Mike Brown says physicality will be a key factor against the Warriors

At the Sacramento Kings team dinner Tuesday night, Matthew Dellavedova, Harrison Barnes and assistant coach Leandro Barbosa addressed the players given their championship experience, according to Mike Brown. Brown also said when it comes to the playoffs, the best teacher will be going through it and facing what is in front of you.

What is in front of the Kings is the defending champion Golden State Warriors, and there are no misconceptions about what that means despite the Kings finishing ahead of them in the regular season standings.

Following Wednesday’s practice, Brown and his team spoke about how physicality will be one of the determining factors in how successful the Kings will be in this series.

“You try to be proactive. You try to get into their bodies early and you can’t relax because as soon as you relax or take a breath defensively it’s a wrap. They move too well, their spacing is too good, they have great passers, and so you have to be in tune for 24 seconds of the shot clock on the defensive side of the ball. And part of that means that you have to dictate the direction that these guys are going by getting into their bodies, and that’s when the physicality comes in,” Brown said. “Physicality comes in when it comes to defensive rebounding. Loon [Kevon Looney] is one of the best offensive rebounders in the NBA and you’re not going to be able to just put a body on him. You’re going to have to put two bodies on him at times. They have guys like [Donte] DiVincenzo and Wiggs [Andrew Wiggins] that are two of the best offensive rebounding guards in the NBA, so you have to find them as well. There’s a lot of different aspects of the game where physicality is going to take place not just defensively, but offensively too with us setting screens and when we cut if we get bumped, run through the bump, I mean I can go on and on.”

De’Aaron Fox echoed what Brown said.

“A lot of things to talk about, physicality is preached,” Fox said. “How we guard them will be key. How physical we are with them will be key. Obviously, we want to try to limit their freedom and movement just because how much they move, especially guys like Klay [Thompson], Jordan [Poole] and Steph [Curry]. You just want to be able to try to control them. You can’t let them dictate the way they want to play.”

Being physical without fouling is what Fox says will be key.

“This team plays a unique brand of basketball. I don’t think any other team plays the way that they play,” he said.

Domantas Sabonis shared what he expects.

“Physicality. We have to come prepared. They are the defending champs. They’re going to come out with a lot of physicality and try and knock us out of our rhythm,” he said.

We’ll see how the Kings fare in Game 1 on Saturday.