The Sacramento Kings Are Depressing…

The Sacramento Kings Are Depressing…

the playin were not particularly eventful as both games were decided midway through the third arguably even earlier than that Dallas spanked Sacramento and Miami spanked Chicago The victors go on to try and capture the eighth seed on Friday against the losers of last night’s games And the losers well they go into another off season with a whole lot of questions and even fewer answers Hello everybody welcome to Rusty Bucket Subscribe to the channel and drop a like on this video and check us out over on Spotify and Apple Podcast if you would like to enjoy this as an audio only experience Also go check out Little Rusty Buckets if you would like to see my afterbuzzer reactions Everybody’s mad at me because I said some bad things about Josh Giddy That’s never happened before in the history of me talking about him But with that said let’s talk about the Mavericks versus the Sacramento Kings in the first quarter I felt pretty confident going in that Dallas was going to end up winning this game for just a very simple reason The only thing elite about either of these teams is the Maverick’s double big defense That’s a good thing to hang your hat on and Sacramento really doesn’t have anything else to hang their hat on that confidently This play early seemed like a sign that I was right about that A very nice pass here but it does not matter because even if you do get by Derek Lively AD is right there to clean the play right up But unfortunately Dallas’s offense is really bad So it didn’t necessarily mean they were going to dominate out of the gate They do not have a point guard in their starting lineup They went with Naji Marshall and Klay Thompson as their back court with PJ Washington playing the small forward position AD in particular had a horrible first quarter going two for nine from the field The only positive offensive player for Dallas was Naji Marshall who hit backtoback corner threes right after I said he’s the type of bad three-point shooter to do exactly that He’s not a good three-point shooter but he’s the type of dude who will randomly have four in one game He’s like I can shoot today cuz they’re like if he beats us with the mid-range shot whatever And we know he’s not going to beat us with the three You know what I just said actually rewrite This is happening live Forgot to catch this One of those threes actually ended up being a foot on the line So never mind He hit a long two and a corner three back to back Sacramento on the other hand has a very different offense first approach to their game and they had enough of it to still score decently against Dallas at least in the first quarter Lavine and Dear both hit some tough three-pointers Here Zack pulls up from three AD was just a little bit too late to contest This quelled a multi-possession drought for Sacramento And god do I love that jump shot form from Zack Lavine I’m actually really glad that he’s on another team now so that I can just focus on all of the things that he’s good at when I watch him and not think about the $50 million a year that he’s being paid Dear also hit a tough pullup three here at the top of the key again when Sacramento really needed it at that point Demar actually got the Derek Lively matchup weirdly enough because they want Anthony Davis to guard Sabonis naturally So the place for Lively to be is on the only non- three-point shooter on the floor Well besides for the one that Demar just hit right there of course But you know I do fear that Sacramento’s reliance on hitting these difficult shots could come back to bite them if it keeps up which I’ll say with that line right there just for the record I write these videos as the game is happening Spoiler alert uh their over reliance on tough shots did come back to bite them Sacramento ended up holding a two-point lead going into the second 27 to29 The second quarter however was a complete disaster for the Sacramento Kings While they continued to put in a poor effort on defense all while Dallas was heating up they also went completely cold on offense halfway through the quarter They started on a good pace but finished the quarter with just 19 points in total The offense looked completely lost They could not generate any space and settled for tough shot after tough shot Dear in particular appeared very rattled here He can’t generate any space off of the dribble and just kind of frustratedly throws the ball sailing out of bounds And here he finally manages to get an attempt around the basket for once just for it to get absolutely swatted by Daniel Gaffford Meanwhile Dallas was scorching from three on offense this time around Three different players in this quarter hit back-to back threes First it was Brandon Williams who’s had a really impressive showing so far This three was his second It gave Dallas an 8-0 run to start the quarter And then it got real brutal because Klay Thompson caught fire He may not be what he was but when one of the best shooters ever heats up you still got to