After an embarrassing second half against Victor Wembanyama, Harrison Barnes and the San Antonio Spurs, the Kings have limped their way home to steady themselves and ready for a battle against a team they needed overtime to beat on Sunday. The Suns, sans Kevin Durant, are coming off of a frustration win over the Utah Jazz after allowing De’Aaron Fox and DeMar DeRozan to turn into dueling Michael Jordan impressions in the fourth quarter and OT, and will be looking to hold onto their early top seed in the West, with the Thunder and Warriors statistically even with them. Is this the game the Kings finally get hot from deep? Have these refs figured out yet what constitute a possession? Are the Suns going to take SIXTY three point attempts tonight?
Let’s talk Kings basketball.
When: Wednesday, November 13th, 7:00 PM PST
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBCSCA – Mark Jones (play-by-play)
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
Resetting The Shot Clock: We’ve passed that ten game mandatory minimum threshold to start worrying about the Kings a tad and as such, we can now officially state that this team, while showing flashes of some incredibly offensive firepower and defensive prowess, is also in danger of staying down in the West if they don’t start working through their issues. The first and most glaring issue, is that deep ball. We’ve all discussed it, fretted over it, tried to ignore it but the Kings ability to consistently hit even an open three pointer will be the difference between making the playoffs and hoping for ping pong balls come the spring. I missed the Suns game live on Sunday, but the fact that the Kings won a game in which they were outshot by 20 threes is an aberration, a one time thing, unsustainable in every way. The Suns didn’t even shoot that well: 18/57 is just under 32%. That’s fairly bad. So, the fact that the Kings could only hit 11/37 to answer that is truly baffling. An average night of shooting for the Suns would have seen 12 more points on the board and no need for OT. The Kings can’t take the make a three and for the, I don’t know, 20th year in a row, they can’t defend them either, allowing teams the third highest amount of attempts per game and the third highest percentage at 37.6%. The three has become an aesthetic poison to my eyes at this point, to the point of wondering if they should scoot it back or enact the Jerry Reynolds rule, but I have GOT to assume a lot of that extra hate coming this season from my heart is strictly due to the fact that for all their offensive weapons, the Kings still cannot buy a bucket from deep.
Alright second here, these minutes are still absolutely unsustainable. This is a pissing contest between Mike Brown and Monte McNair, right? Brown took heat the first few games, said he was uncomfortable with his rotations and then gave these starters even MORE minutes to chew on. It’s mid-November and Keegan Murray looks gassed. De’Aaron Fox’s legs aren’t underneath his shot every other game and DeMar DeRozan is, let me check here, still thirty-five years old and getting older every second. Monk (pre-injury) and Keon are performing to expectation – not exceeding it, not proving their various detractors wrong, just, earning their keep. The rest are paperweights at this point in the season, just completely non-factors. Trey Lyles, useless when he isn’t hitting threes, currently a team low 24.3%. Doug McDermott, useless when he isn’t hitting threes, one spot above the guy he’s been brought in to emulate at 27.8% from deep. Alex Len, serviceable and underused in years passed, has had maybe 3 quarters of good basketball, is shooting 43% from field and has hands that give me Mikki Moore flashbacks at times. The bench is bad, the starters are going to be burnt out by January and the season will be over well before playoff time if Monte McNair doesn’t get some legitimate help, or if Mike Brown refuses to give them minutes.
There’s other things to whine about, but I promised to wait till after the first ten games before I started really worrying about it, and hey, wouldn’t you know, things are still sub-optimal. The game tonight is going to be more of the same from Sunday night. Without Durant, Beal and Booker are going to be throwing everything they can at the rim. Tyus Jones will be hunted by Fox and DeRozan, and will try to recoup those points by being an off-ball shooter to point Booker, Okogie, O’Neale and Dunn are going to try to make up for everyone else’s defensive lapses and Mason Plumlee is going to make me sad that we don’t have him as a backup in Sacramento for like the fourth year in a row. The game will come down to the Kings hitting enough free throws to cancel out the three pointers that Phoenix will be sending with reckless abandon. Phoenix is in foul trouble, Kings are looking okay. Phoenix keeps their hands to themselves… Kings might be in for a long night. Here’s hoping those back to back legs from the Suns kick in by the second half.
