure but just a really low IQ play to run straight into Murray like that
Extended our losing streak from 0 to 1
LOL, Kayte likes what she sees.
Kings had all the big names play over 35 minutes tonight in a loss. Good times.
The Kings won the second half!!!
Didn’t see the game, don’t know what the final score was, but it from the comments it sounds like the worst performer by far tonight was Kayte.
They had Vinsanity and Linsanity, we have “Incessanity”
Honest question, after seeing what Nique and Keon can do with minutes (the later without question, IMO), have the Kings missed Monk the last two games?
Love Monk, but hopefully SP finds a new home for him sooner than later
Another win for the good guys. You got this Vivek. 19 wins.
Yeah, that seems to happen a lot.
Will also mention that the trolls who show up and puff their chests and berate others after a rare Kings win pretty much never show up after any of the many losses.
A scheduled loss! At least the Kings are meeting TKH expectations, not Vivek’s fantasy league performance.
And yep, Braun hung 21 pts on us as i expected. But it was dumb of me to forget that Aaron Gordon always scorches the Kings when he plays. See Vivek? That’s what a real PF can do if you pair him with a one-of-a-kind center, you moron. Stop hiring guards ffs.
If the product on the court is going to be bad, at least the broadcast should be entertaining.
My wife rarely watches the games, and she commented how Kayte sounded annoyed, upset, and felt she was lecturing the viewers. “Why is she having a monolauge during the game?”
Draper adds nothing to the broadcast either. Before I decided to mute the game, Draper commented “Jokic is smart and intelligent”. Aren’t those synonyms? Can he not find other words to describe a player?
This is shaping up to be one of the worst seasons for me as a viewer of Kings basketball.
Thought we played about as well as we could. Never really threatened the Nugs, but fun game. Much closer than I would have predicted with LaVine having an off game
Good Scoring, some nice in the paint ball movement and good vision
Bad defense, Poor offensive schemes, injured Center, poor teamwork, bad coaching.
Will be curious to see how this team looks once Keegan comes back, and if Precious can add anything. But if Sabonis is injured again I mean we are below the ground donezo
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