respect it because gets scary He would hit four threes in a very short window Only a few possessions between his second third and fourth make His first two were backtoback with his first shot being one that barely rimmed in Here Clay hits a tough three off of the pull up off of a handoff from Derek Lively Zack Lavine does not leave the floor on his contest So there’s just way too much space there This was his second one after that other one that got the generous bounce And then here is his fourth three of the quarter A top of the key catch and shoot from way downtown Clay’s 16-point quarter gave them a huge boost offensively to take a big lead and it also gave him the game high for the first half But Anthony Davis finally got in on the action as well hitting a pair of back-to back threes himself Both of them being pick and pops with that especially not being a strong area of his game This one was AD second Both of them being assisted by Brandon Williams who as I mentioned has been impressive Dallas hit eight threes in this quarter in total between AD Clay and Brandon Sacramento’s crowd started to boo after this last shot from Anthony Davis went in Things are getting really ugly as Dallas leads going into the half 71 to 48 Sacramento fared better offensively in the third this time scoring 33 points but they still weren’t doing anything to bother Dallas on the other end of the floor Here AD was running pick and roll as the ball handler which he did multiple times And despite the fact that his handle shouldn’t be all that great necessarily they put absolutely zero pressure on him And here it results in a wideopen lob to Daniel Gaffford I also have found myself really impressed by Brandon Williams throughout this game He’s the standout player here He just has a lot of veteran savvy for a young player and he showcased that especially well on this layup where he displays a ton of patience He pump fakes and waits till he is open for the shot Sacramento did some scoring on the break early into the quarter which gained them some momentum even forcing kid to call a timeout after six straight points on the break from Sacramento However the offense just evolved the same exact way that it did in Chicago for Demar and Lavine It’s just relying on these two to backpack you with their shotmaking It is a futile effort that if you’re already leaning on that this early into the game you’re already dead You can get shots like these where Zack Lavine hits a tough post fade on the baseline to bail them out or where Demar gets this and one off of a spin move around Max Christie These plays are nice in a vacuum but that’s just not going to be enough This is a strong scoring quarter from Demar He had 13 here but if that’s all that you’re going to get you’re still not going to have a very strong offensive quarter But this play style it just doesn’t get you anywhere besides for at best keeping your head above water And at this point they can’t just afford to trade baskets They need to be digging themselves out of the hole that they are in As a result Sacramento isn’t down 23 as they were going into the quarter but you’d ideally chip away more than five points of that lead after a full quarter So Dallas is still leading 99 to 81 going into the fourth The fourth of this game really just felt like an obligation for a game that was already over It especially felt that way when Doug McDermott checked in Not much of interest happened here so I’m not gonna yap about this quarter What stood out to me the most in this quarter is the extent of how little I’ve actually seen Sabonis score in this game In general it felt like he wasn’t even there especially at the rim So to summarize the vibe of this game here is the final play for you where on a drive by PJ Washington he hands it off to Gaffford and he onehand slams it over Sabonis That was pretty much the energy the whole way through Dallas wins 120 to 106 Let’s move on to some notes for the Dallas Mavericks specifically I felt confident in them going into this matchup As I have previously highlighted I really enjoy the double big dynamic with Anthony Davis out there even if there is a lot of stuff wrong with what the Dallas Mavericks have been doing how they got here in the first place At the bare minimum I do enjoy the AD at the four minutes allowing him to be a ball handler out of the pick and roll so much was really cool Just letting him be the point guard that he was earlier on in his career A lot of good stuff with that I really like the utilization of Anthony Davis’s playmaking ability but it definitely had some weird offensive quirks This was especially an interesting starting lineup choice because you had Naji Marshall at point guard Klay Thompson at the two PJ at the three as I mentioned AD at the four and your choice of the centers on the Mavericks depending on the lineup So that was all cool but I do feel as though Brandon Williams was deserving of more opportunity and more minutes He only played about 17 minutes in this one but he absolutely killed it every