Kings lose. Full recap to follow. For now, react away.
Postgame Thread: Celtics 113, Kings 95
The Celtics rolled the Kings even as Tatum left early.
By Greg Wissinger | 70 Comments | Mar 24, 2025
NBA: Boston Celtics at Sacramento Kings
Mar 24, 2025; Sacramento, California, USA; Boston Celtics forward Kristaps Porzingis (8) shoots over Sacramento Kings forward Keegan Murray (13) in the first quarter at the Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
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Suns & Mavs won.
Suns and Mavs are now a half game behind the Kings. It’s a fight for the 10th spot..lol.
Give me that lotto pick baby!!! I never imagined the Huerter trade would become the Hickson trade but we’ve almost made it!
A few weeks ago, I thought the Mavs were in free-fall and the Suns were a mess, so I assumed there was very little chance they would pass the Kings and we would end up losing our pick for one or two play-in games that we were unlikely to win both to make the 8th seed.
Now I’m actually feeling there’s a good chance both of them may pass us and we will actually keep our pick. Mavs got Davis back, Suns have been playing better, and we’ve come crashing down.
And right now, I don’t want to lose our pick in what is supposed to be a good draft just to play one or two play-in games only to get bounced. Hoping our tough remaining schedule will help us with that.
Yeah it certainly looked unlikely but we’re almost there.
Same here. Thought we were a lock for 9th. Maybe Portland can pass us too, give us some poor lottery luck protection.
Mavs are half a game behind us, and Suns are a game behind. I mentioned this at the end of the game thread, but I’m reeeeeeeeeeally hoping they pass us because at this point, I just want to keep the pick.
They’re both now 35-37 while we’re 35-36 so they’re both a half game back. I don’t recall if we own any tie breakers but we’re hopefully in good place to keep our pick.
We have the tiebreaker against the Mavs since we swept them. Suns are still TBD, but right now we are 2-1 against them, with the last game of the season left to determine what our head-to-head record will be. Our very tough schedule remaining definitely helps.
The Suns actually have a much tougher schedule remaining than we do, but I think that was also true closing out last season.
Man, it would be a stinker if the Kings finish with the same record as the Mavs and stumble into the 10th spot due to the tie breaker. Totally self defeating.
Sabonis casually stepping into JTs landing zone. Not really a basketball play. Rewound it 5x. Sabonis is a great regular season player. It’s really a shame he has to resort to that. Whether it was frustration or trying to send a message. I am not on board with it. In the end all it did was pizz the Celtics off.
That was not a dirty play, gtfo
GTFO with your anti Sabonis attacks . It was called a flagrant 1 , which happens almost every game by even your Trailblazers. Officials would have kicked him out if deemed intentional .
What color is the sky on your planet?
That’s bush league. Everyone knows he didn’t intentionally try to hurt JT.
I am officially out on Doug returning as coach. He is way too soft on allowing demar to do whatever he wants, can’t make the correct rotation calls and doesn’t know what an offense is.
Coach Christie:
22-18
For Christie to finish >.500:
4-7
For Kings to finish > .500:
7-4
The question is- what is the bare minimum that will allow Vivek/Matina to keep Doug Christie as Head Coach?
What reasoning will Monte McNair use – IF he even has a season ending presser?
11 games to go and it’s easy to expect the worst especially with OKC tomorrow. But, hey, maybe this will end better than a complete disappointment.
If a new coach is hired, which is doubtful, will Vivek/Matina make them hire Doug Christie on their staff like they made Mike Brown?
I’m not looking so much at his record but at how he coaches and whether he tries to put players in the position to succeed.
Doing things to make the sum bigger than the individual parts.
And even though he didn’t have the time and stability to already create an identity, I don’t see anything that even points in that direction.
After they had a hot streak where he just let them play and they played freely after the Brown firing, I’ve seen very little to make me believe that he has the makings of a good coach.
No way V and Matina do anything but keep Christie. He’s been their guy for years. He could lose em all and he’s their guy.
This is how Vivek and Matina roll
Let’s not overlook that he’ll likely be the cheapest coach in the league.
The record doesn’t matter. The proof is in the games.
The Raiders brought back Antonio Pierce as HC because he finished slightly above .500 as interim HC, when it was so obvious that he wasn’t a good HC. He was fired a year later.
But he’s from the veinglory years, and such a nice guy. A builder of bridges.
I love Vivek for hiring legacy guys with barely relevant experience.
Coach DC is here to stay. Probably a long while. Vivek/Matina want all ex kings.
