The Kings gave us hope but fell short in the end. A very frustrating game and a frustrating loss. Vent away in the comments, full recap to follow later.
Post Game Thread: Raptors 131, Kings 128
The Kings forced OT but fell short.
By Greg Wissinger | 77 Comments | Nov 2, 2024
Nov 2, 2024; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Raptors forward Chris Boucher (25) goes up to make a basket as Sacramento Kings guard Keon Ellis (23) defends during the first half at Scotiabank Arena. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images
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Malik was asked about the 3pt% of the Raptors. “We weren’t prepared enough.”
Monk and Shooting. Yes Monk and BB Iq. Not sure.
I don’t think the team is ever prepared enough defensively. They look out of sorts for most games.
The Kings can’t shoot the 3 and can’t defend the 3. If this continues to happen then forget the playoffs. How hard is it for the coaches to prepare the Kings to play defense against the 3. The players of this team are professionals and have played the game for many years. To not being able to defend the 3 is ridiculous.Also the Kings other than Sabonis and Murray are not a good rebounding team. The other teams get too many offensive rebounds. IMO the old saying still goes.”Offense wins games. Defense wins championships”. Look at other sports. Take football for instance. Super ball champions always are good defensive teams. Enough said.
As Abraham Lincoln said: “No rebounds, no rings!”
Translation: “Get rid of this myopic Kings management and get some players that can play some defense!”
I interpreted it as the coaching staff didn’t do a good job on the game plan.
If it was “get some players that can play some defense”, Malik would be one of the first to go. The game plan has been a problem for 2+ years now. Open 3 after open 3, northern who is on the court.
Hear what you are saying, Just not sure the coaches are aware of how exactly it is that their players stop executing defensively. I’m really not sure what they can do to help. They lack talent they can sub in to stop these defensive lapses.
We saw the Kings play good defense at times (down the stretch to tie it up in the 4th), but then shift into a team-wide psychic “split” when it comes to team defensive personality. Someone needs to be summoned off the bench as a stop-gap lock-in defender. Keon Ellis does this well, but no one else consistently.
This tendency has been happening for a while, so this culture must be born of long-standing Kings players (including former teammate Harrison Barnes) who are the ring leaders of these periodic shifts of mental lapses/laziness/tiredness.
With a shallow roster, and a lack of quality defenders (including former teammate Davion Mitchell), the Kings can’t afford to get into this turn on/turn off defensive mentality.
Until they have capable talent, and the physical and psychic ability to olay 48 minutes of defense, they will continue to lose when they allow other teams to freely shoot 3’s, (especially when not making 3’s themselves).
Monk isn’t the only problem. The starters allowed too many threes before Monk even came in. I personally don’t understand the reason why Brown started McDermott. He is really terrible at playing defense. Once the Raptors started shooting threes their confidence carried them throughout the entire game. This happens almost always with every team even those who aren’t supposed to shoot threes IMO other coaches thrive on this. When you play the Sacramento Kings shoot the 3’s. Look at last nights 3 stats. This is a trend. It happened last year and continues this year. I’ll say it one more time, Fix it or forget the playoffs.
“One of the first” is what I said.
Let me put it in perspective. There 3 best players were all
out. Quickly, Bruce Brown and
Scottie Barnes.
Dick was huge tonight.
The back of his jersey is just a straight line 1 with Dick above it haha
My question. Murray on Barrett. What about the other 4 out their.
I still go back to
OG or Demar. What makes more sense. Show some balls. Or Pu….y out.
Eh, I’m not sure it was ever a choice between the two. Yes OG was available last year, but that doesn’t mean Monte didn’t make an effort to get him. Knicks gave up more than the Kings had to offer.
You give up whatever you have to. That includes Keegan. Keegan will never be the impact player OG is.
just not happening.
Agree. In fact, I’d rather have Brunson and OG than Keegs and Fox. Though I like Keegs—-
Just another example of Kings not being able to address the gapping holes in their lineup. To put the correct players around what they’ve bet on as their core—Fox and Domas. Which is a questionable bet if your hope is title contention.
