That said, the Kings did struggle away from Sacramento in December. Mightily. The only difference is that the team corrected its home problems from November in excellent fashion. The Kings were really completely different teams on the road vs. at home in December.

AT HOME …

ON THE ROAD …

The Kings went 1-7 on the road in December. The scoring margin was -13 per game. (Yikes.) The road defense was a little worse (1.10 points per possesion, .520 opponent eFG). But the real difference was on offense. The Kings scored just 0.97 points per possession (abysmal) and shot an eFG of .458 (totally gross) on the road. Shooting that poorly makes you completely uncompetitive.

AND NOW JANUARY

Ten games on the road. Seven games at home. Yep.

That said, a few of the home games look very difficult (Miami, OKC, Memphis) and several of the road games look winnable, even for this team. As Akis has noted, this four-game trip the team leaves for Monday morning includes Detroit (11-22), Cleveland (7-25), Toronto (11-20) and Brooklyn (16-14). If the Kings can't win one of those first three games (despite injury issues), it's hopeless on the road.