Oh yes. As long as he is a good company man, Doug is here.
They’ll fire Doug and hire the latest college mastermind to connect with young players, then fill the roster with more cast-off veterans.
I like how LaVine pretends to look around to pass before jacking up a step back three. It’s a nice touch!
The Bulls seem to be doing just fine without him. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence. MM and Vivek have hard ons for losing, overpaid players
I like how he drives it deep into the paint, then bounces “a pass” right at our center’s feet.
Right after the trade, there were a lot of commentators on here that thought the Kings got a better player in Levine then they traded away. Fox had a lot of flaws, but I never had to worry about him not shooting the ball.
I was at tonight’s game and it felt like Levine was just out there doing cardio. He doesn’t make any winning place or do any of the little things that it takes to win.
I would have much rather have kept Fox until the off-season or traded him for some young players. What a waste of a trade.
Gotta get in his 10,000 steps
But Doug is the right head coach for this team, and Fultz provides quality veteran bench minutes.
Hmm… I wonder if the team might perform better if Doug and Fultz exchanged roles. Probably couldn’t be much worse.
the on court performance would be better if fultz and demar switched spots, I believe that 100%
It’s the case with every move this FO makes. The fans try to buy in to the trade or draft pick and scold those who see through the moves and eventually those very fans come to reliaze the moves were bad.
It’s Kangz fans in a nutshell. I still remember friends trying to sell me on that offseason Vlade signed Rondo, KK and Bellineli lol.
I’d love to see him w/out Demar making sure he gets his 25 shots after stopping the ball all possession
On the plus side, at least the “you all need to be more positive!!!!” Posts have stopped. I apologize for being unable to fan in a way that requires a truck load of cognitive dissonance. I just don’t have it in me.
It’s funny how those people suddenly disappeared when reality set in.
We’ve been threw this more times than I can count so I always knew they would. One time maybe they’ll even be right. Hasn’t happened yet but I hope it does someday.
Rinse wash and repeat.
When MM inevitably drafts another under sized guard with the first round pick, we’ll be forced by Kangz fans to buy into it and stop complaining.
Mark Sears looks like a Monte player.
i had commented earlier that, at the time, the kings were 20-10 after firing Mike Brown and that maybe the sky wasn’t falling as badly as people were making it out. the overall talent level seemed to be higher, we had better distribution of size and bench depth.
at this point, the team seems to have given up again. i’m 100% on board with tanking to keep the draft pick (and tanking again next year to keep it again). If Sabonis wants out, then i’d probably go ahead and blow things up for a true rebuild.
If Sabonis wants to stay, seems like he, Keon, Carter, Keegan are at least a mostly young core that is worth building around. Maybe even Lyles,LaRavia and Valuncianas for additional depth. There obviously need to be a few more pieces added but it doesn’t seem as bleak as previous rosters we’ve rolled out.
This Celtics team is a green machine. All tough, switchable defenders, all willing passers, and (almost) everyone of them a threat from 3 and with the ability to put the ball on the floor and penetrate.
Might be their last run this year. The financials don’t add up. Jrue and KP are likely traded this offseason. But they have their two core guys to consistently build around while we have our two career loser guys to build around. We’re Celtics East.
Nice. LOL
The closest thing the Kings have to the type of players the Celtics have is Keegan Murray. I still get a chuckle of the idea that Keegan can’t play the 4 spot, they I see Tatum (who is smaller than Keegan) playing the 4 spot on a championship team.
Not a coincidence that both the Celtics and Thunder are two teams of all around offensive players, which makes it harder for the defense to gameplan. There isn’t a player who can’t dribble, pass, and shoot who you can just chase off the corner three.
Presti specifically started targeting that after Andre Roberson was a complete offensive liability (believe he made public comments in this regard, not attacking AR, but talking about wanting all around players).
And all highly switchable defenders and their defenses are strong even with KP and Chet are off the floor due to it, though having a great rim protector / shot blocker helps.
Meanwhile, we seem to keep brining in a lot of one dimensional players and defensive liabilities who even if they defend their position well, aren’t especially switchable. You can certainly hide 1-2 on the roster, but you can’t have a roster nearly full of them.
Great observation.
It’s weird because they Drafted Keegan, signed Ellis after the draft, then traded for LaRavia, all switchable defenders and mostly all around offensive players (aside from some self-creation). But then they bring in DeMar and LaVine who are the opposite of all-around players, and play little defense.
