Sacramento Kings vs Denver Nuggets recap & reactions

Sacramento Kings vs Denver Nuggets recap & reactions

Just one game after falling to what at the time was a six- win Detroit Pistons team the Sacramento Kings come out in their very next matchup face off against the defending Champion Denver Nuggets for what it’s worth without mainly and most notably kentavius Caldwell Pope and Michael Porter Jr two important

Starters obviously on this defending championship team but I mean would it really matter tonight the Nuggets were on a second night of a back-to-back which is worth noting you know they they played in Golden State last night but the Kings put up 135 on the nuggets and simultaneously hold Denver to 106 and

Really after that first quarter the Kings took a lead and and hardly seem to look back you know they have a 10-point lead at halftime and then a dominant third quarter where they outscore the Piston the Nuggets by just 10 points but hold them to 29 you put up 39 of your own

From Sacramento’s perspective I think that’s a really really solid quarter and they did it all over the board I think it’s very ironic again not only that it happened tonight right after a tough Lo to the Pistons of course but I think the fact that there was Monty McNair’s press

Conference earlier today and I actually asked him specifically kind of about some of the inconsistencies that this team has had and where what he’s seen and how he’s felt about those inconsistencies and McNair pointed towards obviously we have to be better on a night in and Night Out basis

But that he thinks that there’s enough paraphrasing here but like high highs that he’s pretty encouraged about the potential long-term trajectory of this team and it’s wins like tonight that sell you on why they believe in let’s just see what this group can do before

We really mess with it you know I think that this was kings’s basketball the three things and you could see it on the back of some of their shirts this year for the training staff as they’re warming guys up and things like that it says play physical play fast and play together and

I felt like all of those things we going on tonight um shout out to everybody joining me in the chat here sack toown Sports postgame recap appreciate you guys popping in here glad to take any questions as I kind of keep this conversation going today whether you got deadline questions whether you got

Specific to this game looking forward to a little bit of a tough schedule that the king’s got to deal with um but definitely happy to be interacting with you guys and appreciate everybody hopping in here you know the first stat that really stood out to me in this game is the ridiculous

Turnovers and that really was from both sides in that first half I remember there being moments tur into Frankie cardelli sitting next to me or Whitey gleon some of our sack toown Sports guys being like God this is ugly basketball lots of turnovers from both teams and

The Kings cleaned it up a bit you know at the end of that first half for example Denver 10 turnovers Sacramento what’s up cam excuse me geeez um again Denver 10 turnovers in that first half Sacramento nine in the first half and you look at the second half six

For the kings in the first half I’m sorry seven for the kings in the second half compared to 11 for the nuggets in the second half and the big difference is how much teams were able to score off the opposite uh turnovers you know you look at again Sacramento 16 turnovers

The Nuggets get 19 points off that that’s solid you know it’s an it’s an okay conversion rate but then you go to the Kings Denver has 21 turnovers the Kings scored 37 points 37 of their 135 off of turnovers and 21 ties the season high for Denver this season I

Think the Kings did a great job making them look uncomfortable you know again playing physical last game obviously a really really tough showing again against the Pistons and specifically defensively and as we kind of asked about that the theme was you know a lot of of defenses effort and

Discipline and that’s what was lacking in that game and it was showed in full force tonight and you hope that it doesn’t take playing a great team for the team to be able to get themselves up with that sort of energy um but these are the teams that you got to beat you

Know the like when it comes down to it in the postseason this is an extremely extremely encouraging win I think for the Kings they they did it exactly how you would want and I think that for example jic post-ups it looked like typically they were waiting until sometimes it was on

The catch but often it was maybe two three dribbles before the Kings would send a double and the following rotations from there I thought were pretty clean they definitely had some moments that needed to be cleaned up I can think of a time where Keegan was in

The weak side corner and his guy cut and uh got an easy look at the basket Mike ground instantly calls a timeout calls Keegan over has a conversation with him assumedly about that defensive coverage so obviously not a perfect game but they always talking about wanting to put

Together for as close to 48 minutes as possible and I think that that’s what we saw tonight this is I think as close as you can reasonably expect as a bunch of fans um definitely happy with this win make their way out the stadium so excuse

Any sort of background noise we may have going on here um but I mean it it was really just an allaround effort from the Sacramento group they shoot 58% from the field and hold Denver to 46 they knock down 17 threes the Kings come on 34 attempts

They knock down half of their threes guys this has got to be somewhere near we’re going to check this uh live on stream it’s got to be somewhere near their actually no their their season high is probably in the 20s I think I remember them having some pretty big

