Just when I thought the Sacramento Kings had finally overcome their propensity to underperform against lesser opponents following Wednesday nights 123-89 destruction of the Toronto Raptors, the Beam Team hit us with this stinker in Washington tonight. Yes, it was the 2nd night of a back-to-back set on the road. No, I don’t think that can excuse losing a very winnable game with major Western Conference playoff implications on the line.
The Kings broadcast spent much of the pregame show praising Sacramento’s defense since the All-Star break, and for good reason. The Keon Ellis-era Kings have played some of the best defense we’ve seen out of this franchise in 17+ years, but woof: the first quarter was a throwback to the bad old days. Washington put up 35 first quarter points and got a lot of nice looks while the Kings meandered through their offensive sets.
That paragraph above could have applied to the entire first half, honestly, if it weren’t for a ridiculous 21-4 run the Kings went on with about 5 minutes to go in the 2nd quarter. I’ve got to shout out Kessler Edwards here. His defense was great, he brought some real energy to the court, he knocked down a big three, and the dynamic of the game changed when he checked in. De’Aaron Fox got his offense going a little bit, and Sacramento was able to nearly erase a 19-point Wizards lead heading into the 2nd half.
The Kings hadn’t played well for a majority of the first half, but these are the 2023-24 Washington Wizards we’re talking about here. I both knew the Kings were capable of losing to a lesser team, but believed they would eventually figure this thing out and pull away with a win. I was mistaken.
The second half started and the switch never flipped for the Kings. They would go on little runs and close the gap only for the Wizards to pull ahead once again. Sacramento’s defense wasn’t great as the Wizards shot 40% from 3 and 50% from the field, but I thought offense was the bigger issue here.
The Kings shot just 11-39 (28%) from the 3-point line, and we’ve seen what this offense looks like when shots behind the arc aren’t falling. De’Aaron Fox had one of the least efficient games you’ll ever see him play: 25 points on 10-30 shooting from the field, and 5-15 (!!) from 3, including what I thought were several unnecessarily difficult shots. But it wasn’t just Fox – Malik Monk was 1-7 from 3, Chris Duarte was 1-7 from 3. None of the shooters had it going. Nobody was their best self.
The Wizards would eventually cruise to a 107-102 victory. Really frustrating stuff. We’ll see how the Suns and Mavericks games shake out tonight, but the Kings could wake up tomorrow back in the play-in conversation.
I don’t know what it is with this squad, but they are consistently 1 win away from making me feel dangerously optimistic and 1 loss away from making me think they are just barreling towards another first round playoff exit, if they can even make it through the play-in.
Next up: Kings vs. Magic in Orlando on Saturday.
