Jan 14, 2025; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) keeps the ball away from Sacramento Kings forward Keegan Murray (13) in the fourth quarter at Fiserv Forum. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-Imagn Images
The Kings followed up their best win of the season with perhaps their worst loss of the season, aka the full KANGZ experience. Now they get to face Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. Maybe we should just flip a coin to see if it’s gonna be a good or bad game.
Let’s talk Kings basketball!
**When:** Saturday, March 22nd, 7:00 PM PT
**Where:** Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
**TV:** NBATV, NBC Sports California
**Radio****:** Sactown Sports 1140 AM
These last two games have basically encapsulated the Sacramento Kings experience of the last few years. Down without three of their main rotation players, the Kings managed to beat one of the best teams in the NBA in the Cleveland Cavaliers. The next night against a Bulls team that was 11 games below .500, with the Kings getting two of those three guys back, they managed to lose by double digits despite leading by as much as 19 points in the first half. It’s truly remarkable that not only do you not know what Kings team you are going to get from night to night but even quarter to quarter.
But if the way to get the Kings to play their best basketball is to have them play up to their competition, well, they’re in luck, as Sacramento’s next three games see them take on the Bucks, Celtics and Thunder, three teams that nobody would be surprised to see playing well into May and early June. The Bucks start off this brutal stretch, coming off a dominant victory the other night against the Los Angeles Lakers (who rested most of their main rotation). Milwaukee will be without Damian Lillard, but they still have Giannis Antetokounmpo, a man capable of being the best basketball player in the world on any given night. The Bucks also made a decent sized move at the trade deadline themselves, moving Khris Middleton to Washington for Kyle Kuzma. Kuzma has fit in well with the Bucks, averaging 14.1 points a game, but he is still scoring rather inefficiently on only 43.4% from the field and 29.3% from three, both up from his Wizards stint this season, but not by much.
The Kings and Bucks have faced off once already this season, with Milwaukee coming away victorious 130-115 back in January. The Bucks won that game largely thanks to a blitzkrieg of a start in which they outscored the Kings 47-26 in the 1st quarter. Giannis and Damian Lillard combined for 25 points in that quarter, almost as many as the entire Kings team. The Kings tied or won every other quarter but the hole they dug was too big to get out.
The Bucks aren’t elite anymore like they were a few years ago, but they’re still solidly above average in most categories, mostly because Giannis is still playing out of his mind. This is the third straight year that Giannis is averaging 30 or more points a game and leading the league in both free throw attempts and two-point makes. He’s also shooting more mid-range jumpers than ever, and more importantly he’s making them. Per basketball-reference.com, Giannis is shooting 15.1% of his attempts from 16ft to the 3 point line (up from 7.2% last year) and making 45.6% of them. Giannis is still unstoppable attacking the basket, and with the added threat of a solid jumper he’s basically unguardable. Given that the Kings couldn’t stop Coby White or Kevin Huerter or Nikola Vucevic from getting into the paint on Thursday, I’m not sure what the strategy to stop Giannis from getting in there is going to be other than to pray. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Kings go deep into their rotation tonight, likely because of foul trouble in trying to keep Giannis in check.
The Kings will be looking for a bounce back game from Zach LaVine, who had perhaps his worst performance as a King against his former Bulls squad, shooting just 1-9 from the field. The Kings need to do a better job of setting him up for open looks and getting him involved early, but there’s only so much you can do when there’s only one ball and multiple guys that need shots. It’s not a surprise to me that some of Sacramento’s biggest wins of the season have come when the Kings may have been undermanned but played a more balanced rotation as a result.
Prediction
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Keegan Murray gets a shot off against Giannis with the Kings down 1 and the game on the line, but it just bounces off the rim. Fortunately Jonas Valanciunas is right there to tip it in for the win.
Kings 114, Bucks 113