Hi everyone! I just got back from Miami, Florida, where I took my son, Rudy, to his first NFL football game. When the schedule came out and I saw the Las Vegas Raiders were playing in Miami against the Dolphins this year, I thought it would make a perfect vacation for my son, who loves the Dolphins. Turning my son into a sports fan has been going great; Rudy had fun laughing at his mom after the Dolphins absolutely destroyed the Raiders. We had a great time. But, for this reason, I missed all the Kings games this week!
I did watch part of Friday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, but even though I was still used to Pacific time, it was hard to stay up that late in a dark hotel room with my son asleep next to me. It looks like I missed some good games; De’Aaron Fox absolutely went off!
The Kings have continued their streak of losing one game and then winning one for the past eight games. First, I was able to watch them beat the Phoenix Suns, who were missing Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant, for the second time in four days on Wednesday, November 13th. Watching that game, I felt like the Kings were back! They shot 15/28 on 3-pointers, that’s 53.6% and just what we’ve been waiting for. It was pretty much an ass-whooping; they beat the Suns 127-104.
Next, Friday, November 15th, was De’Aaron Fox’s historic night, where he became the first player in Sacramento Kings history to score 60 points in a game. The game did end up in overtime, which helped, but unfortunately, Domantas Sabonis appeared to hurt his back, and the Kings ended up losing to the Timberwolves, 126-130.
Fox continued his domination on the second night of a back-to-back against the Utah Jazz, where, without Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan, who both have back injuries, he put the team on his back and battled back from being down 10 and scored 49 points. That makes a total of 109 points for Fox in two days; the only other players to ever do that are Kobe Bryant and Wilt Chamberlain. The Kings beat the Jazz, 121-117.
On Monday, November 18th, the Kings played what looks like an intense, back-and-forth game against the Atlanta Hawks, with both teams trading buckets in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, it ended in a steal by the Hawks in the last seconds of the game, and the Kings lost by one point, 108-109.
Let’s talk about the NBA Cup. Like I said last week, this is the NBA’s way of trying to bring more excitement to the early season, and, in my opinion, it works. The prospect of going to Las Vegas to play for the NBA Cup (which includes a $500,000 prize for each player on the winning team) adds a little more motivation to win those Cup games. Unfortunately, the game against the Timberwolves was a cup game, but it’s just one loss out of four games we will play in the Group Play stage, so it’s not over. This Friday, November 22nd, is a Cup day, so the Kings will have even more motivation to get revenge on the Los Angeles Clippers, who they will be playing in Los Angeles.
Next, the Kings will play a back-to-back at home against the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, November 24th, and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday, November 25th. They will then head to Minnesota to play the Timberwolves again on Wednesday, November 27th. We’ve got a couple of revenge games on the schedule; let’s get ‘em! And let’s light the beam!