Your undefeated Group C champions didn’t have much time to celebrate their big win from last night as they quickly had to lace them up again to host the Los Angeles Clippers. It’s a singular sample size, but back to back scenarios have not been kind to the Kings so far this season. Just last week, they suffered their worst loss of the season by dropping dead to the Pelicans by 36 points on the tail end of their first back to back. Tonight felt like it had the potential to go either way. Either the Kings would use their momentum from their huge win against the Warriors to propel them past the newly stacked Clippers’ roster, or they would fall back on the fatigue of having to complete a 24-point comeback the night before. Let’s see how they did:
Quick Stats
Outcome: Kings lose, 117-131
Sacramento Kings: 117 pts, 46.5% fg, 31.7% 3 pt, 85.7% ft, 22 ast, 47 reb, 14 to
Los Angeles Clippers: 131 pts, 53.8% fg, 50.0% 3 pt, 77.3% ft, 28 ast, 37 reb, 7 to
As a fan, I’m tired from that back to back. The beginning of this game almost felt like deja vu of last night, as the Kings fell behind early and trailed by 22 points after giving up 72 points to the Clippers after the first half. Sacramento spent most of the second half trailing by 20 or more points, up until their biggest push when they cut the lead to 13 points with 6:30 remaining. I have to admit, there was a glimmer within me that thought, “can these knuckleheads do it again?!” But Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers quickly extinguished that glimmer with nearly flawless execution for the final minutes and never let the Kings even sniff a scent of a comeback.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
The Good:
- Glass Game: From the beginning of the game, the Kings dominated the glass. They earned themselves a handful of second and third chances by fighting for 13 offensive rebounds. They bested the Clippers in this category, out rebounding them 47-37 by committing to defensive conclusions and sending a lot of Kings’ jerseys to the paint for defensive boards. Unfortunately, the Clippers scored so often and the Kings so rarely that even with this concerted effort, it didn’t ultimately swing in the Kings’ favor.
- Bench Batteries: Once the Clippers got their first sizable lead by the second quarter, there really was no looking back. Even when the Kings were able to string a few sequences together, there was an overwhelming feeling that the Clippers still maintained control over this game. But despite these circumstances, Malik Monk and Sasha Vezenkov simply did not care. Off the bench, the duo brought consistent effort and a refusal to quit. It was Monk’s 5 points in a row in the fourth quarter that cut the lead to 13 points and gave the Kings their best shot at this game. Monk finished with 15 points on a perfect 7-7 from the free throw line. Vezenkov got to show off his quick release as he reached a new NBA career high of 13 points on 3-5 from the 3-point line. To have two batteries off the bench that Coach Mike Brown can rely on to ignore all circumstances and be ready to hoop is something I look forward to enjoying a lot more this season.
The Bad:
- Talent Overload: I was told that the Clippers were still figuring things out. Someone lied to me. With all five starters scoring in double digits, the Clippers looked like they have figured things out. James Harden came out firing, scoring 17 of his 26 points in the first quarter and finished 5-8 from deep. While he rested, Kawhi Leonard stepped in and had a classically efficient Kawhi game with 34 points on 14-18 from the field. Paul George didn’t even look like he broke a sweat tonight as he scored 19 points on 4-9 from the 3-point line and also tallied 7 assists. And to round it all out, Ivica Zubac (14 points, 8 rebounds) and Terance Mann (18 points, 8-12 fg) filled in any and all gaps alongside their stars. When the Clippers have that much talent AND shoot 50% from the 3-point line, the Kings needed nearly perfect execution to stand a chance. But whether it was because of fatigue or something else, the Kings just didn’t have the juice or the focus to do it tonight.
- Trap Backfire: In their win last night, the Kings were successful in executing defensive traps on Stephen Curry and forcing him to get rid of the ball. Tonight, they tried to do the same thing to James Harden, but the outcome was much different. Doubling Harden wasn’t as effective because of the talent surrounding him. Whenever Harden got doubled and passed out of it, the ball found its way to either Kawhi Leonard, Paul George or Terence Mann, all while the Kings were now in scramble and recovery mode. The Clippers simply have too many offensive weapons that are too precise in what they do. With the Kings caught in scrambles, the Clippers found open shots that they were able to hit at a high frequency.
- Post Pain: It is a rare and uncomfortable experience to witness Domantas Sabonis struggle during a game of basketball. We are so accustomed to an automatic double double from him that it feels awkward when he has a night like tonight where he finished with just 11 points and 5 rebounds. Hit matchup with Ivica Zubac did not favor him, as Zubac’s size advantage prevented Sabonis from scoring a single 2-point field goal until 45 minutes into the game.
