Two weeks ago, the Kings were 6-10, a win against the Knicks salvaging what had been a rough stretch of play. Sacramento had the 13th-best offense in the league but the NBA’s worst defense. In fact, their defense was a full four points worse than the 29th-ranked defense; that gap was equal to the difference between the 20th and 29th-ranked defenses.

The Kings were supposed to head out on a six-game road trip immediately after that New York contest, tough sledding for a team that was already reeling. Instead, they got a reprieve. The Grizzlies had been hit by Covid, and the NBA shut them down for 10 days to avoid transmission across the league. Thus, the two games Sacramento had scheduled in Memphis were postponed, giving them four days off, a rarity in this compressed league year.

Since that time, the Kings seem like a new team. And as De’Aaron Fox told Zach Lowe on the “The Lowe Post” podcast, the rest was key to the group’s reversal:

The Kings are 6-2 since that break. Their offense is 8th in the NBA over that stretch; more impressively, their defense is 14th. They’ve allowed 6.5 fewer points per 100 possessions over the past two weeks, and Fox credits much of that change to the practices they had during the postponed games. They needed some time after a shortened training camp and preseason to figure out their rotations and assignments, and that break was the prefect opportunity.

Fox gave this interview after the win over the Clippers, and that trend continued Tuesday, because stops weren’t the problem in Sacramento’s loss to Philadelphia. Still, the effort in defeat suggested that the Kings have turned a corner, one that can be traced back to a fortuitous break in the schedule.