The Jazz are in town and after a sixty burger for De’Aaron Fox ended in an overtime loss, the Kings will have to pick themselves up and get right back out there against a young squad still trying to find it’s way up the Western Conference ladder. Can the Kings recover from a heartbreaking loss on no rest and tired legs? Can Keon Ellis take key wide open jump shots without the entire fanbase yelling at him to do it? Can John Collins just stay behind and be a King already?
Let’s talk Kings basketball.
When: Saturday, November 16th, 7:00 PM PST
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBCSCA
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
Follow Up Performances: The Wolves game last night was an absolutely nasty piece of work – ugly, disjointed basketball with no flow, right up until the Kings went down 20 and De’Aaron Fox decided to be unstoppable with 26 of his franchise record 60 points coming in the fourth quarter and overtime. I’d fully lost interest in this game as I waited for the Old Man vs. Youtuber to duke it out on Netflix – starting the fourth quarter with the game on mute and the fight on an iPad. By the end of the fourth, the fight was fully abandoned, save for light glances here and there, with my eyes glued to every pixel of Fox’s performance. I’m sure there’s a more thorough recap of the night coming this morning if it isn’t already published but, man, goodness, Fox is cold. What a waste of an absolutely masterful night from De’Aaron.
And now, we’re on the second night of a back to back, playing against the current bottom team in the West, nursing an OT hangover and potentially without DeMar DeRozan, Malik Monk and maybe, just maybe Domantas Sabonis. I’m speculating here on Domas. He left the game in the fourth to head back to the locker room and it definitely looked like he was holding his back funny. Knowing the guy, it’s two broken vertebrae, a severed spinal cord and he’s still about to give us 17-14-6.
Okay, to the Jazz: they’re 3-3 in their last six games: losing big to the Nuggets, Bucks and Suns, while beating the Bulls, Spurs and the Mavericks – this latest win being the now infamous Luka-staring-into-space-while-Collins-cuts-backdoor-for-a-winning-layup. I know the Kings handled their business earlier this month against Utah, but at this point in the season, the Kings are still just the Kings and prone to lapsing into fits of less than quality performance after a long night the evening before. Win in overtime against the Suns? Come out the next night and stink it up against the Spurs. Lose in OT against the Wolves? Well, hey, here’s a chance to change the narrative a bit. It’ll be sans some of the better players on your team and in the middle of a team wide slump still trying to get broken but, such is life.
The Jazz will give you shots to win the game: they turn the ball over more than any team in the league, they’re the third worst shooting team in the league and score the third least amount of points. The Jazz give up the fifth amount of points per game to boot, so, despite the tired legs and broken hearts from last night, the opportunity for redemption is there. Since it’s 6 am on a Saturday and I’m writing this before a long day, I will say briefly that the Jazz won’t be pushed over. Their offense at this point is rather egalitarian, with five players averaging between 15 and 18 points a game, so anyone (or everyone) could go off and be the problem for Sacramento. If Sabonis is out, the Walker Kessler, John Collins and Lauri Markkanen’s can feast, if Fox is a step slow, Colin Sexton and Keyonte George are ready for a fight. Hell, Jordan Clarkson has always, always been a guy who wants to kill the Kings. This one won’t be easy, it may not even be fun, but if the Kings want an outright playoff berth, winning a game shorthanded and tired, is entirely too necessary.
The Small Stuff
The Roy Al with Cheese: Tonight the Kings are officially debuting this season’s City Edition uniforms and with them their new mascot, Roy Al. If you haven’t laid eyes upon the nasty little pervert, we dropped an article that included him when the jerseys were officially announced a couple days ago. The raised eyebrow, the devilish upturned smile, the light bulging in the eyes, Roy Al is instantly the horniest mascot this franchise has ever seen, and the more that I stare at him, the more I think I root for his inclusion into this season. If I could make a suggestion it would simply be to please keep him away from making public appearances – the youth are dealing with enough right now without having have the foreboding menace of Roy Al haunting their nightmares. Outside of that little stipulation, 10/10, I love him and I would absolutely gun him down in my driveway if I saw him creeping around on my Ring doorbell at 3 am. Great stuff.
Prediction
Fox goes for 70 and the rest is gravy.
Kings: 116, Jazz: 110