The Sacramento Kings faced the Houston Rockets for the second time in three days, finishing out a 7-game road trip that his been filled with ups and downs. This game was an encapsulation of all those ups and downs, but the Kings snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and won 130-128.
De’Aaron Fox came up huge for the Kings yet again, putting Sacramento on his back and willing them to victory. Fox scored Sacramento’s final 7 points, finishing with a team-high 31 points to go along with 11 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals. The key play came with 1.3 seconds remaining and the Kings down by 1. Fox received an inbounds pass and pulled up for three, missing as time expired. But the refs came through in Sacramento’s favor for once, calling a foul on Eric Gordon who ran into Fox’s body as he was shooting. Fox stepped to the line and coolly drilled his first two free throws. Fox tried to intentionally miss to run off the final 0.3 seconds, but made it anyway. It’s incredible to think of how many years Fox struggled from the free throw line, and yet tonight I felt very confident as he stepped to the stripe with the game on the line.
Domantas Sabonis had a rough night, battling foul trouble all night. He still finished with 22 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists and a steal. One the one-year anniversary of the trade that brought Domas to Sac, it’s funny to think that a 22/9/5 night is considered a rough outing for Sacramento’s All-Star center.
Malik Monk brought a big 17 points off the bench, as well as an incredible steal off the Houston inbounds with 1.8 seconds remaining. Without Monk, we wouldn’t be talking about Fox’s free throws because the Kings would have never gotten that final shot.
Keegan Murray had a quieter night, with 10 points and 6 rebounds, but he also had a crucial drawn charge late in the game to stop what would have been a Rockets fast break. Houston challenged the call and lost, losing a timeout and keeping the momentum with the Kings. Keegan also passed Bogdan Bogdanovic for most three pointers made by a rookie. Bogi sank 129 as a rookie over 78 games. Keegan has now made 130 in 54 games.
A big part of what made this game so challenging was Jalen Green, who finished with 41 points on 14-22 shooting. He was heavily guarded and was sinking shots anyway. Truly an impressive performance.
The Kings finished their road trip a respective 4-3, a solid result for such a long road trip that also saw Fox miss two games for the birth of his child. The Kings now get to return to Sacramento to face the Dallas Mavericks on Friday.
Watch the final sequence below, and make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel.
I think Tankathon is broken. No matter how many times I hit “Sim Lottery,” the Kings never move up.
On another note, we have the 3rd most difficult remaining strength of schedule……
we have the 3rd most difficult remaining strength of schedule……
For those of us who don’t know what this means, is that good or bad?
It’s not good, which I guess means it’s bad. We have some tough games left, starting with the back-to-backs against Dallas this Fri-Sat. Then the revamped PHXs next week.
Durant won’t play next Tuesday. So that issue seems moot.
We’re going to need to learn to play defense if we want a +0.500 record for the remaining 28 games.
Thank you. Good answer
I believe that if Mike Brown had put Davion on Jalen Green whenever he was in the game, it would not have been a close game. Davion gets into his grill, makes him uncomfortable, won’t let him go where he wants to go. Even if Davion is too short to block his shot, that makes no difference. Green went off for 41 because he got comfortable and confident. Even if you almost block his shot, that makes no difference if he is comfortable and confident. If you make him uncomfortable, you can frustrate his shot even if you don’t come close to blocking it. Davion makes people uncomfortable.
Disagree. I watched the entire game. When Davion was on the floor, he could not guard Green. Not from these eyes. And I have 20/10 vision.
Besides the fact Mitchell is not 6’2 for a fact that’s a joke. I live in Miami. I was at the Sac game. 2 rows behind the bench. If he’s 6ft that’s generous. I am 6ft.
He tries hard. But call a spade and spade. Players like Green will shoot over him. Davion doesn’t make every guard uncomfortable. If you’re a top tier guard with length and wingspan, he’s a gnat. And gnats get swatted away.
https://twitter.com/NBCSKings/status/1622770606042230786?s=20&t=riZDUQDHLzc-RUK-pdqshg
He measured 6’0″ and change barefoot at the combine.
I thought the coaching staff became innovated in the fourth quarter last night trapping the guards out front not allowing them straight line drives. Also created a couple of turnovers which lead to scores at the other end. Rockets guards have a lot of trouble with this. Good job coaches and players.
WE SURPASSED LAST SEASON’S TOTAL (IN EARLY FEBRUARY TOO!!!!) AND ARE ONLY 10 WINS AWAY FROM REACHING .500!!! LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO.
No style points for that one. Wtf even was that?
Aside from the New Orleans massacre that was a solid road trip. This weekend’s games against Dallas are going to be big ones.
Great foul call
For the SWEEP!
The refs giveth, and the refs taketh away—and vice versa.