time he was in So given that they don’t have a real point guard otherwise given that this guy has a real veteran savvy and a very reliable three-point shot especially on a team that could struggle with spacing at times especially cuz Naji Marshall is a prominent part of this offense while not being a good three-point shooter plus the double big lineups Having people out there who can actually shoot the three ball well is really helpful Clay had a crazy hot game He had 23 points on 8 for1 11 shooting five for seven from downtown As I mentioned he had the uh in the quarter Anthony Davis kind of fluffed the box score a little bit in the fourth quarter but he did struggle with his shot most of the game It did not end up mattering His offensive impact was so significant that it didn’t end up mattering But uh or his defensive impact rather was so significant it did not end up mattering But not the best offensive showing from him He’s kind of struggled a little bit ever since he’s been in Dallas which is completely reasonable completely wild shakeup for your career There was this weird play from him in this one that I didn’t include in the post in the recap because it just it just didn’t have a real place in the flow of things That is the weird part There’s the occasional play you get in there that is just like this is interesting and I want to highlight it but I’m trying to narrativeize how the quarter goes And the play where Anthony Davis uh gets a goalend on a Keon Ellis three-pointer one that he was getting fouled on at the time Just a weird play I believe that was in the second quarter and Dallas executed that quarter phenomenally on both ends of the floor But just one really really weird blunder there Also Nico Harrison showed up a shitload I don’t know what that’s about I don’t know why he was on the screen all the time It’s like that Taylor Swift in the NFL that a bunch of chuds complain about for no reason Like Nico Harrison is on the screen all the time Anyways on to the Sacramento Kings for their notes They don’t have Malik Monk but that’s not enough of an excuse And obviously the Dallas Mavericks don’t have Kyrie Irving so there’s no excuses here Dear and Lavine were trying to shoot a bad team out of being bad which is the same story that I have seen a couple of years in a row It’s just a new team So nothing about this was remotely surprising to me Demar got swatted twice by Daniel Gaffford and each time it felt like a personal ass block I don’t know why but there was a lot of vitrial in the way that he blocked those shots Keegan Murray is probably one of the most disappointing young players in the league for me At this point he’s like 25 so he’s not even that young but after his rookie year where he set the record for most threes in a rookie season I really had a lot of high hopes from him as a tall forward with a really really good three-point shot And his defense improved as I anticipated it would since his rookie year but his three ball has not been the same And the offensive acumen that he showed beyond that three ball has not really turned into anything of substance Only a couple of moments not a substantial type of thing to bank on And he did not have a good game here either One that would have been helpful He’s the type of guy who can be an X factor where if he starts hitting some shots for real then they’re a lot better of a team But that did not happen Sabonis was a non-factor He had 11 points on five of 13 shooting five assists but five turnovers bad defense around the rim as you would typically expect So yeah I Sabonis typically has a good history against Anthony Davis but he was just non a non-factor here They let him shoot jump shots No one cared about that And yeah he just did not have a presence around the rim I guess Gaffford Lively and Anthony Davis is just too much pressure around the basket That’s just simply too much rim protection Devin Carter is the only player who played real minutes for the Sacramento Kings while having a positive plus minus He went three for four He hit a three at the end of the first quarter that it really felt like that was like a sign that Sacramento might have it It was a good play to end the quarter on but no one really matched his energy That that momentum did not continue over But shout out to Devin Carter He made a couple of good defensive plays that resulted in some fast break buckets in the second quarter So my final thoughts on the Kings What is the point of this team i have never seen such a team that is just the most whatever collection of players Like there is no rhyme or reason for the construction of this roster other than for some reason the Kings were so dedicated to being competitive after trading De’ar and Fox But while I recognize the Kings have been in such a way for so long that they really don’t want to go the tanking route the reality is in the Western Conference you’re in right now you are not going to be getting back into a playoff play in tier level next year So you’re not going to use that as a way to sneak into