Spinning their wheels.
OG was not as good as Keegan in his first 2 seasons . Plus he misses 30 games per year . Pass
I disagree.
I’d argue Keegan is already the level of impact player that OG is, and when you factor in age and injury history I absolutely would give up Keegan for OG.
This makes zero sense.
I believe Greg left out the word “not” in the last clause. Put that in, and it makes perfect sense.
IMO Derosan isn’t the problem. He was the only one who basically kept us in the game and in overtime. I’m not sure if Fox is a closer this year so far. Too many turnovers and when the rubber meets the road missed 2 free throws down the stretch that would have won the game before overtime. That of course wasn’t the main reason but IMO already 34 million a year and wants more. But that’s another comment for later. I guess I’m just frustrated with the whole mess and in my crystal ball see a lot of things that need corrected. I still love the Kings.
I don’t want to see McDermott start a game or start of 2nd half again. Keon had success in starting lineup when Huerter missed time last year. Just do it? Doug killed Kings defensively. He got blown by and then kick outs for 3s on every drive. Kings can’t wait for Carter to come back. They need to upgrade this roster. Defensively. Please.
Mcbuckets starting makes zero sense. Why the F wouldn’t Ellis be back in lineup of it was so successful? It’s weird.
Brown wanted to try something different? Prob his excuse is he didn’t want to mess w bench?
As I stated at start of year— something seems off and wrong with this team. Counterintuitive player acquisition or lack thereof. GM preaching O. Coach preaching D (or so he claims). Then not playing his best defender enough.
Plus Foc already has his seasonal lingering injury.
I don’t love it. Feels like they are stuck unless they make a move.
Coach is all talk about defense, you nailed the proof. Dude is a clown with lineups and challenges.
I don’t know if Carter is the answer but you can’t know what his impact will do. My hope because of his pedigree that he will definitely help. Will have to wait and see.
Where have you been watching Carter play NBA basketball?
Fox apparently playing through a ligament issue in his pinky finger on his shooting hand.
Shooting 11 threes in one game is a very inadvisable thing to do then. He’s now shooting 26% on threes this season. Maybe time for him to give up on the long ball until his finger heals.
He got in the paint area well and scored efficiently in this game. He just decided he wanted to have his own 3pt shooting contest as well. 3s are sexy, I get it. But making the ball go through the hoop is even sexier, no matter how its done.
If that’s the case. He needs to sit. If he’s hurting the team. Teams are just going to intentionally go after his hand.
I’m not mad I’m just disappointed. Beat Miami and defend homecourt against TOR and LAC.
Doubt they best Miami. Miami will slow the game down. Heat will grind the Kings down. I willl be at the game. Oh. The Heat also play some of the best half court D in the league.
I said it all along that Fox saved us from ourselves if we offered him a regular extension max
IMO if any player is just playing for the money then that player should not be on the team. Take Fox for example. Makes millions and wants more. If that’s the reason he plays basketball then that’s the wrong reason.
Strongly disagree.
This is an entertainment business, with emphasis on business. Teams trade or cut or buy out players all the time, with the explanation that they do what they think is best for the team and that it is a business. And they are correct. But then we cannot demand a different approach from players (giving up millions for our sense of loyalty) without being a hypocrite.
I agree with you but I am not a hypocrite. I asked my wife what I wrote and what you replied. She said you have 2 grandboys one going to U Penn and the other at Duke.Both are really good athletes, She asked me what do you think they would say given these 3 questions. You are a pro basketball player. Do you play for the money or to win or for the love of the game. I said first they would play for the love of the game. Second to win and third for the money. She asked me since I played and coached the game what would I do? I said the same. And that’s why I am not a hypocrite.
I asked my wife and she told me not to argue with you any further on this.
