Kings lose. Full recap to follow. React away.
Postgame Thread: Bucks 114, Kings 108
No beams tonight.
By Greg Wissinger | 40 Comments | Mar 22, 2025
Mar 22, 2025; Sacramento, California, USA; Milwaukee Bucks guard Kevin Porter Jr. (3) shoots against Sacramento Kings forward Jake LaRavia (33) during the first quarter at Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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We’re only a game and a half up on the Suns and Mavs now. Mavs are getting a bunch of guys back this week and the Suns have been playing better of late. Only 3.5 up on Portland who we play next week. Next two are a back to back against the Thunder and Celtics.
In other words, we’ve got a shot at keeping the pick. Fingers crossed.
Boston and OKC next, with no Sabonis. It’s not an exaggeration to say are about ready for a 4 game losing streak at a critical time.
PDX is the next probable win, but they have Boston and Cleveland for their next two.
The same rough stretch goes for PHX. They have the Bucks and Boston for their next two.
I’m guessing standings stand pat for the next two games, but the Kings fall below .500. It’s a snails race for the 9th and 10th seeds.
You think PDX is a probable win? They’ve been playing pretty well for two months and have beaten the Kings a couple times already. I’d say that’s 50/50 at best.
And there goes my hope
12th pick is ours for the taking. It just depends on how bad the org wants it.
Org wants it so bad, they don’t want it at all.
They could be playing Carter more to develop, lose and keep the pick. Booster to an off season where they trade Monk and DDR (Levine I wish but no) Get a PG amd wing 3/4- 3 and D. Play around Sabonis.
or even trade Sabonis.
But nope….
The best news all season. Some hope
After this brutal stretch, the sched eases up a bit and that could be enough to keep this mirage going and wasting that pick entirely.
In any way, I’m really looking forward to the offseason. One of Monk and DeRozan should be shipped for someone who fits this team. Heck, trade everyone not named Keon, Keegan or Devin, retool or rebuild can’t care now with this uninspiring assemble.
I’m with you on trading everyone but Keon, Keegan and Carter. I’d trade everybody else for as many picks and expiring contracts as possible.
If things are happening all year I wouldn’t.t be surptised if Sabonis wants out. This could be good or could be bad, IMO I wouldn’t trade La Vavia. He is young and what he does the Kings need. If we can get good value then I say yes.
It’s all I’ve got at this point.
44 minutes of a well played, back and forth affair.
Then the Kings played ISO offense and scored 19 in the 4th.
Was Val injured? Why didn’t he play in the 4th? He was scoring well, and Coach Christie went small ball (Keegan, Jake and Lyles). When Lyles isn’t hitting his stroke, he doesn’t do enough on D to keep him on the floor, especially with JV shooting well and a good stop gap when the DeRozan offense needs an outlet. Also why take Keon out ?
It seemed the Kings had a good chance in this one, and the effort and energy was there but choked for the last 4 minutes. A Lyles brick and LaVine with 2 missed FT was an airway alert.
I thought Keegan played Giannis very well. Keon had a super 1st half, which was a pleasure to see. LaRavia is also a fun player to watch.
Next.
Why stick with what was working for 3 quarters???
ORtg for this game: Zach 87, Trey 101, JV 144, Keon 146
DC played Zach and Trey over JV and Keon through crunch time to close out the game. We went scoreless for the last 4 minutes!
The silent tank rolls on.
Lyles back to being Lyalz again.
Spray Lyles.
The team needs to shut Lavine down for the season. Follow the Wiggins example and let him go focus on dealing with whatever he’s going through.
The season is a wash, let him go tend to it. Life is bigger than basketball. It would be good for him with the added bonus of also being good for the rest of the team.
I agree. He just isn’t Lavine right now. You can see it in his game . It isn’t there right now.
I was at this game. Just my opinion, but Zach Lavine is basically lost outside of his scoring. And his scoring is A) low percentage fadeaway jump shot B) low percentage step back 3 (unless he’s hot), or driving to the lane (which tonight was forced and showed a lack of touch at the rim).
his sense of awareness is so bad, he made silly turnovers and yet Doug had him bringing the ball up late in the game.
don’t see him as someone we can build around, basically see him as a ploy by Vivek to sell tickets because of his name
derozan thinks he’s Kobe, and most of the rest of the team is afraid to take too many shots at the expense of derozan and lavine
This current squad reminds me of those teams built around a 36-37 year-old Carmelo Anthony or Alan Iverson.