the playoffs So you’re going to be bad anyways You might as well blow it up You might as well trade everyone on this roster that you can You might end up just being the new team that stuck with Zack Lavine I don’t know how easily he could be moved but regardless everybody on this team besides for a few of the young players needs to be moved ASAP It this this roster is dumb The 2025 Sacramento Kings are truly one of the NBA teams of all time and that’s about all they have going for them With that said let’s get into this Bulls versus Heat recap In the first quarter Miami was in control pretty much as soon as they started because they came out of the gate shooting very hot They ended up going six for nine from three in the quarter Tyler Hero in particular was scorching hitting two difficult threes including this incredibly deep three off of the dribble over the contest He scored 16 in the first Andrew Wiggins was also putting up double digits scoring 10 hitting both of his three-pointers including this corner catch and shoot In fact I believe both of his threes were out of the corner It also did not help that the Bulls were completely unaware of the concept of rim protection in the first half of the quarter and this ended up repeating itself at different stages of the game They ended up giving up multiple easy looks as a result Here is Andrew Wiggins just wide open for a back door reverse layup The Bulls struggled offensively in the first half of the quarter only scoring 12 points by the 6-minute mark but they would heat up a bit and prevent an outright blowout of a quarter Giddy was active He missed a ton of floaters but he actually offensive rebounded like two of them He had a really nice pass fake that led to an open three which he nailed And he was really effective as a cutter Here is a great setup by Kobe White to a cutting giddy around the rim And my boy Buzzelis would give them a lot of momentum to close by hitting a wild three He gets the steal and the ball just leaves his fingertips at the buzzer off of the pullup from outside Miami ends the quarter up 39-28 In the end of quarter 1 the Bulls actually were given some hope for quarter 2 but the Heat made sure to completely snuff it out immediately They opened up with an 11 to2 run once again getting a ton of great paint looks Finds Wear on Giddy here before any help defense can get there Wear does a quick post move and dunks it over him And the hot shooting continued Hero only took two shots and on them he got fouled and the other was a deep three that he swished So still not missing a shot in the first half for Tyler Herro Duncan Robinson also hit backto-back threes including this second one coming out of the corner with Vuch draped all over him The Bull’s offense completely aimless just a bunch of nothing Every point that they did score was some dumb iso shot from a role player that the defense will take every time They were looking at Kevin Herder to save them for multiple possessions Kevin Herder please save us That’s Kevin Herurder Step back mid-range shots were like half of the Bull’s offense for a minute there That’s embarrassing The only bucket worth showing from them here was this with this spectacular Euroep left hand and one that Bzelis finished on the break This ended a scoring drought and they scored again like two more times but they picked that drought right back up again immediately after those buckets Miami by contrast was working together perfectly They had 21 assists on the 27 made shots in the first half That is an excellent ratio Meanwhile the Bulls were getting all of their buckets out of the ISO with players that you do not want isolating As a result the heat going into the second were up 71-47 The third quarter once again saw the Bulls get back into it a little bit but more because Miami went cold more so than the Bulls actually doing anything special It’s not like they flipped some switch and suddenly they started playing good It just started to work in their favor just like from the pure RNG of it all In the first half of the quarter the Bulls scored 16 to Miami 7 On the baseline out of bounds play here Buzzelis bullies Alec Burks baseline for a dunk And here we get a transition three from Kobe which makes it a 15-point game He really loves these kind of shots It’s I believe he hit three threes in this game and I think all three of them were transition pull-ups At least two of them were After this run from the Bulls Hero sat for a bit because he was tired and he had started this quarter one for four after the perfect first half I thought this was a bad idea on the part of Eric Spolstra because the Bulls were starting to make a little bit of a comeback and the lineup without him was just completely putrid on offense But the Bulls failed to capitalize on this opportunity entirely They started to go cold the moment Hero was off of the floor Chicago has generated a lot of turnovers in this game That’s basically the only thing they’ve done in this one that’s impressed me They are definitely up there with some