How is McDermott starting the game, MB is unbelievable it’s like the opposite of what makes sense. McD was a trash signing to begin with, should be on end of bench. Come on man MB is starting to kill me
That signing is a typical Fringe Kings signing. Just to do something.
It seems a coach in the NBa has figured out to utilize Buddy Hield.
All of a sudden. Catch and Shoot Buddy is leading the Dubs. AUFKM
When you really think about it.
The 3 wins were not what I call quality wins.
Against 2 really bad lottery teams or an exciting team in Toronto missing a majority of their starters.
Jazz are the worst team and the league. Markannan played 17 min
Blazers without 2 key starters.
Raptors were without 3 starters.
3-3 looks ok on paper. In reality, this team doesn’t impress at all.
The mindset is to just go out and score a bunch a points. Really no defensive identity at all. Will get destroyed by just about any decent 3pt shooting team. This will be the theme the entire season Watch
If that’s the case we are really hurting
Road SEGABABA in another country is nefarious work by whoever came up with this schedule.
The negative Nancy’s are out. And that is fine; fan how you fan.
Win at Miami and that is a 3-1 road trip with 2 SEGABABAs. Take that any day. Let’s go!
It was a missed opportunity against a weaker team that was missing 3 of their best players. Those are the games that the Kings have to win because the West is a dog fight, and the margin for error is thin.
Glad they fought back and made a game of it. Last season this might have been a 10+ point loss. So that’s something positive to take away from this loss.
A loss is a loss anyway you look at it. Lose these types of games and it will bite you at the end of the season.
I criticize when it’s obvious, if we were 4-2 I’d be cool with that but we’re losing winnable games we need and that’s a bad sign. We’ll see though it’s early.
MB starting a vet min player the team picked up just before the last preseason game over Keon is next level stupid. This coach boggles the mind with his lineup decisions.
I wanted the Kings to lose horribly as a statement to the NBA …. Sad they didn’t
The Kings forced overtime on a segababa while Fox is visible hurt. There were some lackluster decisions, but this is the kind of game last year’s Kings would have been blown out of. We are playing close in losses and figuring to the end and wins are looking pretty solid overall. I’m much happier with this year’s team so far as this is probably the worst game we’ve played.
Sorry, but this comment isn’t prime scottymus.
You can’t mention the SEGABABA and Fox injury while failing to mention that the Raptors were also on a SEGABABA and missing 3 key players due to injury.
Good teams lose to bad team sometimnes. That in itself is not an issue. But this was a Kings tendency last year (losing to bad teams, not necessarilly being blown out), and just because we won against two bad teams, doesn’t make these problems go away.
We are looking putrid on defense, the depleted Raptors hung 120 on us in regulation, and Brown goes with McDermott as his starter?
I’m not (yet) sure that this is a much different team than last year’s team. Still early.
Last season Sacramento was a Play-In team and not a Playoff team because the embarrassing losses to Charlotte, Detroit, Washington, Portland and I’ll thrown in the losses at Phoenix and at Boston along with the inability to step up when they needed to in those late season challenge games against Dallas (twice), New Orleans (teice) and Phoenix.
This game is in that end of the season head shake column – the kind that you look back at and hang your head as you look at the standings.
Kings 3-3
1-1 Home 2-2 Away
Wins against ATL, PDX, UTA all <.500 teams
Losses against MIN, LAL, TOR 2 <.500 team, the other 1-5 (now 2-5)
Raptors move from 27th in 3FG% to 20th and SAC drops from 16th to 27th.from this one game.
We’ll have a better grasp of this team after 20 games.
The Portland and Utah wins are what good teams do to bad teams. Beat them by double digits and move on.
The Atlanta win was the one that presented many issues thus far. Poor defense, a game the Kings easily could have lost. They escaped Atlanta with a win, which is fine, but the ugly trends continued to rear their heads.
If the defense doesn’t get figured out, this might be a .500 team this season. It’s that bad right now.
