Kings Report

It’s been a rough week for the Sacramento Kings. Not only has our most impactful player, Domantas Sabonis, been sidelined with an injury, but starting shooting guard Malik Monk, who usually scores double digits for the Kings every night, also missed three games with an injury. Luckily, Monk is back in the starting lineup, but the rust he collected on the bench, combined with the fatigue of the rest of the team from an overtime game the night before, led to a blowout loss to the New York Knicks on Monday night, 104-133. The time change had me tired, too, and I didn’t have to play 44 minutes of NBA basketball the night before!

Speaking of the first night of the back-to-back, the Kings played a very important game against the 8th-place Clippers on Sunday night; if the Kings could have beaten them they would have claimed the 8th-place spot, but alas, after a hard fight, the Kings lost to the Clippers in overtime, 110-111. The most disappointing part was that the Kings gave up a seven-point lead with 1:48 left in the game; that was where they should have won that game. But I am still proud of how the Kings played against the Clippers, despite the outcome. They were missing two of their key players, and they still managed to almost win. They came so close to taking it; after three ties and seven lead changes in overtime, the last lead change went in favor of the Clippers with a buzzer-beater by Kawhi Leonard to win the game for the Clippers. It was disappointing, to say the least; the next time I let my son stay up late to see the end of a game, they better win!

The bright spot of the week was beating the San Antonio Spurs for De’Aaron Fox’s first game back at the Golden 1 Center. After a tribute video, Fox got a standing ovation, and the applause mostly drowned out the few boos in the crowd, which I was happy to see after the Kings put up a De’Aaron Fox graphic during the Charlotte Hornets game that received a lot of boos. It was definitely hard saying goodbye to Fox, but I think I speak for most Kings fans when I say we wish him the best. Besides, beating him on the court is the best way you can show him that he made a mistake. And boy did the Kings beat him. Zach LaVine, the main player received in the Fox trade, was 14/22 from the field and 7/11 from 3 for 36 points compared to Fox’s 6/17 from the field and 0/6 from the 3-point line for 16 points. The Kings beat the Spurs, 127-109.

Sabonis is going to be re-evaluated on Wednesday, and hopefully, we’ll see him back by the time you read this, just in time for yet another important game (I know I say that a lot, just to clarify, if we are playing a Western Conference team at this point in the season, it’s important!) against the Golden State Warriors on Thursday, March 13th in San Francisco. They’ll then travel to Phoenix to play the Suns in another back-to-back game on Friday, March 14th, before coming home for a seven-game home stand, which starts with the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday, March 17th, and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday, March 18th.

Only four more weeks to go! Go Kings!