of the most active teams in the league in terms of how they play the passing lane And once again we did get a miracle shot to at least keep some hope alive this time Not quite at the buzzer but pretty close here Ton Horton Tucker at the end of the shot clock hits a fadeaway mid-range shot to close the third which gets the crowd to wake up Had to be a very frustrating possession for the Miami Heat cuz they defended perfectly all the way up until that last second But Miami is now only up 1488-74 And Miami actually has 15 losses this year when leading heading into the quarter while the Bulls have become known for their comebacks this year having 13 wins after trailing through three So yeah that is kind of you know maybe there’s an open window That’s certainly what they were implying on the broadcast but I didn’t think that was going to happen And man is it not what happened So even with the double-digit deficit the Bulls could still theoretically pull a win here right well in a similar pattern to the first half after ending on a high note the Bulls once again were just immediately crushed in the following quarter as Miami would score 21 points which is not all that great but they held Chicago to just 16 The fourth quarter of this game was just a formality like the other ones so I have little to say about it The only thing I’m going to do is about this one bad call in particular Here Hero hits a three over Bzelis which was called for an offensive foul on Hero but to me this is clearly a regular defensive foul The call stands after the challenge which makes me all the more confused which when you look at it side by side like his ey line he doesn’t even know that Booze is there So how would he you know be making the kicking his leg out move like he wasn’t fishing for a call He just jumps forward when he shoots It was a very natural motion It pissed me off so much Like it did Nothing else mattered at that point in the game It wasn’t important but stupid stupid call And I will always call out a stupid call when I can when I remember to Anyways I try not to focus on the bad things of the game so much but Jesus did that play piss me off But anyways Miami would win this game 109 to 90 So for some notes with the Miami Heat we got a great Tyler Hero game 385 and four on 81% true shooting He hit three of his seven three-pointers and all three of them were ridiculous shots They were the most impossible three of the game threes of the game And what’s funny is I believe the four that he missed were just more routine catch and shoots But uh Tyler Herro doesn’t like open shots He has the J.R Smith mentality Give me the contested threes all day This was a decent game from Wiggins Even if his efficiency was bad by the end he just kind of took some shots at the end of the game that he shouldn’t have but he was hitting them when Miami took the big lead that they did that ultimately won them the g them the game So he did the part that he was supposed to do when it mattered Give credit to him for it I feel like Bamabio missed every damn shot that he took like jump shot in this game He went one for five from three but the one that he hit was the most wide openen one in the world All of them were wide open but they weren’t going in He also got a ton of mid-range pull-ups out of the pick and roll like really short 10-ft jumpers that refused to go in It was a pretty ugly shooting game from him Da’Von Mitchell I don’t think appeared once in this entire recap which is kind of a shame It’s just that his plays were not like necessarily huge momentum shifters but he was a great player the whole way through for the Miami Heat Really good defense that was really harassing Chicago’s guards and he ended up finishing with 15 points and nine assists He did not miss a shot Going five for five and he had a 110% true shooting percentage Easily the best play of the game to me from him was in the fourth quarter when he blocked Kobe White after being draped all over him for the entire possession Truly an offight moment if there ever was one This was a much better coach team as well that stood out a lot that I think stands out a lot more when when you’re dealing with two teams that are at a talent deficit Like when you have teams that aren’t very good the difference in coaching stands out all the more Like when we’re talking about top teams a lot of it is determined just purely by the talent But teams that are their first options Josh Giddy Tyler Herro nowhere near the top of the list of first options you want in the NBA So it just came down to which one of these teams can actually generate consistent looks as a team And it was easily the Miami Heat Again mentioning the assist to field goal ratio between the two teams it was night and day Their defense was also fantastic and they really shut down the Bulls for prolonged stretches which is the reason that they were able to get out in front They weren’t like locking down the whole time but they would have like five or six minute stretches one in the second quarter one in the fourth