Prediction
Man, I don’t know at this point. Is saying the Kings hit 40% from deep on 37 attempts funny? We’re getting there right? The starters are brilliant, the bench is less bad and the Suns are shocked when Trey goes 3/4 from deep in the game and never quite recover.
Kings: 111, Suns:106
there’s a good article in the SacBee today about the team having to step up while Monk is out.
also, from Monday: “Robinson, a 6-foot-10 center who signed with the Kings over the summer, has been cleared for contact after spraining his left MCL in practice on Oct. 3. He will be reevaluated in the coming days.” Want to see what he can bring.
My expectations for him are low. Anything positive he offers will be welcomed.
Jones x3 and Crawford don’t appear to be an option at this point. It is a poorly constructed bench with limited options. Monk and Ellis have been average, Lyles and Len are nearly unplayable. McBuckets ain’t living up to his name. Just poor across the board.
Team will be fine. We’ve all been whining about how there are too many guards, one guard gets hurt for a couple weeks, and now it’s the end of the world. Nonsense.
Keon and KH play 30+ mpg, JMac plays 10+ and everything will be fine.
They are fine at Guard. Losing Monk hurts because we know he can be instant offense, at times. Just need Ellis and Huerter to pick up the slack when it comes to scoring.
Hobby, are you also an east coast Kings fan? Just wondering as you and I often seem to be on the same timeframe in these forums.
Central. I live in Tennessee now.
Nice. My father lived in Pigeon Forge for a little while. The Smokies are beautiful. Greetings from DC.
Nice, I haven’t made it out that way yet.
This team needs a rainout!
You want to deal with rained-on roosters?
That is a huge cock.
Without KD the Suns are a smaller and inferior team to the Kings. Just proved it a couple night ago. Do it again on your home floor with a night’s rest. With a tough game against Minny coming up, I do not want to see B2B losses.
No KD again for this meeting;
The Suns again primed for a beating.
When the game seems too much,
Fox and Deebo turn clutch—
A win ‘gainst the Suns bears repeating!
Put Phoenix in the spin cycle!
and take their cornbread!
This may seem defeatist, but I’m kinda anticipating a loss tonight. Going into the previous matchup with the Suns I was hoping we could get a split between Sunday and today. Kings got the win Sunday, and it’s hard to anticipate the Kings taking two from Phoenix in such short succession.
Both teams are now familiar with each other and will presumably make adjustments. Budenholzer is a fantastic coach, and the Suns have a really good roster even without KD. Beal left their game last night with calf tightness, no word on his status. Nurk is also day to day right now, and didn’t play yesterday. Those injuries could be key, because if Nurk and Beal are ok then the Suns have a lot better depth than the Kings.
Here’s hoping the Kings step up, the threes start to fall, and we can take a second early season win from Phoenix.
I like how DeRozan went right at any defender in that game. Okogie and O’Neale are supposed defensive studs, and DeRozan acted like they weren’t even there.
DeRozan really struggled early when Ryan Dunn was guarding him. Dunn was dealing with an injury and wasn’t playing down the stretch when DeRozan finally started going off. Something worth watching, Dunn is a really great defender even as a rookie.
Without KD the only true top end talent is Booker. Maybe you could argue Beal but he’s a couple years away from that title imo. Kings have Fox, Sabonis, DDR. I even like our 4-8 guys way better than their 4-8 guys. Not to mention that they’re very small outside of Domas’ son (Nurkic) and Plumlee. I just don’t see any excuse losing this game at home after rest.
Our top 3-4 are better than their top 3-4 (without KD) but I think their depth is still better than ours.
Definitely. Once we go to the bench they have a better team on the floor. Sabonis, Keegan, and Derozan for 48 minutes tonight. Let’s hope there is not an overtime.
It’s past time for this iteration of Kings basketball to establish home court dominance. Since the beginning of the 22-23 season, the Kings are slightly better on the road (.573) than at home (.570). This is not a small sample size, and no other team in the NBA has been worse at home than on the road over that period. G1C provides a consistently raucous crowd, and the team needs to apply that and the comfort of being at home to the on court product.
Put another way, stop dicking around and start winning home floors like the big boys in the league do. Please.
