The Kings have advanced to the knockout rounds of the inaugural In-Season Tournament and they’ll be hosting the New Orleans Pelicans tonight for a chance to go to Las Vegas for the Semifinals. The Pelicans have already beaten the Kings twice this season and are even healthier than they were in those games, but the Kings at least have homecourt advantage. It’s elimination basketball on a Monday night in December!
Let’s talk Kings basketball!
When: Monday, December 4th, 7:00 PM PT
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: TNT
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140
Three in the Key
Protect the Paint
In Sacramento’s two losses to New Orleans, the Pelicans absolutely dominated the Kings in the paint. In the first game, which came on the second night of a back to back for Sacramento, the Kings were outscored 64 to 40 in the paint and were promptly blown out, 129 to 93. The Kings kept the game much closer in the second battle, but somehow lost the paint battle even worse, 62 to 28, in what ended up being a five point game. Sacramento had no real answer for Zion Williamson in either game as he shot 22-32 (68.8%) from the field over the two games. The Kings can’t afford to give the Pelicans easy buckets in the paint, and on the other hand, they’ll need to do a better job of getting their own paint buckets. New Orleans has good size and great perimeter defenders so this won’t necessarily be easy.
Home Court
The Kings at least have homecourt advantage tonight, which they’ve done a good job of protecting so far this season. The Kings are 6-2 at home with the Pelicans only being 3-6 on the road. This will however be the healthiest the Pelicans have been all season. C.J. McCollum is returning to action tonight after dealing with a collapsed lung, and the Pelicans also welcomed back sharpshooting wing Trey Murphy III in their most recent game. The Pelicans at full strength are one of the deepest teams in the league, but hopefully Sacramento’s home crowd and energy can propel the Kings to a good start and better finish.
Star Fox
The Pelicans did a pretty good job of containing De’Aaron Fox in their two previous games. The first game may have been Fox’s worst of the season as he scored just 14 points on 5-18 from the field (including an abysmal 2-12 from three). The next game was better at 26 points on 9-17 shooting but far from Fox’s best. The Pelicans have ample big, athletic bodies to throw at Fox, namely Herb Jones and Dyson Daniels, so the Kings will need to do a better job at freeing up their star so he can get to work and do what he does best. If Fox can have a superstar game, the Kings have a great chance.
Prediction
The Kings continue their undefeated streak in the In-Season Tournament thanks to a career-high 51 points from De’Aaron Fox to knock out the Pelicans and advance to take on the Lakers on Thursday in Vegas.
Kings 124, Pelicans 111
Fan Predictions
Link to Leaderboard (Updated 12/3/23)
So, since this is part of the In-Season week, does tonight’s game count towards the regular season or not? I kept seeing some on social media saying that only the final In-Season game doesn’t.
It DOES count as a regular season game. If we win, the next one would as well. You are correct that the only game that doesn’t count is the championship game.
Just squint your eyes Klam and the in-season marketing tournament fades back into a regular season game. 🙂
Keegan Murray breakout game. Here it is.
I hate to be Debbie Downer but I think the Kings are going to lose tonight. The Pelicans may be the worst matchup for the Kings of any team in the NBA because of their size and length on the wings. They’ve got multiple high level defenders to throw at Fox and Monk and that makes it really tough. Valanciunas is also a tough matchup for Sabonis because of his size. The Pelicans have Trey Murphy and McCollum back so I think this is going to be a really tough game. I hope to be proven wrong!
In New Orleans we lost in a rout,
While McCollum and Murphy were out.
Let’s use some home cooking
To ensure Vegas booking
‘Cause the tourney’s what this one’s about!
+1 De-Brief the Pelicans!
Fell the Pels!
And Go Kings baby! (but not King Baby)
Wow 2 past Nostra champs neck-in-neck, but also top 10 within 4 points.
The expression is “neck-and-neck”.
I am not sure what neck-in-neck is … that sounds painful! ;P
Lol thanks TheBaker for the typo correction. and thanks Akis for neck-spraining hard work to maintain the Prediction Contest.
How will the Kings slow down Zion? Will they just double and triple him on offense? Attack him on defense and make him expend extra energy?
Can Keegan limit Ingram this game?
Will we get timid Domas vs. Jonas this game?
We will see in a few hours!
So does the rest of the league just take a pause while the IST is going on. No NBA games yesterday and just the quarterfinal teams for the next two days. Those who didn’t make it get 3 days off? It also looks like whoever loses tonight gets the next 5 days off??!!
Looks like the rest of the league resumes Wednesday. And no games Saturday probably because of the IST final. Extra rest as a reward for not advancing…
Actually, whoever loses tonight doesn’t play until next Monday!
Also, if the Kings advance, they will play either the Suns or Lakers, which would mean they would face them 5 times. I wonder if that plays into possible tie breakers should they occur for the playoffs.
My understanding is that tonight’s losers will play tomorrow night’s losers on Friday.
Badge Legend