Kings vs. Jazz Preview: Second Chance at a First Impression

After losing by another frutratingly thin margin, the Kings don’t have long to dwell on the missed opportunities of Halloweens past – they’ve got a schedule chock full of games these next few weeks and some sweet opportunities to redo a few of their first three blunders. Tonight, they’re in Utah to take on a Jazz team that went toe to toe with the Kings for three quarters before delivering a knockout punch by way of Rudy Gobert’s 9 point, 7 rebound fourth quarter.  It’s another game of Davion vs. Donovan, Harrison Barnes vs. regressing to the mean, DeAaron Fox against progressing to the mean!

Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Tuesday, November 2nd, 6 PM PST

Where: Vivint Arena, Salt Lake City, UT

TV: NBCSCA – Mark Jones (play-by-play)

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

The Way We Were: Any other year and I could comfortably say that this game tonight was a scheduled blow out. Truly, we would have all just known it was due tonight. In an opening six games of struggle, De’Aaron Fox bottomed out against the Mavs on Halloween, scoring 14 points on 5-16 shooting, including 1-4 from deep and three turnovers. I’ll say in Fox’s favor here that he did grab 8 boards and dish out 4 assists, but that also came with 3 turnovers and a strange, almost, malaise that surrounded his performance in Dallas.

Harrison Barnes had nearly an identical night to Fox, shooting 5-16, hitting just 1-8 from long range, and tossing 10 boards and 5 assists into the scorebook. Barnes has played truly heroic ball to start this young season and without his efforts, who knows where the Kings would be, but also if this is years past, he’s kind of due to disappear for a stretch of few games, right?

All this set-up to say again: any other version of this team in the last decade and the Kings would come into Utah, with fans having hope for another good game against a fantastic NBA team, and Sacramento wouldn’t make it to the arena steps without biffing it on the front curb and knocking their front teeth out. For years, they’ve been soft to these situations and nearly never rose to the occasion at hand. There would be some professional pouting – an invisible statline from Barnes, Fox playing like he’s just not hungry for a W, Richaun Holmes getting early foul trouble and the Jazz busting open a 17 point lead at half time. We have all seen this a hundred times.

Alright so this is less to you the reader and more to the powers that be, thawing out in Utah before a game tonight: you want respect from the fans, you want that less conditional love, you want the city rocking in purple and black by Christmas? Go out there and do something different. Stay engaged, make good choices, bust your ass for 36 minutes or 12 minutes or 2 minutes or whatever your circumstances allow. Fox: snap out of it. Tyrese: snap out of it. Harrison: tonight is the night for 30 and not 13. You all want the fans to see you as a playoff team, make the decision for us and play four quarters in a row like you are one. Not a 10th seed, begging Adam Silver to keep the play-in game a few years – a playoff team. A surprise sixth seed. Hell, I’d take you all playing like a definitive eighth seed: those ones that end up four games ahead of the ninth and there is no question who owns that last spot? Play like that tonight, if things are different than years past. I’m not requiring a win here: the Jazz are, without a doubt, one of the best teams in basketball. Just, play like you think you can win in the middle of some adversity.

I don’t have to say it to most of the Kings fans that check in here regularly – over the years, I’ve developed into a Kings realist and vacillated between reality and pessimism more times than I’d have preferred. I don’t want to believe the Kings at their word. I want them to show me. Still, any and all doom-and-gloom on my timeline I’ve tried to quash, because it’s still too early to draw large conclusions about the season as a whole from six games. That, that might change a bit tonight. I know my Kings, I’ve seen what they’ve done when adversity strikes for going on sixteen years now. I’m inclined to stick with that decade and half plus of evidence over one chemistry filled training camp.

If the Kings come out flat, dejected, or just uninspired at the gift these early season wins and opportunities have been for them, I’ll know what kind of season I’m in for. I’ll still have hope for a different outcome, but… I’ll trust my eyes on this.

The Kings want us to believe they’re different this year and we want to believe they are.

All they have to do is show up.

Prediction

12 points for Fox, 50 for Harrison Barnes. Buddy Hield and Jordan Clarkson merge into one super-being and asks to be traded to the Lakers, Warriors or Nets.

Kings: 113, Jazz: 111