Kings have no time to lick their wounds from loss to Suns Originally broadcast on NBC Sports Bay Area
SACRAMENTO – The Kings are stumbling through their worst period of the season, but there's no time for self-pity or licking their wounds.
Time is running out for the Sacramento side as the Phoenix Suns come to Golden 1 Center for another important game on Friday.
The Kings were handled fairly easily with a 135-123 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans in G1C on Thursday, giving them their fourth loss in five games and falling into a three-way tie for the eighth time with the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers. Ta. A very crowded Western Conference spot.
The next few days should be wild and quirky.
The Kings still have a chance at seventh place, especially if they can beat the Suns and grab a tiebreaker between the two teams. They also hold a tiebreaker advantage over both the Warriors and Lakers.
If Sacramento doesn't turn things around quickly, it could drop to the final play-in spot.
Whatever margin of error the Kings have left, it's razor-thin at best.
“We know the importance of it,” Keegan Murray said. “We know it's a close game, and when you play a meaningful regular season game, you've got to be on your toes. We have a big game tomorrow against Phoenix, so we've got to throw this out the window.” feel like.”
Friday night's game against the Suns could very well be the Kings' biggest NBA game of the 2023-24 season.
Finishing as a seventh or eighth seed would give coach Mike Brown's team a better chance of making the playoffs even if it loses a play-in game. The 9th and 10th place teams ended their season with one loss.
The Kings clearly know what's at stake.
“When you're 9 or 10 years old, you wake up that day and you just had a bad day and you're done,” De'Aaron Fox said. “At least when you're 7-8, you technically could have a bad result in the first fight. Obviously, you don't want to do that. But having two chances means basically one. It's much better than having just one chance and having to win that chance and then having to win the next game.
“So in times like this it's much easier to go 1-1 than 2-0.”
Sacramento only has to look in the mirror to see why the season turned out the way it did.
The day before they departed for their final road trip of the season, the Kings held a slight advantage in eighth place and were two games behind the Lakers in the loss column.
But in a very short span of time, the standings got really confusing.
After blowing multiple leads during the road trip, the Kings lost three of their next four games before returning home and being dealt by the Pelicans.
Sacramento will learn its fate within the next 72 hours. With the Suns at home, the Kings will face the lowly Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday afternoon in their final game of the regular season.
Brown accepts the challenges facing his team and encourages his players in Sacramento to do the same.
“When I go home, I bang my head against the wall like everyone else in the locker room when we lose,” Brown said. “But for probably the last 10 games, maybe a little longer, every time we stepped on the floor, there was an expectation that we were going to win.
“One win can move you up three places, and one loss can move you down three places. It's great for all of us to be able to experience this situation, especially being in our second year on the team. It's a valuable learning experience. I hope we come out on top, but we have to fight for a play-in spot and we realized in our first game how great it is to play at home. I'm so excited because I know it's going to happen twice.
“If we could finish sixth, I wanted that more than anything, or I would have liked fifth, but at the end of the day this is where we are. Now, take it, learn from it, grow from it. , let's see what happens. There's no question that that's what we all want and what we're trying to accomplish. But we're not going to do that on the court. You have to accomplish that. It's that simple.”
