Coach Doug Christie promises to fans, and haters, that he will 'figure things out' with the Sacramento Kings. By Stats Perform Video via VideoElephant
Following the Sacramento Kings’ 41-point blowout loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, Russell Westbrook asked a reporter if he could wait to be interviewed until after Saturday night’s game in Denver.
“Win — and then we can talk,” Westbrook said in a joyous visiting locker room inside Ball Arena after the Kings stunned the Nuggets, 128-123, behind 15 fourth-quarter points from Westbrook.
Westbrook’s framing was prescient. He’s notoriously competitive. He was going against the Nuggets, who declined to bring him back after last season. It led to Westbrook wading into the uncertainty of free agency, and offering him a chance to get back at his former team with his new team, which turned out to be the struggling Kings.
His insistence on asking to push the interview until after the Nuggets game made it look like he knew a big performance was coming.
“He’s a competitor, man” said DeMar DeRozan, who co-starred with Westbrook by adding seven of his 17 points in the fourth quarter, including a 20-foot and-1 dagger with 29 seconds remaining. “No matter rain, sleep, hail, snow. He’s gonna go out there and compete. When he goes out there and just lays it on the line, it’s definitely cool, especially (after) competing against him my whole career.”
Westbrook hit 6 of 7 shots in the fourth quarter, including both of his 3-point attempts, while adding three rebounds and two assists. He started the game just 3 of 9 for six points while the Kings were outscored by 19 points in his 18 minutes.
But that was all forgotten thanks to his final 12 minutes, when he made shot after shot. It was his best performance since his triple-double in Sacramento’s last win Nov. 5 against the Golden State Warriors. He finished with 21 points, 11 assists and six rebounds.
“Just being aggressive, picking spots,” Westbrook said. “I know I was missing easy ones early, open ones.”
The win came after a rock-bottom performance Thursday in Memphis when the Kings were blown out by a four-win Grizzlies team missing its two best players in Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. There was no such letdown on Saturday. The Kings ended their tough five-game road trip with a happy flight home thanks to arguably their most cohesive offensive performance of the season, capped by the closing performances from Westbrook and DeRozan.
“One thing we talked about,” Westbrook said, “we lost by a lot of points, but a loss is a loss. It’s how you respond. Now, how you respond is the most important thing. I thought we did a hell of a job just responding, being together, it was a team win.”
The focus of the game was breaking down the defense by driving into the paint and passing to open shooters. It led to Sacramento tying a season high with 32 assists to just seven turnovers.
Helping was the return to the starting lineup of forward Keegan Murray, who gives the Kings much-needed spacing with his 3-point shooting while also being able to guard the opponents’ best perimeter scorer. On Saturday, it was Jamal Murray, who Keegan Murray often picked up in the backcourt and made him work a night after the Nuggets had a grueling game in Houston.
“I feel like we had a good game plan going in,” Murray said. “I feel like we executed it pretty well. So for us, it’s just trying to stick with it, competing on both ends of the floor. Especially in the second half, I thought we played really well on the defensive end and got stops when we needed to and made buckets when we needed to.”
The Nuggets scored 58 points in the second half after scoring 65 in the first, largely thanks to shooting 8 of 18 (44%) from 3-point range. That dipped in the second half to 6 of 19 (32%) while the Kings dominated the game in fastbreak points (23-8) and bench points (48-20). The Nuggets were without standout forward Aaron Gordon and fellow starter Christian Braun.
And the Kings won despite three-time MVP Nikola Jokic pouring in 44 points with 13 rebounds and seven assists. The Nuggets dropped to 12-4 and remain No. 2 in the competitive Western Conference.
“In our league, wins are hard to come by,” Kings coach Doug Christie said after his team improved to 4-13. “So (we) definitely needed it. I think even more importantly, it was necessary to see the process that we’ve shown in flashes, when done for a whole game, the byproduct of that is winning. I commend — this is a complete team win.”
The win was particularly meaningful for DeRozan, who said after the loss in Memphis and the losing streak extended to eight games, “everything right now for us is just s-----, honestly.”
Teammate Malik Monk said DeRozan recaptured his joy after a rough two weeks thanks to winning the game and hitting some of the biggest shots of the night down the stretch.
“Sometimes that’s all you need, a positive push in the right direction,” DeRozan said. “Not just for me, but for all of us as a team. Seeing Russ hit a big shot, that’s big. Seeing Keegan making big plays, being back out there, that’s big. Go on down the line for everybody. It’s a kinda like a collective effort will bring the joy that’s needed to go out there and compete. So it was big.”