Sacramento Kings coach Doug Christie on Jan. 18, 2026, talks about the experience of being head coach. By HECTOR AMEZCUA
Less than four minutes had elapsed in the first game of Friday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Sacramento Kings coach Doug Christie had already seen enough.
Christie took his starters out of the game with his team trailing by 14 early in the first quarter. Sacramento’s bench helped the Kings come back to take the lead at halftime, but they couldn’t maintain that momentum in a 123-118 loss before a sellout crowd of 19,432 at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.
“We gave ourselves a chance to win, but we came up short,” Kings guard Dennis Schroder said.
Donovan Mitchell scored 33 points for the Cavaliers (26-20). Evan Mobley had 29 points, 13 rebounds, seven assists and four blocked shots.
Domantas Sabonis came off the bench to post 24 points, 16 rebounds and six assists for the Kings (12-34), who have lost four in a row.
Schroder scored 21 points for Sacramento. DeMar DeRozan had 20 points. Malik Monk added 16 points and seven assists.
Christie pulled all five starters with his team trailing 16-2 less than four minutes into the game. Schroder, Monk and Sabonis led a second unit that came back to take a 33-31 lead on a 3-pointer by Monk late in the first quarter.
“I talk about the standard all the time,” Christie said. “There’s a level of physicality and a sense of urgency, and some nights it’s just like that. You’re not going at anybody. It’s just what it is.
“To the credit of the group that came in, they came in and they got down immediately. They were not playing around. That’s just how we have to play. It’s an absolute must.”
The Kings led 71-68 at the halftime break. They went up by six early in the second half, but the Cavaliers staged an 11-1 run to take an 87-82 lead on a 3-pointer by Jaylon Tyson with 5:33 to play in the third quarter.
Cleveland led 102-93 at the start of the fourth quarter. The Kings came back to take a 114-113 lead on a basket by Dylan Cardwell with 4:01 remaining, but they couldn’t make shots down the stretch, going 1 of 9 over the last 3:34.
Sacramento starters benched
Christie called an early timeout after the Kings were outscored 9-0 over the first two minutes of the game. Christie called another timeout 90 seconds later — with his team trailing 16-2 — after watching the Cavaliers go 6 of 7 from the field while the Kings went 0 for 5.
“It was tough,” Christie said. “A lack of energy and physicality. There’s a spirit to what we do and what we want to do that was just nonexistent right there.”
When the Kings came out of the timeout, Christie had benched all five starters, replacing Russell Westbrook, Zach LaVine, DeRozan, Precious Achiuwa and Maxime Raynaud with Nique Clifford, Schroder, Monk, Cardwell and Sabonis.
The latter group played with a sense of energy and purpose the starters could not provide, outscoring Cleveland 33-19 over the final 8:10 to tie the game 35-35 at the end of the first quarter.
3-point shooting
The Kings led the league in 3-point shooting at 46.7% during their recent four-game winning streak. They cooled off considerably in the first three games of their current four-game losing streak, ranking 23rd in the NBA at 33%.
The Kings went 13 of 33 (.394) against the Cavaliers, who came into the game ranked 30th in the NBA in opponent’s 3-point shooting at 38%.
Turnover problem
Turnovers have been a problem for the Kings recently. In the five games leading up to Friday’s contest, Sacramento ranked 27th in the NBA with 16.8 turnovers per game.
Westbrook was the biggest culprit, committing 25 turnovers in those five games. Many of Westbrook’s turnovers come when he drives to the basket and tries to force a pass to one of his big men through heavy traffic.
“Ball security is huge,” Christie said. “There’s the mindset that I can do it, so it’s not coming from a bad place. It’s more from a place of trying to be aggressive, trying to get downhill, but ball security is huge because we have to take care of the basketball and make sure we’re getting good quality shots, especially with the type of ballgames we’ve been in where some of them are close and can go either way.”
Up next
The Kings will visit the Detroit Pistons on Sunday at Little Caesars Arena.
The Pistons (32-10) are the top team in the Eastern Conference. They had won four in a row and seven of eight before losing to the Houston Rockets on Friday.
Detroit is led by Cade Cunningham, who is averaging 25.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 9.8 assists.