Kings vs. Rockets Preview and Predictions: Texas Two-Step

In what feels like the first time in a year, the Kings are playing a game east of the Rockies.  After Wednesday’s heartbreaking last second loss against the stupid Warriors, the Kings are now in Texas for a two game road trip against the Houston Rockets.  Houston is De’Aaron Fox’s hometown but it remains to be seen if Sacramento’s star guard will make a return from his sprained ankle during this trip.  If he doesn’t, the Kings will have to rely on their depth to overcome his absence and take care of business for what should be a couple of wins before returning home.

Let’s talk Kings basketball!

When: Saturday, November 4th, 5:00 PM PT
Where: Toyota Center, Houston, TX
TV: NBC Sports California
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140

Three in the Key

Don’t play down to your opponent

Wednesday’s game against the Warriors was one of the most spirited and gritty games I’ve ever seen a Kings team play.  It’s easy to get up for division and playoff rivals in the Warriors though and another to do the same against a Houston Rockets team widely considered to be among the bottom tier of the NBA.  The Rockets are off to a 1-3 start on the season, with their only win coming in their last game against the Charlotte Hornets, but they have some good players.  Their big offseason acquisitions were the signings of veterans Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks, and their youthful core is led by Jalen Green, Alperen Sengun and Jabari Smith Jr.. The Kings can’t walk into Houston and just expect to win, they’ll need to play with the same effort they did against the Warriors and if they do it should hopefully be a comfortable win.  But especially against young teams, you can’t let them hang around and feel comfortable, especially on their home floors.

Shooting Woes

Last season the Kings put up the best offensive rating in NBA history.  This year, those offensive numbers are still good but they aren’t great.  Right now the Kings are sitting at 8th in the league in offensive rating and a big reason has been their shooting inefficiency.  Last year the Kings were 2nd in the league in FG% at 49.4% and 9th in the league in 3P% at 36.9%.  This year those numbers have dipped to 22nd (44.6% from the field) and 19th (33.9% from three) respectively.  Keegan Murray in particular has struggled with his outside shot, making just 27.8% of his 36 attempts.  Kevin Huerter, another one of Sacramento’s best shooters from last season, is at just 22.7% (5 of 22).  The Kings are definitely trying to do some new things on offense this year, and there’s been a bit of an adjustment period.  Keegan especially was mostly just focused on catch and shooting last year;  This season he’s shooting more on the move and also being asked to do more on the defensive end (Mike Brown has put him on guys like Lauri Markkanen, LeBron James and Steph Curry for long stretches).  Still, the Kings are a far better shooting team than they’ve shown so far and we’ll see some regression to the mean. The Kings have missed quite a few wide open shots, and half their games so far have come against the Warriors, a team that knows them intimately well and is very good defensively (The Kings shot just 30.67% from three in the two games against Golden State, compared to 39.4% in their other two games).

Battle of the Bigs

Alperen Sengun has drawn comparisons to Nikola Jokic and Domantas Sabonis already so far and for good reason; the big man from Turkey possesses a post game beyond his years as well as a penchant for making plays for others.  He’s also starting to experiment with adding some outside shooting early on this year, making 3 of his 7 attempts over their first four games.  Domantas Sabonis has a lot of strength and experience on Sengun, but this should be a fun matchup.

Prediction

Domantas Sabonis and Alperen Sengun both drop triple doubles but the Kings come away with a double digit victory thanks to a hot shooting night from Keegan Murray.

Kings 125, Rockets 111

Fan Predictions