Better to win than to lose, obviously (and great job De’Aaron down the stretch!), but this team is playing with fire. Giving up this many points to the worst team in the league isn’t an outlier for the Kings–they routinely play turnstile defense and have zero presence in the middle, and letting teams score 120+ on them is par for the course. They are one rough shooting month and/or Fox/Sabonis injury from play-in or even lottery territory. Monte, you have less than 24 hours to work some magic and get this team the defensive chops it so desperately needs. On a sunnier note…. hot damn, the Kings have a winning record on the road!
whew
You lose some you deserve to win, and you win some you deserve to lose. This was one of those. I’ll take it. Play better next time.
Whew.
Man. What a
burgerGAME.We were In-N-Out of Houston just like that.
Not before having it our way!
“Sir, this is a Wendy’s.”
what an absolutely amazing finish!
back and forth, forth and back. Seemed yhe Kings were in control up by two – but then missed four straight and then the seesaw happened.
The missed Malik Monk lay up- the Sabonis miss, the Murray miss – that would have put the Kings up! Wasn’t meant to be. Green would bring the Rox up- Gordon would bring them down.
Including that definite foul- but if you angle the camera, it looks like a bad call.
Kings ride the victory rocket tonight- LLIGHT THE BEAM!
&ct=g
One of the Houston announcers said Gordon interfered with Fox’s being able to land.
It looked like he thought he was skinnier than he really is and his belly made pretty solid contact as he passed by. That has been happening a lot to me lately, so back on the diet!
I never do this, but closed my laptop and missed the last 5 seconds of the game. I couldn’t believe they won when I woke up this morning, so I had to re-watch it.
I realize that they never call fouls in that situation, but I swear Martin Jr. did a full swing hack on Murray’s arm on his first put-back attempt. It looked even worse on the re-play from under the basket, so I had to let out a few choice words and take a break.
Kings going sweeping tonight!
BREAKIN’ last season’s win total!
That was an exiting game of basketball
We exited Houston with two W’s!
(Whataburgers?)
Wowzers! What an ending to a game.
Things I like about this win
7. Username checks out.
Holy crap!
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1623564019037614082
Goodness gracious, the West are really afraid of the Kings.
You have to bleed money to win!
Lordy be! That is significant?
We play the Suns three times and Dallas twice after tonight.
We’ve got a freaking gauntlet ahead of us for the second half.
We play Dallas 3 more times. Twice this weekend, once in Dallas in early April.
Will Luka play; will Luka and Irving have enough time to mesh? Will it matter?
Will Luka get traded because Kyrie is better? Or is Luka a bench player now?
They wouldn’t want him to take the ball out of Kyrie’s hands?
They wouldn’t want both on the floor to play defense. I’d look forward to that matchup.
I want to see who wins the 140-135 matchups this weekend.
Shoot, you’re right. Misread one of the Dallas logos on the schedule.
No worries.
Holy cow, KD just said “F it, no way in hell Kyrie is getting one up on me. Send me to Phoenix.”
That seems like a lot to give up for Durant who’s like 600 years old
My god.That’s a lot to give up for an aging and often injured Durant. Suns just leveraged their entire future for a title shot. That new owner has some serious balls.
I’m really interested to see how the Kings go about doing this deadline in the next few hours. Both Irving and Durant being traded were major firebombs. Poeltl being traded for a fairly high pick from the Raptors is interesting, too. Like what is Masai Ujiri doing up there in the 6?
Ay ay ay. What an….curveball like deadline.
A bunch of the teams right behind us look poised to make runs. It’s gonna be a wild last 2 months.
The Suns will have an inevitable run with Booker getting back. But with KD, sheesh
As for the Mavs and Lakers, meh.
KD to Suns. https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-kevin-durant-traded-to-phoenix-suns-in-blockbuster-move-060826326.html
Jeezus. That’s…… crazy.
bad news for the Kings
It is? Why?
Well bad news for every other team in the West not named Phoenix. They’re damn near a super team and KDs locked up for 4 years
Why is that? Did I miss something? Or is Mikal Bridges not part of the trade?
Is KD trash all of a sudden?
Didn’t know that’s what I said. But no, why would a 1st ballot HoF be trash?
Mikal Bridges is a huge loss, though. This isn’t a slam dunk trade for Phx, and I think it’s worse than the one Brooklyn made for James Harden personally.
U wouldn’t swap KD for Mikal frickin bridges?! I think for the short term atleast it’s a great trade for them
It depends on the situation. It feels like a new owner trying to make a splash more than a real swing at a title.
losing Bridges and Johnson hurts the depth but now they have a semi three headed monster with CP3, D-Book, and KD.
Agreed. That was a stiff price to pay. I understand the gamble, but plenty of ways this can go wrong.
The best ability is availability, and that is a roll of the dice for PHX.
KD is a top 20 all timer having an historically great MVP caliber season. To me this clearly puts PHX up there with Denver.
Sounds like your short changing KD and thinking a lot higher of Mikal than most.