The Ugly:
- Losing the Long Battle: The Kings suffered another game of ice cold shooting while the Clippers seemed like they could not miss. What made it worse was the volume at which this all happened. The Kings shot 7-26 from the 3-point line in the first half in comparison to the Clippers’ 11-17. These stats paint the familiar picture of the Kings trying to shoot their way out of a deficit, only to have it dug even deeper when nothing is falling. Just as a few 3-point makes can compound on the beneficial effects of their offense, a few stretches of misses can compound the negative ones as well. When they were missing shot after shot, the offense started to lack any inside out motion and the ball was getting into the paint less and less. The Kings need to figure out a quicker response to cold shooting nights or they could very well continue to find themselves in uphill battles.
The King of Kings
It is always a shame when a great performance doesn’t result in a win. De’Aaron Fox led the team with 40 points on 14-23 from the field. Fox was the first to recognize the team’s shooting struggles and took it upon himself early to attack the basket. This earned him 10 free throws, and after a rough night at the line last night, he was able to correct that tonight and hit 9 of 10.
Up Next
Saturday, December 2nd vs. Denver Nuggets – 7:00 P.M. (PT)
Ban back to backs? I’m old enough to remember 3 games in 4 nights back in the 1980s. Not as common as back to backs, but they did happen.
They still do 3 in 4’s, Kings did that last week. It’s the 4 games in 5 nights that have been eliminated, but those were still happening during the Boogie days
I blame memory loss
I heard that some teams actually win both games of a back-to-back.
Can that be true?
Rumors and conjecture
This is where I’m at. It shouldn’t be impossible to win both games. If you can’t win the second game, at least don’t get blown out of the building (especially your own building).
Interested to know the record of the teams on the second game of a back-to-back. There has to be data somewhere for that, I think.
Yes, I was wondering about that too.
On average, rested teams have won 51.8% of their games, and a team on a back-to-back has won 43.6% of their games. If we take out the 2014-15 outlier for back-to-backs (46.4% win percentage), the average drops to 42.9%.
Does it seem like more live and die by the 3 than last year? Don’t see as much high post-Sabonis half court? Or all the 1/2 court movement
Have teams taken away Sabs DHO?
Every loss is bad, but I’d rather beat the Warriors and lose to the Clippers
After tonight’s game looking at current standings, the Kings are 5-0 against other teams in the top 7 of the West, 1-7 against teams 8-11, and 3-0 against teams in the bottom four. Also 1-0 against the East.
Not sure I can draw any conclusions from this, but it just seemed weird enough to comment on.
The problem is, the shooting woes aren’t confined to just this one game. On the season, we’re 21st out of the 30 teams in overall FG %age, and 24th for 3pt %age (despite shooting the third most 3pt attempts per game in the entire league). We just aren’t shooting well, and it’ll be hard to keep our record above water when that’s the case.
Domas needs more tricks in his post bag. Zubac was getting a bucket every possession it looked like for a bit and he was getting bullied. Teach him a half hook.
Too many big losses this season.
-Both Houston games were blowouts.
-First Pelicans game was a blowout, and the second game was a blowout until they got it close at the end.
-14 point loss to GSW. (And the most recent GSW game was non-competitive for nearly 3 quarter)
-This Clippers game.
6 of 7 losses they haven’t even been really competitive for most of the games. That looks like an issue to me. Perhaps a deeper dive in to the numbers of those games to see if there is a trend, like too many 3s, contested shots, not enough lack of ball movement, etc.
If we can’t win in the second game of a back to back then we are in trouble because we have a lot left this year. And at home. We are supposed to be one of the best 3 point teams in the league. Haven.t seen it yet. I think we shot our average in 2 or 3 games but that’s it. Everyone says just wait. We are almost 20% in games played so far and I haven’t seen it yet. Maybe wait until the games are 50% in this year. If so wait until next year. Last night we did win the board game and finally shot a good percentage of our free throws but that was it.I thought Sabonis had a bad game against the Warriors but last night was worse. Is he hurt or does he have internal problems? Don’t know. If he keeps this up we are really in trouble. Has been missing a lot of layups recently. My other real concern is Barnes. It might be his age but he no longer plays defense. I went back and watched the game. His weakside rim protection is nonexsistent. Can not guard on the point of attack. Too slow. 3 players did a good job last night. Fox Monk and Vezenkov. If Sasha plays like he did in the last couple of games he deserves more playing time. We are one of the youngest teams in the league with a very good bench. We better start showing this especially on back to backs or we are in trouble.
The Kings are shooting about 5 more 3s per game this season, and are making 1 more 3 per game this season compared to last. I read in the game threads a lot about how getting to the paint/rim is what needs to happen when the 3s are not dropping. Missed 3 after missed 3 and then boom, down 14.
I get the roster is built to shoot the 3, but some adjustments might need to be made. There are stats on open vs. contested shots, so I am interested to see the difference between this year and last. My guess is that teams know what the Kings do offensively and are working hard to defend that this season.
