Jan 3, 2025; Sacramento, California, USA; Sacramento Kings forward DeMar DeRozan (10) dunks on Memphis Grizzlies center Jay Huff (30) during the fourth quarter at Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
The Kings are in about as bad of a position as they have been since Doug Christie has taken over, with four straight losses and five in their last six games. Each of the Kings last three games have basically been blowout losses, with two of them being by nearly 30 points. There’s only 16 games left, so the time for a course correction is quickly running out, but if there’s any time to do it, it starts tonight as the Kings host a season-long seven game homestand.
Let’s talk Kings basketball!
**When:** Monday, March 17th, 7:00 PM PT
**Where:** Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
**TV:** NBC Sports California
**Radio****:** Sactown Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
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As homestands go, this is a pretty brutal one. The Kings are at home for seven straight games but five of their seven opponents, including tonight’s, are in the top four of their conference, including the teams with the two best records in basketball. This is a terrible time to be playing some of your worst basketball of the season, but that’s exactly what the Kings have been doing of late.
Sacramento’s defense in particular has fallen off a cliff, especially on the perimeter. In their last three games, their opponents have shot 68 of 122 from distance. That’s 55.7%. Do you know how hard it is to shoot 55.7% from three in a game? It’s only happened 22 times across the NBA this season, and the Kings account for three such opponent performances in their last three games. On the other end of the spectrum, the Kings have also gone back to barely making any threes of their own like we saw at the beginning of the season. Over that same three game stretch, the Kings made just 22 threes of their own. So over three games, they made as many threes as their opponents averaged. It’s almost a surprise the losses weren’t even worse.
Memphis doesn’t shoot an absurd amount of threes as a team, but they do hit a decent percentage (36.6%) and they play at the fastest pace of any team in the NBA. If the Kings let a team like Memphis, who can also step it up defensively, get it going from three, it’s going to be a long night. Ja Morant is questionable, but even without Morant the Grizzlies have players that can give the Kings problem. Desmond Bane, Jaren Jackson Jr. and even hometown rookie (Go Bulldogs) Jaylen Wells can all put up big numbers. Wells actually scored a career-high 30 points on 8-9 from distance the last time he was in Sacramento.
The Kings really need to figure out a way to get off to better starts, and I really don’t see how they can continue beating their head in with this same starting lineup. In my personal opinion, they’re letting egos get in the way of winning basketball. The Monk-LaVine-DeRozan lineup has been an absolute stinker each and every time it’s played at -5.3 points per 100 possessions in 252 minutes. At this point in the season though, it’s probably too late to make any sweeping changes. This team has more depth than it used to, but the overall pieces just don’t seem to mesh very well, and learning together on the fly hasn’t been going very well. Domantas Sabonis in particular has seen a steady downtick in effectiveness since the trade. Some of that may be due to injury (he wasn’t looking too healthy even before the hamstring injury), but it feels more like he’s being frozen out of the offense.
We’ve seen this team right the ship before, but at some point the ship just has too many leaks to keep bailing water. Hopefully that’s not the case with the Kings, but I have a bad feeling about this homestand based off what we’ve been seeing lately.
Prediction
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There is a basketball game played in Sacramento.
Kings 115, Grizzlies 109