where nothing was going Chicago’s way and it just made it all the easier to all the bit easier to bury them Good game for Miami I like this team post Jimmy Butler I would like to actually see them in the playoffs So I am interested to see what they can do if they do end up winning that game against the Atlanta Hawks which I do think is going to happen Also while I’m here let me quickly say that I do think that the Grizzlies will beat the Sacramento Kings And let’s move on to the Chicago Bulls notes I do want to say real quick that in my immediate postgame reaction I was a little bit harsher on Josh Giddy than I should be I I kind of do this thing where I’m definitely negative on him So I point out the negatives more than anything else But one negative I have to point out is he missed every floater that he took in this game He as I mentioned in the recap he offensive rebounded like one or two of them and put them back So you know it wasn’t all bad but he hit one with the last two and a half minutes in the last two and a half minutes of the game in garbage time He overall did not shoot the ball super well He got 25 points but it took 21 shots for him to do it but he was also like the only guy out there who was creating advantages ever There were definitely possessions where the fact that he could not get downhill very effectively was a big reason that the Bulls offense did not work But in terms of the tier of guy who you should blame for them losing Josh Giddy is not very high up on that list I would definitely point out Kobe White as a bigger problem as he shot 5 for 20 from the field 3 for 12 from outside And a lot of those were good looks He got a good handful of clean catch and shoe threes that he just did not drop Uh my only gripe with Giddy especially the thing that I’ve been saying time and time again is that when he actually gets put into a playofflike setting how is his three ball actually going to look well he shot two for seven in this one I will say one of the two threes that he did hit though was sick Uh the fake the pass fake that he did to get into the open shot was clean I really enjoyed that trying to enjoy the good things about him because I don’t want to be so cynical but I cannot emphasize enough Josh Giddy is just the archetype of player that I have always disliked So it’s not personal I just hate true point guards even if they’re 68 unless they’re Magic Johnson Magic Johnson is an exception to the rule Tayen Horton Tucker was weirdly good I’ve seen him have his moments for the Bulls this year but I didn’t expect him to really be a prominent part of the Bulls rotation And yet here he was in the postseason I guess kind of postseason getting big opportunities Uh he hit a post fade that I showed you earlier He hit a pull up three out of the pick and roll that I was surprised by So shout out to him for that He was a positive contributor Patrick Williams was out there doing cardio It’s actually insane how much I have fallen off on my belief in him as a prospect Manis Buzzelis had a lot of big moments He hit that buzzer beating three as I previously mentioned and he also got that and one euroep lefty layup Not a great overall performance from him but it I literally cannot be mad at Boozelis He still did perfectly fine for this being like the highest intensity game probably that he’s played in his NBA career So yeah I mean I harped on the Bulls a lot more in my postgame immediate reaction over on Little Rusty So if you want to hear more about what I think about them go check that out But for the most part uh not surprised This is a you can’t you can’t be upset You can’t be bothered when you don’t have expectations in the first place Like I didn’t care what happened with the Bulls here In fact if anything I would prefer that they lose So the fact that they did is good And I’m hoping that the big thing is I just didn’t want them to learn the lesson again that you can be mid and get rewarded with a playoff spot because of the playin and the fact that you’re in a ass conference The Bulls are not a playoff level team The East is just the way that it is And honestly I would say that of at least the eighth seed that is going to be in the East here the Hawks the the Heat whoever it ends up being Not good Not good teams But it’s not like the East doesn’t traditionally have an eighth seed That’s just a complete wash But god the balances between the conferences only seems to be more blatantly unbalanced as time goes on But yeah that’s that’s enough of that Chicago Bulls can’t disappoint me if I don’t have expectations Miami Heat I really enjoy this team post Jimmy Butler I really do I I just they’re just they just play free They’re not good They’re not a good team but they play in a way that I enjoy a lot

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0:00 Intro

0:57 DAL vs SAC
3:50 Q2 SAC Melts Down
6:10 Q3
8:00 Q4
8:41 DAL Notes
11:25 SAC Notes
14:44 CHI vs MIA
16:19 Q2
17:51 Q3
19:26 Q4
21:19 MIA Notes
24:18 CHI Notes

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