The trend from pre-season leaving 3pt shooters wide open has continued through the first 6 games. That mean’s it’s more than a trend, and I fear it’s systematic. I’m noticing a significant sag to the paint by perimeter players. My only conclusion is they are being instructed to do so to help with paint penetration.
Could the game plan really be to deny points in the paint and hope your opponent has an off night from deep?
In the last 3 seasons the Kings went from giving up 52 points in the paint, to 48 last season, and now sit at 45 this season. Now compare that to 3pt makes by their opponent. This year they are giving up 14.7 3pt makes, compared to 13.1 last season, and 12.5 they year prior.
It clearly seems to be team strategy that’s developed over the past 3 season.
Damn, you may be right.
I would never consider it because it’s so counterintuitive (I didn’t want to say moronic).
When a player cannot defend an opponent they step back to create more space AKA time for them to react.
I’m with you.
It was interesting to hear journalists after the Hawks game starting a narrative around this team being better at beating mediocre teams because of the DeRozan signing. When I watched the Hawks game, I frankly saw more of what we saw last year, but with a win.
Wasn’t really surprising to see how the Kings played the Raptors, hoping to just win on talent alone. This team isn’t good enough for that, especially when the opposing team just fights like all hell.
Defense was piss-poor again, and we saw a lot of iso ball in the fourth quarter and OT, which resulted in some bad shots and a couple of turnovers. Was it all bad? No. Murray was good, Sabonis kept fighting, and I believe Ellis showed why he should be playing more. The rest, eh. Also thought Len could’ve helped the team a bit.
Anyway, on to the next one.
How can you win with an offense that shoots 26% from 3 and alow your opponent to shoot over 40%. Just doesn’t calculate.
Those two stats are exactly the reason for at best a mediocre team to date . Have about 5-10 games to change those numbers .
ISO ball is also hurting. Kings had a combined 3 assists in the 4th and OT to the Raps 6 assists.
Kings are now 18th in the league is assists per game. They were 7th last season and 3rd the year before. I really do worry a bit about having Fox, DeRozan, and Monk in the game in crunch time with their tendencies to go ISO.
More ISO and 2pt shots, along with allowing opponents to shoot more 3s and garner more assists seem like the wrong direction that the league is trending toward.
Not sure if this is an organizational movement as a whole, an analytical approach (doesnt seem like it), the Coach doing what he wants, players doing what they want…
No matter, it isn’t working, and they are going backwards.
I agree.
Still waiting on that Keegan leap, he has been overhyped all along for me. I don’t see the All-Star potential and not sure how much of a defensive stopper or rebounder he is. We need next level Keeg if this year is going to be good for Kings.
Keegan had 10 rebounds in each of the last two games and is averaging 8 per game so far for the season, up from 5.6 per game last year. He’s showing that he can be a good to very good rebounder.
It’s rebounding title or bust!!! Get with the program.
Chris Boucher is another of those guys who circle Kings games on their schedule every year. Per basketball-reference, his career ORtg of 124 soars to 140 when he faces the Kings!
Its funny, I can talk to fans of other teams about the Kings and not have my enjoyment squashed in the least. I come here and read for 5 minutes and it feels like we’re lottery bound. Its almost as bad as Kings FB fan pages.
We’re six game in on an 82 game season and we’re sitting at .500 with a long ways to go. I’d urge you to calm tf down. I’d urge you to try and enjoy basketball while the season is young. Its far too early to be waxing philly on MB’s roster decisions, defensive schemes, etc. Nothing gets “figured out” in the first month of basketball much less the first 2 weeks. No season-defining trend can be established in 6 games that is going to make you look like some kind of genius for harping on since the first week of the season.
Plenty to be excited about, plenty to figure out yet. The season is young, let’s go Kings!
It’s not just the 6 games this season that I am looking at. It’s the totality of Brown’s tenure as coach when it comes to 3pt defense. Been the same since the 1st season, really bad.
These 6 games have just solidified that the defense will be more of the same. Some may call it a negative viewpoint, others call it a reality.
Has he had any guards other than Keon or Davion that will play defense?
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