Breaking news: The Sacramento Kings did not go undefeated for the rest of the season. Instead, the winning streak ends with a whimper in the cold, cold winter of the Pacific Northwest. More unfortunately, the Kings fell to the Portland Trailblazers, a direct rival for the 8th playoff spot in the West and who were playing without their best player in Damian Lillard. The Kings lost a game on their competition while also losing the tiebreaker for the season should the teams be tied in April.

The story of the game was the ice cold shooting from the Kings for majority of the night. The Kings ended up shooting 39.2% from the field and 32.1% from three, for a brutal 49.9% teamwise true shooting percentage. The Blazers packed the paint against DeMarcus Cousins (28 points on 8/19 FG, 3/6 3P, 9/10 FT) and nobody else on the Kings could make a three to punish the strategy. Non-Cousins Kings shot 6/25 from three. Not ideal!

In a familiar theme this season, the Kings fell behind to the Blazers early. The defense, with a bumbling Ben McLemore, the ageing Matt Barnes, and the lumbering Kosta Koufos alongside Cousins and Darren Collison, got eviscerated and could not keep up the pace scoring the ball in the other direction. The Blazers’ lead reached a high of 20 points and the Kings looked fairly dead in the water.

Dave Joerger made a wholesale lineup change at halftime, with Garrett Temple, Ty Lawson, and Anthony Tolliver joining Cousins and Barnes at the beginning of the third quarter. This seemed to calm the rotation down a bit; the Kings’ defense finally showed some grit at the outset of the half and continued as Joerger made his substitutions. The Kings held the Blazers to only an 89.7 offensive rating in the second half after letting the Blazers explode for a 125.4 offensive rating in the first half. The Kings chipped away at the Blazers lead, cutting it down to eight in the fourth quarter.

Unfortunately, the offense never did get going. Temple (14 points on 6/13 FG, 2/6 3P) was as good as you could reasonable expect him to be, but Lawson (8 points on 2/8 FG, 1/4 3P, and only 1 assist) and Tolliver (3 points on 1/6 FG, 1/4 3P) were not as sharp as they had been on the winning streak. The guys they replaced in the rotation, McLemore (5 points on 2/9 FG, 0/2 3P) and Collison (2/7 FG, 0/1 3P) never came alive either. The Blazers kept the Kings within a 9 and 11 point deficit until the end of the game.

The Kings now stand at 14-18 on the season and are tied with the Denver Nuggets for the 8th seed. The Blazers are hot on their heels at 14/20 and seem to be righting the ship. The Kings next play against Memphis on Saturday.

Some observations:

For the opponent’s perspective, visit Blazer’s Edge.