ORLANDO, Fla.
Doug Christie said before Saturday’s game he tried to instill the sense of urgency the Sacramento Kings needed to begin their six-game road trip at such a crucial point of the season.
“Unfortunately,” the interim coach said after the 30-point loss, “we did not do anything that we talked about or wanted to do. ... We walked through it, we talked about it, talked about the importance, the sense of urgency. The energy just wasn’t there.”
The Kings were outscored by 17 points in the first quarter and then came out of the locker room at halftime and were outscored by 17 points in the third. It led to a 121-91 loss at the Kia Center in downtown Orlando that leftthe Kings struggling to find answers before they traveled to Indiana for Monday’s game against the Pacers, who have won eight of their last 10.
Kings players were asked why the team would lack urgency and energy with nine games left as it battles to remain in the play-in tournament.
“I don’t know,” Domantas Sabonis said. “Everybody obviously knows how important these games are. But for some reason, we weren’t all fighting for our lives.”
DeMar DeRozan was one of the few Kings who played with aggression offensively. He led the team with 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting and made all five of his free throws.
“I wish I knew the answer to that so we could have a solution to it,” DeRozan said. “But the only thing that should give us the answer to that, going out there to play. We only got however many games left, and every single one is important. So the effort, the compete level, everything should be there.”
Said Zach LaVine: “I don’t know. I wish we knew how. But obviously it wasn’t there.”
Kings running out of time to turn season around
The Kings (36-38) have lost nine of their last 12 and only have eight games remaining on their regular season schedule. The defeat gave them the same record as the No. 10 seed Dallas Mavericks, who were set to play later Saturday evening against the Chicago Bulls.
Sacramento is just one game ahead of the Phoenix Suns for the No. 11 spot and falling out of the play-in tournament altogether. The Suns next play Sunday, hosting the Houston Rockets.
“It’s frustrating because you don’t want to lose, you don’t want to put yourself in a deeper, tougher hole that you got to dig yourself out of,” DeRozan said. “Especially with limited opportunities left.”
Another troubling trend was prevalent against the Magic: LaVine not impacting the game offensively the way the Kings hoped when he was acquired in the trade that shipped out start point guard De’Aaron Fox. LaVine finished with just 10 points on 3-of-8 shooting.
It marked the seventh time in the last 10 games he scored fewer than 20 points. The Kings are 1-9 when LaVine scores fewer than 20 points. They’re 9-5 when he has more than 20. LaVine and Malik Monk combined for 11 turnovers and just five assists.
“We didn’t have any (urgency),” LaVine said. “We just lost by 30, so obviously that went out the window.”
Christie said he was hoping his players were more frustrated than he was, “but they have to go out on the floor,” he said. “I say hopefully, but I know that they feel that their energy just was not there tonight, which is very, very surprising for me. That’s something that you would see for maybe a quarter or something like that. But just from the jump, they were not ready to play at the level that is necessary when you are in a playoff race.”
Christie in recent weeks has harped on the need for LaVine and Keegan Murray to each take 10 3-pointers per game. They combined for six attempts, making two, while the Kings shot 7-of-28 (25%) overall from beyond the arc. The Magic made 18-of-39 from 3, outscoring the Kings by 33 points from distance.
The Magic came into the game with the No. 2 defensive rating in the NBA, allowing 109.2 points per 100 possessions. They have five players listed at 6-foot-10 or taller, including wing players Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Orlando’s size made it difficult for the Kings to get the shots they wanted to.
“The flow of the game dictates a lot,” Christie said when asked about LaVine and Murray’s lack of 3-point shots. “But also you have to be aggressive. And it’s very hard to score and get into good stuff when you’re constantly taking the ball out of bounds, the defense is set. So if you don’t get stops, which is what happened against Portland, we were able to get stops, now we’re about to get out and run. Zach is fantastic in transition, but he never really got into transition tonight.
“And when you do get looks, you cannot pass them up. Between them, they attempted six, and that’s just not enough. Zach LaVine only shooting eight shots is just not enough.”
Many comings and goings this season
The backdrop of the Kings’ season offers notable context. Sacramento fired coach Mike Brown in December, promoted Christie, and then in recent weeks traded De’Aaron Fox for LaVine and dealt with absences to Sabonis, Monk and others.
They also saw assistant general manager Wes Wilcox leave and their top defensive assistant, Luke Loucks, take the head coaching job at Florida State. It’s left the rest of the staff to come up with the defensive game plans each night. The coach responsible for scouting the upcoming opponent — which rotates — has been in charge of creating each defensive game plan.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this in the NBA,” Christie said pregame. “... It’s just been crazy. Every time we try to grab some footing, something else happens. Somebody goes down, somebody’s sick or something.
“The resiliency of my life, since being a kid has built you for stuff like this. When you come up in the inner city, you just figure it out. It’s part of what you are and who you are. As far as an organization, as far as the locker room, they’ve been extremely resilient, and I’m proud of that. So as far as how it’s all divvied up, everybody grab a hold of the rope and pull. And at the end of it, we’ll be proud of what we did.”
DeRozan said he didn’t believe all the moving parts throughout the Kings’ eventful season should be used as an excuse.
“I don’t care about all that,” DeRozan said. “You look at that after the season. As of now, we gotta do what we gotta do to get where we’re trying to go.”