With the Kings now on a four game slide, they travel to Toronto for their second game in consecutive nights, looking for a win against a Raptors team that is shaping up to be a title contender. With shooting guard DeMar DeRozan going absolutely banana in the scoring column, the Kings will have to find some of that defensive wherewithal that showed itself earlier in the season. If they can’t, and the Kings play like they did on Saturday night in Milwaukee, fans might honestly see a 50 point outburst from DeRozan against the Kings tonight. Lets talk Kings basketball.

When: Sunday, November 6th, 3:00 pm PST

Where: Air Canada Centre, CSN-CA, KHTK Sports 1140

A Few Things to Consider:

DeMar(k) of the Beast: Let’s talk a bit more about DeMar DeRozan and the scoring output he’s had since the beginning of the season. Think about all the great scorers that have graced the NBA since Michael Jordan retired. The Kobe’s and Lebron’s, Tracy McGrady’s and Shaquille O’Neal’s of the league. Now consider, that of those players and the many I didn’t list, it is DeMar DeRozan that is the first to start the season with five 30+ point outputs since Michael Jordan did it thirty years ago. DeRozan has been an absolute terror to start the season, and is scoring at the rate he is without the benefit of having a consistent three point shot. He’s shooting 55% from the field, made a total of 1 three pointer this season and he’s absolutely scorching other teams. If the Kings are going to have the slightest glimmer of hope in a game like Sunday’s against the Raptors, the first step is going to have to be to contain DeRozan absolutely any way they can.

Point Guard Watch, Game 8: Sunday’s afternoon game marks the final game of Ty Lawson’s reign as the starting point guard, and it comes against arguably the best point guard the Kings have faced all year, Kyle Lowry. Now in his tenth season playing professional basketball, Lowry has actually faced a bit of a slump to start the season. A career 35.7% three point shooter, Lowry has opened the season shooting 1-5 from deep in each of the first three games, then had a game against Washington where he went 3-6 and then most recently went 2-8 from three against Miami. It isn’t that the scheme has changed and suddenly he isn’t getting his attempts. He is, he just hasn’t been able to convert them yet. The slump even bleeds over to how he’s shot inside the arc, where he’s shot under 32% in three of his first five games. Sounds like the perfect time for a slump buster, and wouldn’t you know who’s on the schedule for Kyle? The Kings! If finding a way to make the NBA okay with DeMar DeRozan wearing handcuffs during the game is step one to beating the Raptors, step two would be finding a way to keep Kyle Lowry’s shooting averages from revealing themselves tonight.

Prediction: After a pregame comment from Coach Dave Joerger, the Kings realize that their popular Mannequin Challenge video wasn’t supposed to continue on during the defensive sequences of their recent games. The Kings decide to shore up their rebounding problem, and start Willie-Cauley Stein, Kosta Koufos and DeMarcus Cousins together, and it will be remember from now until the end of time that the Kings Towers of Doom lineup began tonight. All-Time great small forward DeMarcus Cousins will begin his reign of terror with a 40 point outing, and the Raptors will disband themselves from the league out of fear of what is to come. Kings win.

Kings: 109, Raptors: 107