Is the front office taking turns on who gets to make the personnel decisions? Flip a coin and see who is leading the Front Office this week? The moves don’t seem to have a cohesive direction or style of player.
Agree. Was something I loved about drafting Keegan. He needed to improve his passing a bit, but he could drive, shoot, and was a very smart player and highly switchable defender.
And then we have just sort of gone away from that. DDR certainly was when he was younger. But Monk and LaVine certainly are not defensively. Hard to give major minutes to both of them.
Meanwhile, Ellis, Fultz, Val, and LaRavia have some pretty decent offensive holes with Ellis being the most complete.
But even in Ellis’ case, while he is an absolute home run for an undrafted player, he is not as dynamic offensively as guys the Thunder have targeted like Wallace, both Williams, Chet, Caruso, etc. Even guys who haven’t worked out yet like Dieng is theoretically dynamic offensively, while having switchable defensive tools.
Meanwhile, we keep trying to mix and match a lot of players with different major holes in their game.
Turned this game off after the 3rd quarter. I figured the outcome would be a double digit Kings loss.
But hey, at least DeMar got his points!!!
(9-24). LaVine got 14 points somehow
(6-16). Just some really ugly basketball at times.
I thought this team would have been after the trades, but it’s been ugly more than pretty on the court.
Injuries? Every team has them, so that is a poor reason.
Integrating new players? Warriors are doing that well. Lakers seem to be fine with it. Bucks added a couple guys and they are doing well.
Just failure all around.
Lavine is such a bum. Started blaming locker room issues after the game which Keon refuted. I am beyond pissed we are stuck with this freaking albatross of a contract. Garbage.
What? I totally missed that. LaVine said there are locker room issues?!
Zach LaVine’s Brutally Honest Statement After Kings vs Celtics
Keon’s reply cracked me up.
He said the “vibes in the locker aren’t good, and they shouldn’t be based how we are playing”. I took that more like the team isn’t happy with the outcomes, not that players are unhappy with each other.
After the Bucks game, Keon and Keegan mentioned that after halftime they just stop running what was working, and they didn’t say who or why. I think there might be some animosity between some of the players and the ISO heavy DDR and LaVine possessions each game.
Yeah, on a call and can’t listen to everything, but from the transcription, unless there is something else, this doesn’t sound bad to me:
“The vibe is not good. It shouldn’t be. We’re not happy with the way that we’ve been performing, individually and as a group.”
– Zach LaVine
This is not a “people don’t like each other and I don’t want to be here” and more of a “we are not happy with how we are playing and want to be better.”
I’ll give LaVine the benefit of the doubt. While I have many critiques about his playing style and contract, he’s generally been a guy with a good attitude who showed up and was a professional for some very bad Bulls teams.
It seems now that the Bulls actually won the trade . Additions, Huerter/Jones and Subtraction Lavine . Spurs will be stuck overpaying Fox when their rookie is already as good .
Im def curious to see how Fox does next year with the finger fixed and Wemby back.
I think he’ll do well with
Duncan and Robinson, I mean Wemby and Flagg.Bulls got their draft pick back and got rid of their worst contract. This trade should work out really well for the Spurs and Bulls.
We just need to pray the Spurs fall apart next season or the Wolves to crater by 2031 to get in the win column.
I’ve got some optimism that the Twolves will crater by then. Is Ant still on that team in 2031? I sort of doubt it.
I honestly have no idea. Gobert and Randle will be gone, so depends on how they replenish.
A lot will ride on some of their young guys like Dillingham and Clark and how they grow alongside Ant, Reid, and Jaden. And of course any other trades or picks they make.
But that could turn out to be a great asset.
They just changed ownership groups as well so who knows what that portends for the future.
Levine has always been this kind of guy. If anyone is bored google Zach Lavine locker room and take in all the bs we now get to deal with.
He is an over paid super one dimensional player that is allergic to accountability…..hence why no one else but the Kangz would pay him all nba money for that level of production with associated negatives.
Are you interested in a front office job? Not even kidding. You seem to have done more research on this guy than ours did.
Thought we hung around pretty well for as bad as we shot. Keegan had a good game. LaVine needs to look for his shot more or needs to sit more.
Keep the streak going
I watched LaVine take the DHOs at the 3pt line, only to take a couple dribbles inside the 3pt line, which takes away any chance of shooting a 3 from that action. He did that almost every time in the Celtics game. It’s not rocket science, LaVine. That’s why he isn’t getting ten 3s each game. He runs away from the 3pt line and opts for a more difficult fadeaway mid-range turnaround.
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