It’s preseason. We lost by 20. Our perimeter defense was as porous as a bullet-riddled bucket. The box score mysteriously disappeared from all websites, rendering all of my game notes fairly useless. The 2nd and 4th quarters were atrocious. And yet, I’m starting to get excited about this young core.

Tonight was a game which showed that while the Kings best prospects are inexperienced, that doesn’t mean they’re at all intimidated. Dave Joerger decided to rest the veterans and selected a starting lineup of De’Aaron Fox, Malachi Richardson, Buddy Hield, Skal Labissiere, and Willie Cauley-Stein, a squad with a total of 278 games under their combined belts. The Spurs meanwhile, rolled out a lineup of Murray, Green, Gay, Aldridge, and Pau Gasol, who have combined for over three thousand career games as well as 11 All-Star appearances.

While they weren’t perfect, and San Antonio made a lot of anti-San Antonio type plays in the first half, our young crew still managed to take it to a talented, veteran team for a lengthy period of time. Sacramento won the first quarter 24-15, and actually led the entire for the entire first half, save for the last 35 seconds. Buddy Hield led the way in the first half, scoring 13 points on only 5 field goal attempts, while also managing to snag 3 rebounds, and record 2 steals. Skal Labissiere and Willie Cauley-Stein also had good opening salvos, while De’Aaron Fox and Malachi Richardson struggled a bit to start.

While he struggled in the start, our lottery pick came out firing to start the third quarter, where he scored 7 points and dished out 2 assists in a matter of just 4 minutes, but shortly thereafter Dave Joerger decided to get a look at some of the end of the end of the end of the end bench guys like JaKarr Sampson and Matt Jones. The Spurs benchwarmers slaughtered the Kings substitutes, and San Antonio ran away for the 3rd and 4th quarters, outscoring Sacramento 62-45 on their way to a 20-point victory.

Game Notes:

That two-man game, tho.

Four point play for Buddy Buckets +☝️ pic.twitter.com/5YedHdGALk

— Sacramento Kings (@SacramentoKings) October 7, 2017

The Kings next game is Sunday night at 6:00pm PT against the Lakers in Las Vegas. It’s going to actually be legally televised on ESPN, while Lonzo Ball will likely be out do to wounded pride.