Barnes is not really moving his feet on D. Clearly is a bench guy these days. But who’s better? Start Vez?
Either way, that’s the position that needs an upgrade. Needed an upgrade this summer actually.
And I have similar Sabonis concerns and wonder
This is the point I was trying to make the other day. These stretches of completely uncompetitive basketball is alarming. This is not something that can be dismissed as an anomaly here or there.
My impression is the Kings have to really work hard to defend at a competitive level with this roster, especially without Keegan when any combination of Barnes, Huerter and Sabonis are on the floor. It took a lot of effort to hold the Warriors to 51 points in the last 26 minutes.
So the team couldn’t defend well the next day in a back to back. It is a roster problem, not a coaching or commitment one, so these poor performances in back to backs are likely to persist unless there is a trade that improves the team defensively. It would be a daring move, but Brown should consider starting Duarte over Barnes when Murray comes back.
Yes please. Less Barnes. Preferably a roster replacement for Barnes. Outside of the first game of the season, he has been pretty much invisible. Last year, the talk was that he was the veteran that knew what it took to compete in difficult situations (playoffs). He sure didn’t show it. If the team needs that guy, they have grandpa McGee.
Well that stunk like last week’s french fries…
stale, stink. Not good enough to recover for BTB.
I don’t like the small ball lineup with Lyles at 5…
I would rather see the lob from Monk to McGee…..
McGee is a big presence inside the paint….
Also, he plays hard, 3 off. rebound within 5 minutes of playing time in this game…
Just no more Duarte, Davion….
2nd unit:
Keon, Monk, McGee, Lyles and Sasha, and putting Fox in with Monk together for a few minutes…
p.s. I wonder why Sabonis can bully AD, but not Zubac…
(Looney is a nightmare to Sabonis, so I don’t mind the poor performance from Sabonis last game)
Sabonis struggles against big defenders that do not bite on his pump fakes. Zubac, Looney, Valancuinas are not athletic shot blockers that get up and try to swat the ball in to the 10th row. He needs a counter for those above mentioned guys, and he just doesn’t have one right now.
Read my above reply.
You better mind. Sabonis needs to figure these things out. He’s a professional with all star qualities. Looney will never be an all star so what does that say for Sabonis. He should never let another center in this league control him. There are a lot of things in basketball that would fix this. Sabonis needs to figured this out.
One stat: If you look at the season percentages from 3 (including last night), the Kings should have scored 9 more points from deep (at .349), the Clips 12 fewer points (at .364). That is a 21 point move in a game that was decided by 14.
Maybe tired legs entered into it a little? That said, it really was a simple case of them making their 3s and us not.
And 1 – I’m not all that worried about the double digit losses. The Houston games were sans Fox, and the Rox are 8-1 at home overall this year. The NO and LAC losses? We got scorched a bit on the wing, and we were without Murray, who I think is our best wing defender and may have had at least a little more success against Ingram, Zion, George and Kawhi.
After a year of unbridled health (the one-handed Cyborgis notwithstanding), we are now dealing with a more normal season of taking the floor at less than full strength. And we are on a 48 – 50 win pace (depending on whether or not you factor in small sample size home / road splits). We’re maybe a game off of where I had hoped we would be at the end of November. If we can put together a couple of spans of good health, we should wind up in 50+ win territory, and I will never, ever, ever complain about a 50 win team.
My surprise at this loss is nil. Nada.
A back to back, starting against not just a team that has given us hell for the last year but against “that” team for some made up in season bullshit that had every player on the floor acting like it was a do or die game in the playoffs by the 4th quarter. Against a fkn nemesis, our wolves bane at the moment.
After one of the most emotionally charged games we’ve seen this season, we’re to expect the Kings to come out and not be completely emotionally drained and treat the “regular ass” regular season game against the Clippers (are they even in the tournament?) after those other fellas sat at the hotel conference room across the street dissecting everything we do?
Should we be better? yep. Am I gonna act like this one game, a bad job by the scheduling committee and even worse job by the commissioner for making this in season ridiculousness, a big deal for the Kings future? nope.
Maybe next year they’ll be smart enough to not schedule back to backs after in season tourney games, if they’re going to insist on this silly shit.
The Kings do need to figure out what to do when Sabonis is getting shut out of the scoring column, though. It makes it so defenders don’t feel like they need to guard him at all and are free to clog passing lanes, double Fox or jam our shooters when they’re trying to work the DHO. Its absolutely bizarre to watch a guy with Domas’ skillset have zero desire to attack the basket at times. Like wiiiiiide open shots and he doesn’t even… look? See it? I don’t get it. He should be money from 15 ft. in and look to take that shot whenever he wants and he just passes it up. When he’s aggressive it puts pressure on the defense and makes this team better.
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