Kings , Magic
With 9 games left in the season, and being in a tight 9-11 seed race, the Sacramento Kings entered Saturday night in “win every game possible mode.” Their opponents, the Orlando Magic, were in a similar desperate mood as they also entered the game right in the thick of things in the Eastern Conference Play-In race.
Keon Ellis made the start over Malik Monk for the second consecutive game. This decision makes a lot of sense and always has, but the question was who would get benched for Ellis and it seems Monk is the guy to take that responsibility. Coming off a game with a career-high 6 steals, Ellis failed to have the same defensive impact in this one.
The Kings came out to a sluggish start as they trailed 10-1 after the first three minutes. The travel from coast to coast coupled with an early start time likely didn’t help the Kings much in that regard. The starting five for the Kings was getting carved up defensively, though, as a Magic team that typically struggles on offense got plenty of good looks in the first period. Sacramento eventually got going and was able to close in on the Magic to cut the deficit to just 4 points at 17-13.
Domantas Sabonis put in a shift early on in this game. His 11 point and 6 rebound first quarter helped keep the Kings in it early on. The Magic went on a nice run once Sabonis headed to the bench, upping their lead to 12 points off an 8-2 run. This was in large part due to three point shooting – a consistent theme for the Kings this season. While Sacramento shot 0/6 from deep in the first quarter, Orlando shot 5/10, including a deep attempt at the buzzer, from the same distance. While the Magic usually don’t shoot well from three, when you leave them open every time down the floor, they’re bound to hit them as NBA players. The home squad led 38-21 after one quarter.
It took Orlando just over 15 minutes of gametime against the Kings’ lazy defense to hit more threes against the Kings (6, by this point) than they did in the entire game two nights before against Dallas (5). The Magic shot 5/30, or 16.7%, from three in their matchup against the Mavericks. They topped that number quite easily against Sacramento as they fired plenty of open looks in this game. Sacramento did not knock down their first three pointer until DeMar DeRozan hit one almost halfway into the second quarter.
The Kings cut a 20+ point lead to just 13, but silly turnovers gave the Magic their advantage back in an instant. The Kings put up 7 turnovers in the quarter to make a total of 11 turnovers in the half. Monk was responsible for five of the turnovers while Zach LaVine accounted for three of them. A lot of these turnovers were unforced errors and not stemming from good Magic defense.
The Magic finally started shooting liked the 30th ranked three-point shooting team that they are from three, opening the door for the Kings to cut a 20+ point lead to 15 at halftime. Paolo Banchero led the way for the Magic with 13 points at the break in a well-rounded team effort for Orlando.
Keegan Murray and DeRozan knocked down a couple threes to start the half for Sacramento. This didn’t make a difference as their defense remained nonchalant and porous and Orlando easily added to their 15 point lead early on in the quarter. The gap only widened for the remainder of the game and this one finished as a blowout.
You can’t heavily lose the three-point battle AND the turnover battle if you want to win. The Kings team lost both areas in tonight’s matchup by a large margin, a combination for failure.
No Kings player really came to play in tonight’s matchup. LaVine returned to his passive self and gave the Kings very little scoring-wise while being careless with possession. Monk was really bad in almost every aspect of this game. Sabonis tried his best, but his distribution wasn’t particularly effective and his scoring and shooting were not at the level in this one. Keon Ellis and Keegan Murray weren’t shooting like their usual selves and didn’t provide much relief defensively to make up for their offensive woes. Trey Lyles, Jonas Valanciunas and Markelle Fultz gave practically nothing off the bench. Top to bottom, the Kings were a no-show in a must-win game, barring DeRozan who was his usual bucket-getting self. If you didn’t know any better, you would think this team was eliminated from Playoff contention because the effort and intensity were not there in this game.
This loss ties Sacramento up with Dallas at the 9 and 10 spots, respectively. Dallas takes on Chicago tonight, giving them a chance to overtake the Kings in the standings by half a game if they can get the win. Phoenix continues to lurk behind Sacramento and Dallas, now sitting just one game back of the Kings. Next up for Sacramento: Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers on Monday night.
Kings Scribe 
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