Ninety-nine percent of the time, NBA teams will follow up an ugly loss by watching back the tape. In the Sacramento Kings’ case, they might want to burn the tape of Friday night’s game.
The Kings’ early-season three-point woes continued against the Los Angeles Clippers, as Sacramento went three of 26 (11%) from deep during a 107-98 loss at Golden 1 Center.
In a game that featured over 30 combined personal fouls, neither team could find a rhythm on their respective ends of the floor entirely, but the difference on the scoreboard all came back to the long ball.
Los Angeles finished the night 14-of-30 (47%) from beyond the arc while also going 21-of-21 (91%) from the foul stripe en route to securing a victory.
The Kings (5-4) had a two-game winning streak snapped as they set their focus on a brief two-game road trip that will begin on Sunday night in Phoenix.
Kings vs. Clippers recap & takeaways
James Harden has given opposing defenses headaches over the years due to his impressive—or excruciating, to some—ability to get to the free-throw line.
The former MVP gave the Kings’ defense fits early, scoring 15 points during the first quarter while converting all seven of his attempts from the charity stripe as the Clippers built an early ten-point lead.
Sacramento’s three-point woes hamstrung its efforts to get back in front, as the Kings went two-for-16 (12%) from beyond the arc during the first half. On the other end of the floor, Los Angeles converted seven of its 19 attempts (37%) before the break while knocking down 12 of 13 free-throw attempts.
Domantas Sabonis was a hub on both ends (10 points, eight rebounds, and six assists in the first half), but Sacramento didn’t get much else from its main contributors during the first half.
As poorly as the Kings played early, the Clippers failed to take full advantage of the poor shooting and eight Sacramento turnovers as they took a 51-45 lead into the break.
Neither team could settle into a rhythm as play entered the third quarter, as a barrage of whistles brought the game to a screeching halt.
The constant flow of stoppages plagued an already stagnant Sacramento offense, allowing Los Angeles to push its advantage back to double-digits with Harden and high-scoring guard Norm Powell leading the way.
Following a tough first half that saw him score just three points on one-of-five shooting, DeMar DeRozan displayed signs of life in the third to help ignite a sluggish Kings offense. DeRozan scored eight points in the period and joined forces with Malik Monk (seven points in the quarter) to trim the Clippers’ 11-point lead to five with twelve minutes to play.
While Sacramento briefly harnessed its first taste of momentum into a comeback effort, Los Angeles quickly extinguished any hopes of a beam-fulled skyline as soon as play entered the fourth quarter.
The Clippers capitalized on six-straight Kings misses from three-point land and took its largest lead of the night at 96-80 with 5:33 remaining. As they did near the end of the third, Sacramento went on a run to cut the deficit to six with three minutes to play, but too much damage had been done–in the Kings’ case, self-inflicted damage.
Sacramento went one-of-six from three in the fourth, while Los Angeles focused on putting the game away in the paint (11-of-17 from the field) to cap off an overall ugly night for the Kings.
Although Sacramento’s three-point shooting performance was the worst in the Mike Brown era—the franchise’s worst since going three-for-25 in 1999—the head coach stated that he felt they could have let the ball fly even more on Friday night.
“I thought we hesitated a lot from three. We should have taken, I thought, 35-40 threes, with the way they were playing defense, packing the paint,” Brown said. “We didn’t spray the ball when necessary. We just settled for tough twos. We have to do a better job of keeping it simple. Spray it, let it fly, and see what happens.”
DeRozan expressed optimism that the Kings’ triples will begin to fall, citing that all it takes is a couple of strong performances to turn the corner.
“They’re going to fall. We just have to find a rhythm,” DeRozan said. “Once we string a couple of games together shooting the ball better, we’ll be fine.”
It’s early, but very few projected this Sacramento roster to perform this poorly from deep through eight games. After Friday night, the Kings fell to 29th in the NBA in three-point shooting (30%), just 0.2 percent ahead of the Orlando Magic for dead last.
Notes
- De'Aaron Fox led all scorers with 31 points on 12-of-20 shooting but turned the ball over seven times. Fox, who is currently playing through what he believes is a ligament injury to his left pinky and ring fingers, said he is able to play and doesn’t view the ailment as an excuse.
- Domantas Sabonis finished the night with another double-double, his eighth of the season. 23 PTS | 12 REB | 6 AST
- DeMar DeRozan had his eight-game streak of 20+ points snapped during the loss: 13 PTS | 5/12 FG | 40 MIN
When is the next Sacramento Kings game?
Sacramento will hit the road for a brief two-game trip that will begin on Sunday evening against Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns.
Phoenix has gotten off to a strong start this season, winning seven of is first eight games to sit at the top of the Western Conference standings.
Be sure to catch all of the Kings vs. Suns action right here on Sactown Sports 1140 AM, with pregame coverage starting at 3:30 PM PT on Game Night before action tips off at 5:00 PM PT from downtown Sacramento.
Sacramento Kings 2024-25 Schedule
- Sunday, November 10th – @ Phoenix Suns – 5:00 PM PT
- Monday, November 11th – @ San Antonio Spurs – 5:00 PM PT
- Wednesday, November 13th – vs. Phoenix Suns – 7:00 PM PT
- Friday, November 15th – vs. Minnesota Timberwolves – 7:00 PM PT
- Saturday, November 16th – vs. Utah Jazz – 7:00 PM PT
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