Games oh God I’m not even close actually um they’ve had 17 or more on 17 occasions the Kings but to do it on that many attempts this is only the third time this season the Kings have shot 50% or better from three so you look at some

Of these other times that they’ve made 17 plus threes again tonight 34 attempts right but you look at these other games 48 attempts 45 44 43 41 these the only under under 30 under 40 excuse me three-point attempt games while they still made at least 17 there’s a 35

Attempt game which is the next closest thing really to and there is one 38 point game as well or 38 three-point attempt game as well so Stellar Stellar shooting from the Kings tonight I think that they benefited from knocking down shots obviously but they created good

Looks that I think made it easier for those two fall and you really saw it be a a group effort there’s a very free flowing offense and equal opportunity offense that Sacramento plays within and I think that tonight was one of the best examples of everybody taking advantage

Of that it’s not very often that you’re going to have as many guys rolling as the Kings did tonight you know you have four starters scoring in double digits everybody but Harrison Barnes who only shot the ball six times but made half of those attempts um so all the other

Starters again except HB Trey ly brings in 15 Alex Lenn has 11 off the bench Malik monk has a team High 23 points off the bench on nine of 13 shooting Malik monk has been so good for this team having another playmaker out there with Fox and sabonis specifically

Another perimeter playmaker next to Fox I think is so important for this team and gives them some um Dynamic abilities offensively and defenses can’t key in on specific guys as much because it’s not as simple as oh that you know sure the spacing is there because this guy’s a

Shooter but we’re not too worried about him putting the ball on the floor that creates an entirely different Dynamic for defenses to have to worry about and I think that’s why Malik playing well and Daren playing well at the same time um really tends to lead to pretty good

Results and dearen again tonight big defensive game I feel like we’ve been saying this for a little while five steals tonight guys five he passed 600 career steal tonight which is an impressive feat and 15 points 10 assists seven of 15 from the field like this is really I

Mean a very solid game from the Aon Fox defense uh offensively managing the game I would say you call him Brock pie out there if you want you know and defensively God he keeps doing those wraparound Steel that when I played that that agitate nothing agitated me more than those

Steals when you think you’re by somebody and then they just poke it out from behind those would always be the most agitating to me and dar’s gotten so good at them he pulls the chair out the guy starts to fall back and he reaches around and he’s got a long wingspan

Pokes it out and is gone and teammates will find him in transition and we saw that a couple times tonight I can think of both back-to-back possessions where I believe domas both times and it may have only been one of the two um but Darren got the steal got found in transition

And was able to convert and you really can go down the line here guys Malik again great performance you I will say um the Alex Lil McGee thing is kind of interesting to me and if I make it down there in time for Mike Brown I do want to ask him

About you know just the differences is between Alex Len jav McGee when he prefers to look in the direction of each because I just think it should be Alex personally like I think that Len does can provide a lot of the same things that javil does with less mistakes littered in between

And I think when you’re talking about a guy that is only playing 12 13 minutes a night the last thing you want is you know two three really costly mistakes in in those minutes so I personally lean towards Alex I thought that he was pretty good

Tonight and I hope that he gets a spot in that rotation again we they stuck with Davon Mitchell also in that backup point guard spot for for what it’s worth Keon Ellis obviously got signed to that I believe it’s threee 5.5 million regular contract spot today after being

On a two-way for all of this season he was getting pretty close to that 50 game Mark I think tonight would have been 48 for example um that he would have been eligible to be active being on a two-way contract so they convert him doesn’t necessarily

Take the Kings out of the buyout market for what it’s worth you know if they wanted they could look at somebody and wave uh just throwing names out a Kessler Edwards or uh you know if JaVale is being considered for that or you never know you never know again just throwing names out

So I don’t think it completely takes him out of the buy our Market but um I don’t know if I’m necessarily really expecting anything there I think the most important thing is keep this going keep this going because they have good momentum that you can continue to build

Off of here it’s a tough stretch coming up for the Kings there’s not going to be any easy sledding they play High Caliber opponents I think this is the first of three matchup with Denver in the next like eight games or so kind of going off

Memory there so I could be slightly off but they’re going to see Denver a couple more times which it’ll be interesting to see if you’re able to continue this and and repeat this success because Denver is going to be very motivated coming into those next games the same way that Sacramento was

Obviously very motivated coming into tonight after that loss against the Nuggets I I think that they wanted to be able to you know correct some of the just get the bad taste out of their mouth really and deadlines in the rear viiew it probably helps some of these players

Mentals you know I I think that it’s a very normal human thing to like just they’re goingon to hear some of these rumors thinking of guys like you know Kevin herder Harrison Barnes Davon Mitchell that were constantly in rumors and you can’t not hear any of that stuff and I