It’s incredible how we went from an exciting up-and-coming team (not that we were close to being contenders, but at least we had a roster with an upward trajectory) to a team that feel washed up – in just 9 months. It’s not just disappointing, it’s devastatingly bad. Pile that on top of 12-years of terrible basketball decisions – piled on top of 5-6 years of Bad Maloofs – it’s the infinite shit sandwich of beings a Kings fan.
All we had to do last offseason was upgrade Barnes (Collins, anyone?) and pick up a servicable back-up center. Instead, this. Frachise malpractice on an epic scale.
Lavine is one of the most efficient scorers this season. His shot selection wasn’t great tonight, and he made some bad turnovers, but calling his shots “low percentage shots”, isn’t really an accurate assessment.
Bringing the ball up the court tonight, he was bad. Had a couple turnovers where he literally just lost the ball. The bad pass to an open JV in the paint that hit the rim, etc.
For as well as he shoots, you’d think the Kings would use him like the Dubs used Klay Thompson. Very little dribbling but lots of catch and shooting off screens and cuts.
Where was Murray the whole fourth quarter? Standing in the left corner and only moving a little to the right corner. That was it.
Everyone was on the weak side- both teams as ISO DDR offense was the “go to” the last number of Kings offensive plays.
It is hard to knock Keegan for not being aggressive enough on the one hand, and not have ball movement and run plays for him on the other hand.
With Sabonis out (and JV out) there was no high post offense, which was there the first 3 quarters.
This was on coaching, IMO. (and I like Coach Christie. But he was out-maneuvered by Doc Rivers. And that is disappointing. He’s a rookie HC, and again, it showed last night)
Everybody is tradeable. Not a single player is a building block for a contender.
Keegan is nothing more than a role player disguised as a starter.
Keon is a role player. Would not start on any top team in the league. Real Talk. On no planet is Keon a starting PG in the NBa for any good team.
Devin with his wonky shot. Eh.. If that’s the starting pG. Give me Afernee Simons instead.
Lavine is going nowhere.
He’s such a losing player. Can’t stand watching him on the floor.’
Only Sabonis will yield you anything of value.
The Kings will find a way to screw that up.
Realistically, no blow up is coming.
Kings will probably move Demar for a third off the bench PG and a past his prime role player. Like always.
Well, Keon is not a PG. He’s clearly a 3 and D shooting guard. Unfortunately the Kings have someone earning near $45M currently occupying the off guard spot
I am rooting for Clingan, Camara, Williams, Scoot, Banton Sharpe, and Deni to end the Kings season in the play in.
The Blazers are so damn exciting to watch. Just leave it on the floor every night. Playing with purpose.
For you Blazer fans your rebuild is going well for its 3rd season and in 3 more should have a chance to be as good as they were when they tore it up !
Sorry I get dropping out of play in / off (which one for clarity matters?) get us to keep our pick but does that hamstring us for future trades ?
A little bit but not as much because next year is the last year of pick protections on from the Atlanta trade. If we don’t give Atlanta the pick next year (top-10 protected) it converts to 2 second round picks. We also have a couple additional picks from the Fox trade which gives us more options as well.
This draft is shaping up to be excellent at the top so I’d love to keep the pick to give us the best chance possible at one of the top guys.
Thank you – but do we keep if we go to play in and lose ?
It comes down to their final record. There will likely be 2 teams in the East that will have worse records than the Kings after they exit the play-in. That means there will be the 10 teams that miss the play-in and the two teams that lose in the play-in in the East. That’s 12 right there, which would put the Kings at 13th if they lose in the first round of the play-in.
The simple reality is, if they make the play-in they lose the pick. If they miss the play-in, they keep their pick. This is why I label the play-in goal as fool’s gold. They gain nothing from making it and lose the opportunity to gain a young cost controlled asset. It’s not like they are a young team that could use the experience.
The simplistic view of why the Kings lost was that they just simply weren’t hitting 3s (9-38 for 23.7%). When they are hitting 3s, they seem to win more often. Simple analysis and usually accurate.
True, but the problem is the Kings are 21st in three point%, 24th in 3pt makes per game, and 25th in total 3pt makes on the season. By your 3pt logic that makes them a far below average team. When they are hot, they are basically average.
They are a below average team. And when they make their 3s, they are average. That’s been the case all season.
12 games remaining, including a six-game long East Coast road trip. Other than Washington and Charlotte, I don’t see any other wins. Don’t think we’ll even get to 40 this year.
Pretty sad to peak with the Beam team and then spend two seasons regressing while simultaneously going all in, getting older and shortening our
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