Perhaps you should watch more basketball and pay less attention to narrative and the name on the front of jersey then.
If you don’t realize how valuable Mikal Bridges is, I don’t know what to tell you. There’s a reason Brooklyn wanted him despite already having Royce O’Neal, Dorian Finney-Smith and Ben Simmons. Mikal Bridges is, simply put, the best of those guys.
Yeah, that’s what I said, Mikal Bridges is the best player of those 4. He’s an All NBA defender capable of putting up 20 on a lot of nights. The only guy who comes close to that (or is capable of exceeding that in value) is Ben Simmons. And who knows whether he gets back to that level or not.
My first thought was that is a lot of draft picks and a solid player for a guy with so many miles. Def a strong move but not a Guarantee ship or even guaranteed trip to the ship..
Not trash. Also not as healthy as he used to be.
Who is the best defender the Suns have now? DeAndre Ayton? They didn’t just lose Bridges either, Cam Johnson can play and Jae Crowder engaged is a guy, chemistry aside, who helps you win games on the court.
No, I didn’t want the Kings to trade for Jae Crowder. But….he helps his teams win games properly motivated, too.
Any other superstars getting moved to the west to help the Pacers get into the playoffs?
Breaking news…. Ben Simmons traded to the Warriors for James Wiseman
If I didn’t know this was literally impossible, I’d be like wut?!?!? 😂 😂 😂 😂
Of course I jest… but it’s only funny if it has context to reality.
Bargain Bin Brooklyn. They be buildin’ around Cam Thomas.
They are moving on from an ill fated experiment. I’ll give them credit for that.
They have enough stuff to rebuild on the fly, I think. I think a roster with Claxton, Bridges, Johnson, Thomas, DFS, Dinwiddie, Royce, Harris, Simmons, Curry, and Yutu is a place to start. Not the worst thing that could happen to them, that is for sure.
There are young guys to build with, and vets to unload for assets.
Mos Def Mike. Yeah, I think the fact they have a strong collection of wing players that other teams want and will give them something for is a great start.
For instance, assuming the Nets are okay with this, the Kings could trade Holmes for DFS straight up. (Keep in mind, any trades with the Nets will be 1v1 because salary aggregation rules apply; simply put you can’t combine salaries of players to make a trade and have to trade them individually.)
I’m not saying the Nets would trade DFS for Holmes…..just that it works as an option.
We didn’t deserve this win…but I’ll take it anyway, just for the gutsy finish. In any other year, down 5 with seconds remaining, I would have counted them out.
Monk’s steal with 1.8 seconds left was the play of the game.
Regardless of who wins I hate games are decided this way. This has happened too many times with Kings fans on the losing end for this to be ok the one time it goes in our favor. These ticky-tack fouls and flailing shooters need to stop. Fox did nothing wrong given the current way the game is played, he was trying to and did win the game, but jeez it feels like both teams lost to me.
Man, if we’d been on the losing end of that play it would’ve been a somber night.
FWIW, Juan Toscano-Anderson and Damian Jones are also headed to Utah in that deal involving Westbrook and Conley.
That’s interesting. I don’t think it was JTA or D Jones that swing that deal in the favor of the Jazz but I wonder if either are available now. Assuming the deal is complete. The Jazz may not be able to deal either.
I think the were just bodies sent to matchup with roster spots
Yep. Just wondering if that’s the type of move the Kings might make if a bigger one isn’t actually available.
Not the best of games, but a win’s a win and a sweep’s a sweep.
Yay…
So the Raptors got Poetl for a protected 1st round pick and change? Not bad, I think.
Poetl would have been a great fit for the kings
KD to the Suns
F*cking awesome! I was at dinner for a friend’s birthday and my buddy who’s a Kings fan checked the score and we were down one with .03 seconds left. Went to bed thinking we lost this game! Great start to the morning to see we pulled it off!!!
Major major trades in the last 12 hours. Wonder what the Kings are going to do if anything?
PS really wanted Jared Vanderbilt. Oh well.
Speaking from experience, don’t get your heart set on players Jack. It rarely happens, if ever. 🙂
Can we get a trade deadline open thread?!
Probably will get one eventually today.
Ask and you shall receive:
Wow I hesitate to say the Basketball Gods are in our favor this year because I keep waiting for an ugly slide down and losing streak (which could still happen) but we were blessed last night. I had the feeling we were going to lose the whole game, especially at the end (that ball was off Gordon at end) but somehow we actually got a few lucky calls for once and got a much needed win. There is no margin for error in the West, especially with these new huge trades, staying in the top 6 is going to be very tough. I didn’t like how the Kings played in this game given their opponent but good teams find ways to win so I will be content for now sitting in #3 seed. We could really use a two way wing, good back up pg and center. Hope the Gods favor us this year for once, I’m praying. Go Kangz LTB!!!!
Badge Legend