That was a bit more palatable. While the Kings dropped their third straight preseason game, it wasn’t without its moments. Sacramento played without seven players that figure to be a part of the regular season rotation and managed to hang with a Portland team that was playing its main guys for a majority of the time.

Justin Jackson finally managed to get a rhythm going from the field, leading the Kings in scoring with 16 points on 50% shooting, including 3 of 6 from three. Frank Mason III and Skal Labissiere added 13 points each to finish as the only other Kings in double digits. Jusuf Nurkic led the Trail Blazers with 14 points.

Since the results don’t matter, here are just some of my takeaways from the game:

The Kings have a couple days off now before they head to Los Angeles to take on the Clippers on Thursday. Given that there are only two preseason games left, I expect this game to feature a more realistic looking regular season rotation.