The Kings have not done shootaround/walk-throughs in G1C since Brown became coach. Other teams and players have expressed how much they enjoy shooting at G1C. I think the Kings need to have more time in the arena, on their home court. Maybe that is a reason they aren’t very good at home, maybe not. But it’s worth a try.
They’ve actually been doing shootaround in G1C this season. Not sure if every game, but I’ve seen clips before some of the home games.
Dang. Nothing is working!!!
Totally agree with this. Oftentimes when we talk about upcoming games, we think about tempering our expectations, that they might be tired, have a bad matchup, poor shooting night, etc.
Whenever people talk like this I just think…would we think this way if we supported the Boston Celtics? Or the Warriors dynasty? Of course not. When truly elite teams play, they are expected to win. Other teams look at the Celtics as a scheduled loss. Well… that’s the way the Kings need to perceive themselves. They have immense talent. If they don’t believe they can meet those expectations, then that’s either on the players, coach, front office, or all of the above. Either way, something would need to change.
But if this team wants to be taken seriously as a WCF or Finals contender, then it needs to start striking fear into other teams’ hearts. That means winning at home against other teams missing their best players. Period.
I was doing some number crunching and soul searching last night and came to the conclusion that if the Kings core had just shot their career averages from deep over the start of the season, they’d likely be a top 4 team in the West right now. By just shooting their averages they likely win in Toronto and beat the Clips at home.
An average performing 8-3 would sure feel a hell of a lot better than a poor performing 6-5.
I agree. One player having a bad shooting season, sure, it happens. The idea that Murray, Huerter, Monk, Ellis, Lyles, all collectively go from being 36%+ career shooters to below 30% does not compute. There will be regression to the mean, which means the Kings are 6-5 without having played their best basketball.
To boot, a few more makes leads to less transition opportunities for their opponents, as a few more stops leads to more transition opportunities for the Kings.
The point being, they need to step it up on both ends, and not by an unrealistic amount, if they are to be a legit playoff team.
Just getting all our misses for the season out of the way early. Same with the other teams’ makes.
We will be Fire after the All-Star break!!! Regression to the mean FTW!!!
WcF? Lol!!! They are no where close to being that. Facts. They havent beat not a single good team. Not 1. Unless that said team has injuries to their stars. This team will be lucky to win the play in.
I don’t remember you being such a pessimist. They are 6-5 with 71 games left to go and I have been seeing you act like they are last year’s Detroit Pistons. Last season, the 5th seed made two good trades at the deadline and turned it into a Finals run. Literally anything can happen. You don’t even know if this will be the roster the team finishes the year with (and I’d bet heavily that it is not).
No
Beal, Nurk or Durant tonite. If there is a way for the Kings to lose this, they will find it.
As of an hour ago Beal is questionable, and Nurk isn’t on the injury report.
1/3 will keep you in the majors
Or as the Kings primary threat from 3.
…and on the all-star team.
Trying this out to see if these embed. It’s also soooo true. Kangz!
It works!
I think tonights outcome will give us a clearer persoective of where the Kings as a whole are honestly at.
If the Kings win tonight, they will be above 500. If they lose tonight, I’m worried that they won’t be at 500 again the rest of the season or at least for long.
Why? I mean, they are playing an injury depleted team. What would any outcome tell us?
Nice… some sports reporting that’s not on Xitter
Huerter has really embraced this philosophy of passing the ball up court in transition. He’s thrown some gorgeous outlet passes on leak outs.
Would love to see Brown go a little deeper on the bench tonight.
Kings defenders ALL help off their man when a defender gets in to the paint, leaving shooters wide ass open. Not everyone needs to collapse to the paint, jeez.
It’s the scheme, no? Stop drives and contest corner 3s. We need to do something different. It’s frustrating.
They just don’t contest corner 3s. Too out of position. The scheme is flawed.
Some absolutely awful turnovers, mainly off passes 20ft away from the rim. Just lazy and careless.
TOs and 2nd Chance points have kept Suns in the game. Frustrating because it’s just a lack of execution. Kings still up 6 on the simple difference in talent and energy. If they clean it up, this will be a blowout.
Trey showed up. Shot looks better with more arc.
This is by far the best Lyles has looked all season and Fox is being aggressive GETTING to the basket/getting into the mid range rather than settling for 3’s. This is good
The Trey Lyles Game.
Huerter is HOOPING this season!
Game thread is up now.
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