It’s me again, your local harbinger of doom, here to give you another chance to discuss this favorite team of ours! The Kings are in the last game of a homestand and taking on the Blazers, the team the Kings beat in their season opener in a sign of all the magical things to come! Portland has won five of their last six games, including smacking the Nuggets by 19 last night. They’re completely healthy, they’re rolling and they’re… wait… wait… They’re 1-7 on the road?! THEY GOTTA SHOT FOLKS!
Let’s talk Kings basketball!
When: Wednesday, November 24th, 7:00 PM PST
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBCSCA – Kyle Draper (play-by-play)
Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
Return of Dame Time: I’m not sure there was a single person alive that had Damien Lillard struggling to start as bad or for as long as he did to start this season, but if there was, I’d bet those few omniscient beings understood that Lillard would be back and back hard. Well, folks, he’s back. Averaging 26.3 points per game over the last eight games, Lillard was recent named Western Conference Player of the Week and today in Sacramento he gets to also see himself as a player of the weak! Roll snare drum. Flash the audience applause sign. In all the ways we as fans understand a guy like De’Aaron Fox can’t play this scattered and poorly forever (right?!), Dame has pulled himself out of whatever the funk was and is back to doing what he does best – balling the hell out. His team has responded in kind, beating the Rockets, Raptors, Bulls, Sixers and Nuggets in the last two weeks.
They’re also absolutely terrible on the road, having only one victory on the season away from the Moda Center: the aforementioned game against the Rockets, a team that might try gunning for the worst record in NBA history before this season is all wrapped up. The sample sizes are big enough that we can talk about some things here. The Blazers are the 5th highest scoring team in the NBA this year, going at a below average pace and they allow the 10th most amount of points from their opponent. The Blazers are top ten in the league in both three point attempts and percentage despite their best player’s average still sitting at tenths of percentage points above 30%. From inside the arc they’re even better with the fourth best percentage in the league, though shooting a bottom five amount. They’re tenth in the NBA in both assists and turnovers so we know they execute their sets well, they’re dead center of the pack in rebounding with Jusef Nurkic averaging 11 a contest and six others averaging between 4 and 5.5 a game. If it hasn’t been absolute smacking you in the head the past few weeks, anyone can beat this Kings squad right now. The Blazers aren’t an exception.
Here’s some very obvious things that the Kings can’t have tonight if they want to beat the Kings. Tyrese Haliburton cannot, under any circumstance, score zero points on 5 attempts like he did in the loss to Philly’s bench the other night. Hali has a ton of expectations on his shoulders and I’m sure it isn’t easy adjusting to everything this season but the fact remains – he’s gotta do better. A lot better. I harped a lot on this last season and was tentative about his start this season because of this habit, but Harrison Barnes cannot go back to being the Invisible Man. The guy had 10 points against another team’s bench unit and at the start of this month he was quite possibly playing like the best forward in entire Western Conference. The man has slid back to regular ol’ Harrison. It can’t happen. I’m frustrated about a ton of stuff involving this team but… those two… those are the ones that sting most.
Alright. Happy Native American and Indigenous Heritage Night to all who go to the game today. Enjoy your day tomorrow, don’t burn the house down doing stunts with oil and poultry. Be safe, don’t drink and drive and we’ll see you back here for the Laker game the following day.
Prediction
Yadayada lots of puns using ‘foul/fowl’ and ‘turn up/turnip’ and the like.
Kings: 121, Blazers: 113
The main thing I took away from this preview is that, at some point in his life, Will was forced to eat turnips for Thanksgiving.
First game got a win ‘gainst the Blazers;
HB’s threes were on target like lasers.
Now regressed to the mean,
The Kings’ scoring’s been lean—
Our win chances sliced thin like razors!
And Happy Turkey Day!
I’m expecting a really really sparse crowd tonight. Yay for having an easy drive home?
What do you think? 5000 people…. maybe?
Only the degenerates like me showing up when we should be cooking and prepping, so maybe 8000 if the kings are lucky. You guys should watch on tv to see how empty it is. Could be national NBA news by Friday.
Half empty seems reasonable.
But somehow will be a ‘sell out”. All about optics
With these deals, it always is.
I mean, they’ll have the tickets get comped to local businesses and charities. It’ll show as a sell out on paper until you actually watch the games or are in the stands.
I’ve only accepted free tickets to Kings game in the last decade because I refuse to financially support this team. That being said, I’ve been to dozens of games in a decade. Pretty incredible when you think that many people paid their hard earned money only to hand out the tickets because they’re not worth watching. Sad state of affairs and unfortunately nothing changing anytime soon.
I hear you. I really preferred splitting a season ticket with three other people so I could pick and choose which ten games I wanted to watch, but even die hards have their cut off point.
What the Blazers are planning to do tonight is unconscionable, an affront the very concept of sportsmanship.
Imagine visiting the Kings, but failing to sit out your five starters? What exactly are they trying to prove?
Technical question: on my Firefox browser, the header and links at the top of the page have disappeared, including the login link. I have cleared all my cache and cookies and TKH website data, yet the problem persists. If I log in to Chrome it is fine. Anybody have any help to offer? Thanks.
I asked my buddy Russell, who knows some computer stuff, and he said:
“try the inprivate window and see if it’s the same problem. If it’s not, then Firefox is OK. Try to click the little shield thing next to the address and uncheck the enhanced tracking box. Try to disable adblock for that page if it’s setup.”
I wonder if we can fire fox?
or if we can make the Kings disappear.
Acceptance.
I will go and I will sit by myself- no one will go with me or is willing to be seen with me.
Since 1985 and now this?
How many teams can we expect the Kings to beat? OKC? no, SAS ?no. Houston ? yes Detroit-yes and maybe Orlando. That’s it.
Kings can be expected to beat 3 teams and all want to lose and cannot be expected to beat others who also want to lose.
Fire Fox and Fox have disappeared.
I would switch over to the Brave browser. Just my personal preference. Heck of a lot better than Chrome or Firefox, in my opinion.
Thank you for the tip. What’s better about it?
Brave is the greatest, especially with BAT slowly increasing in value.
How I feel about the team going into tonight’s game.
https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/pDFIbXzyU78SkRKcUz1o
we need to lose these games
yes but draft is poor next year and it does not matter anyway. A Luka will be there and we pick a bag of peanuts.
Vlade and Pete aren’t drafting for us, though.
Is that purposeful in the preview now?
Happy Native American and Indigenous Heritage Night to all who go to the game today
Is that Friday or not?
Kings site says it’s tonight.
Probably pretty hard for the Kings to honor Native American and Indigenous Heritage Night on Friday when they’ll be playing in LA!
I see.
Still seems a bit trying to trump Thanksgiving
What? Am I missing something here?
Today: no holiday
Tomorrow: Thanksgiving
Friday: Indigenous day
Is there a reason we are celebrating indigenous day, if anything, today?
Maybe there is something I’m not understanding, or is this part of woke kings?
Found the snowflake.
Blame it on the Massachusetts liberal Mayflower Pilgrims for inviting Native Americans to share in that mythic first Thanksgiving feast.
He’s just prepping himself to defend Santa Claus in the war on Qhristmas.
Just let Barnes and Holmes take all the shots…..
I don’t want to see those brick shots from Fox……..
Pressure is on Gentry now since the Walton led Kings beat Blazers in Portland !
Are they going to start serving festive colored drinks so they are more decorative when puked onto the floor?
Purple Drank
With some glitter in it.
Badge Legend