Think it’s only human for it to bother you and probably just you know be in the back of your mind a little bit and I don’t know to what extent for each player but I’d imagine there is at least a slight relief even if they uh maybe don’t want to exactly admit that

Publicly and that’s also understandable but um I you know I think that it’s good and some people thought that maybe they’d go back to Keon Ellis tonight now that you know you don’t have to worry about um you don’t really have to worry about got distracted sorry apparently they got

A Malik Monk and dearn fox together in the post game maybe I can pull this up here actually and we together can listen to dearn Fox and and Malik monk share the podium post game because I’m sure that these are going to be great sorry I’m getting this pulled up here now

Guys sh let’s see sorry guys just kind of a first for hey guys after after having a Wednesday I’m not sure why I’m not uh really able to hear the audio right now I think we’re gonna have to wait on this one actually my apologies guys um

Let’s just kind of see how how Twitter’s been reacting to to this loss or I’m sorry this win from the Kings Tonight obviously a pretty good one and again guys if anybody has any sort of comments or questions in here definitely happy to to take those on and and see what you

Guys have to say Matt anyone who says they understand understand the Sacramento Kings as a liar man this this team is just confusing it’s it’s as confusing As It Gets By the way can I point out just how tight BC has his shoes tied that’s that’s all I’m gonna say I like the

Jacket VC but your shoes are pretty tight my guy I mean another great game again will Z stats here um good numbers dearen Fox another five steal game 3.4 steals guys over his last eight games and I love that he puts the SGA picture currently leading the league in steals FOX also

Kind of joked when I asked him about some of his defensive Improvement the other day that you know a lot of his steals come on ball rather than off ball and he said like a lot of other guys and you know who knows if he was directly

Talking about SGA there but um you know I I think that there’s definitely a world where uh that may be played a part just slightly here as Mike Brown walks out onto the court with a handful of what looks like might be a high school football basketball team or

Something like that and they’re going to take a picture here in the middle of the court so let’s uh let’s keep going and see what else we got you guys got anything in the comments today here um yeah Emmy what’s up Emmy Emmy mentions uh great

Sasha game today 18 plus points or plus 18 in his minutes and you know it’s it was a really solid game from Sasha you know it’s interesting going to be interesting to see if he can maintain his spot within the rotation moving forward 16 minutes six points two four

From three you also have one of or I’m sorry zero of three on twos but I think that he does a great job cutting the ball never sticks I love watching him shoot the ball I think I trust that it’s going to go in more often than not when he’s putting them up

And I I think that he could deserve a little bit more run you know they do a good job not switching him on to guys and rarely when it happens I think that he doesn’t just get torched necessarily it’s kind of interesting I I I think that there’s even moments

Where um there’s even moments where if Sasha and Trey are sharing the floor together that teams might try to Target Trey also um and that’s not to say tre’s a worst offender than Sasha or anything but I I I don’t think that that that that far apart I guess is what I’ll

Really say there and um it’s definitely going to to be interesting to see moving forward because he definitely adds something to this team offensively om Kings heral buddy that does a great job and is extremely smart by the way points out the the bench scoring tonight uh Kings definitely had a big

Night from their bench mentioned that a little bit earlier in this broadcast as well and like I this is just a phenomenal game guys also Mason Jones by the way signed to that two-way earlier in the year but I think that that’s um I I’m going to try and make it down

There for postgame hopefully catch a little bit of Mike Brown right now who I think just left the court and is about to be headed over to about to be headed over to the press conference room so I’m going to try and get down there but what

A great game from the Kings allaround effort great response fast together physical helps when you shoot well other team forced in a little bit of some turnovers you know they’re on a road trip second night of a backto back but and without two of their starters but there’s plenty of nights where the

Kings lose this game and I think that it was great to see them step up and take advantage of or just capitalize on an advantageous scenario against a team that is the defending champion and still with what a lot of people think is the best player in the league

Who they really managed to slow down a good bit tonight so impressive showing from the Kings hopefully they can keep this up going forward as there’s a tough stretch of their schedule here but appreciate everybody hopping in um and be sure to enjoy your Super Bowl let’s

Go ners and uh check out all the great work on sack toown sports.com from myself Frankie cardelli Amil foso and and plenty of other people on there as well and radio station from hold on hold on yeah sorry um and check out radio Monday to Friday sack toown Sports 11:40

6 to6 appreciate you guys um Chris Watkins will probably be back for the next game and uh thanks for letting me fill in here in the meantime but have a good one guys enjoy the beam

Join Brenden Nunes as he breaks down all the action between the Sacramento Kings and Denver Nuggets.

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