Kings vs. Raptors Preview: Streaking in the Park

Winners of three straight, The Sacramento Kings are in Toronto this evening to take on a Raptors squad that is riddled with injuries, and young inexperience players to boot. Gone are the Van Vleets and Siakams, the Kyle Lowrys and Kawhis, and in their place: youth. Endless, boundless youth. Well, and somehow, Garrett Temple. With Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and Bruce Brown injured, and RJ Barrett just off the injured list, Toronto is playing short manned, inexperienced and somewhat limpy basketball… and if the Jurrassic Park movies taught me anything: it’s that the young, stupid and hurt raptors were always the most dangerous.

Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Saturday, November 2nd, 4:30 PM PST
Where: Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, ON
TV: NBCSCA – Kyle Draper (play-by-play)
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

Day of the Dead (Narratives): Slowly but surely the Kings are finding their footing, and find new ways to pull out wins against teams that would have surely had their number in years past. Last night against the Hawks was a prime example: after controlling most of the game and going up big, they let the Hawks drag their way back into a tied game with less than half of the fourth remaining. In years past, the Kings fold like wet cardboard. In years past Garrison Mathews gets to be a hero for the night and a villain for years to come in the back of our collective brain, stuck with the pantheon of so many other random Kings killers. Instead, the Kings went pretty calmly down the court, rattled of eight straight and the momentum was killed right there in its tracks. The game got closer again, sure, but the win never felt like it was slipping away. Even with Sabonis fouling out, that anxiety tingle down the spine of “oh geez, they’re really gonna lose this thing” never rattled down my spine. Attribute that to DeMar DeRozan’s calming presence, attribute that to the Kings having six incredible weapons at their disposal for instant offense… there’s nothing like gaining back a little confidence from the fans by rattling off three straight against lesser teams.

And now on to tonight: as previously mentioned, the Raptors reboot is casting all youngings today, folks. Sure, they’ve got a Garrett Temple and Kelly Olynyk on the shelves, but we’re looking at a squad that, even when healthy, is trotting out ten guys with five seasons or less on NBA experience. Their most consistent player through six games is Gradey Dick, who went from a horrendous rookie season LAST YEAR to averaging a hair under 21 points per game to start this season. Now, mind you, RJ Barrett has come out fame throwing in his three games back from injury, averaging 28 points, 7.7 assists and shooting nearly 53% from deep on almost six attempts per night… so, that development might change the calculus for Gradey a bit. But still, even RJ is just barely an established vet in my mind. If you’re sweating over former King Davion Mitchell and the season he’s had to start with Immanuel Quickley being injured, he’s doing Davion things I think. 8.8 points, 6.0 assists, .5 steals and .7 blocks per game. Certainly not the defensive player of the year radio hosts were heralding him as before his rookie season in Sacramento, but at six games into your career as a starter, hey, who is.

Overall, this team feels like another, too young and too dumb to know they should lose, and I mean that as a compliment. They attempt fewer threes than anyone in the league are fourth worst in the NBA at hitting them, averaging just 31.5% from deep as a squad. But, their third in the NBA in offensive rebounding, second in the NBA in assists and third in the NBA in blocks, which tells me they’re getting AFTER it on both ends, just can’t quite execute yet. To further back that up is that they’re third in the league in turning the ball over and foul the second most in the NBA, so they’re a little too eager to make plays and haven’t honed in yet on the ol’ discipline aspect of things. The Raptors won’t be a tough out, right up until the point that the Kings decide they are.

The Small Stuff

Baby Dinos: Saw someone point this out on Twitter last night: if you combined all ten of the players the Raptors used against the Los Angeles Lakers last night and combined all of their regular season and playoffs together, LeBron James singularly outpaces them by thirty or so games. This isn’t a surprise compliment to a Laker in a Raptors preview, this is a testament to the youth movement that the Raptors are finally all in on, and to how many injuries the Raptors have had to their vets as the follow-up, more bummer-y way of looking at things.

Vinsane in the Membrane: Man, I know that Vince played for a multitude of teams in the waning years of his career and that his one season in Sacramento wasn’t the type of success he deserved in the twilight of a Hall of Fame run, but I am legitimately so happy the powers that be picked the Kings to be the team to be in the arena for his jersey getting retired. Even being 40 and hobbled and far too good for a franchise like the Kings were at that point, he was a constant bright spot as a view and he’s easily my favorite one-season wonder in regards to Kings players. I hope its emotional, I hope the Toronto crowd goes bezerk and I hope the Kings crush the ever loving piss out of the Raptors before Fox and him get a chance to catch up on camera after the final buzzer sounds. I’m glad Toronto was able to come together to do this, despite a rather rocky split so many years ago. The icon and the city both deserve this.

Prediction

Gradey Dick is the leading scorer for Toronto tonight and way too many jokes are made at his expense on Twitter. Davion Mitchell plays some hard nose defense and makes a nice heads-up offensive play or two, but Fox thoroughly owns the match up throughout the night. Jonathan Mogbo gives Keegan and Domas a headache down in the post but the Kings fight off the scrappy Raptors (scraptors?) in fourth.

Kings: 116 Raptors:101