The word “unacceptable” has been commonplace in postgame presser conferences for the 2025-26 Sacramento Kings.
“There’s a standard,” head coach Doug Christie said Friday night. His team had just allowed 144 points in a loss to the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves. “And the Sacramento Kings are going to have a damn standard, period.”
“As long as I’m here, there’s going to be a standard. Now, we haven’t reached it yet obviously, because that s**t is unacceptable,” he continued. “There’s no middle ground with this. If we are really trying to be about what we’re about, we going to sacrifice for each other, not care about one end of the floor and dive into the other end of the floor like some damn animals.”
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Ten games into their season, Sacramento is forfeiting an average of 123.9 points per game to its opponents. Sunday night’s 144-point bludgeoning was the most extreme example, but the fourth instance of allowing 120 or more.
Coming into the season, Christie emphasized the importance of having a defensive orientation. Reasonable questions arose from that, given the lack of defensive talent on the roster that General Manager Scott Perry inherited and then addressed this past offseason.
When your top players are Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Domantas Sabonis, playing defense is going to be a struggle. Adding Dennis Schroder isn’t fixing that. Getting Keegan Murray, who has missed the entire regular season with a thumb injury, back in the near future should help tremendously, but not catapult a bottom-five defense into the middle of the pack.
Of course, no coach is going to let their players off the hook and forfeit the defensive side of the floor. It’s Christie’s job to milk every ounce of defensive ability out of this roster, since that’s the identity he and Perry seem to have agreed upon.
When asked what he wants to see from his group consistently on that end of the floor, the first-year head coach referred to their three defensive pillars.
Make Them Feel Us. Communicate. Compete.
“The compete level, that is first and foremost,” Christie said Sunday. He then returned to the basics, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a defensive stance, ready to read and react. “Those are some of the fundamental things that just are an absolute must,” he continued. “We’re going to continue to hammer them home, and we will continue down the path.”
“That’s the one thing that we’re going to do here for Sacramento Kings basketball. We’re going to play defense, and we’re going to win basketball games because of our defense.”
As a four-time All-Defensive team member throughout his playing career, it’s obvious to see why Christie’s priority is on that side of the ball. They have offensive talent and could say, “We’ll figure that part out,” but ten games into their season, the Kings defensive rating sits at 27th (119.9) while their offensive rating isn’t much better at 23rd.
Not known for his defense, Zach LaVine has embraced the challenge of guarding on the ball, even if he still has his lapses off-ball. He seemed to suggest that Sacramento was not playing to their strengths through ten showings.
“I think everybody’s understanding that (defense) is the focus,” LaVine said Sunday. “I think that’s what they came into the season with. Obviously, there’s a personnel thing that goes with that as well. Guys go out there and play as tough as they can on defense. I think we’ve all been trying. I’ve been trying my a** off on defense. But, you know, you need a team collective, the right identity. Sometimes you need the right personnel out there.”
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“You’re not gonna ask Rudy Gobert to go out there and average 30,” he continued. “He’s a defensive guy, though, and that’s his job. But I think with the guys that we have on the team, we’ve got to play to the right strengths of the team.”
LaVine went on to say that they need to play together defensively, but “take advantage of that” on the other end. Even with some of the best isolation creators in the game, it’s hard to imagine the current iteration of the Kings forming a consistent identity on either end of the floor.
It’s only ten games, but there’s been a few too many “unacceptable” moments for my liking already.
More Sacramento Kings coverage on Sactown Sports
As the Sacramento Kings were on their way to another blowout loss on Sunday afternoon, fans in attendance at Golden 1 Center shared their frustrations with the lack of playing time for defensive guard Keon Ellis.
On the heels of a 30-point defeat against the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder, Sacramento (3-7) dropped a 27-point contest to the Minnesota Timberwolves less than 48 hours later–but outside of the ever-growing sound of boos, another call reverberated throughout the arena on Sunday.
Near the end of the third quarter, those who hadn’t already made their way for the exits sounded off in unison for Ellis, who, for the second-straight game, failed to check in until the game was out of reach.
“WE WANT KEON… WE WANT KEON…”
Read More:
Kings Fans Sound Off: ‘We want Keon’
Upcoming Sacramento Kings schedule for the 2025-26 season
Tuesday, November 11th – vs. Denver Nuggets – 8:00 PM PT
Wednesday, November 12th – vs. Atlanta Hawks – 7:00 PM PT
Friday, November 14th – @ Minnesota Timberwolves – 1:00 PM PT
Sunday, November 16th – @ San Antonio Spurs – 1:00 PM PT
Wednesday, November 19th – @ Oklahoma City – 5:00 PM PT
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