The Sacramento Kings hope to carry some momentum on the road Thursday night against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Sacramento earned a 120-111 win over the Houston Rockets Tuesday night in a change from a recent slump. The Kings were 1-6 in their last seven games entering that contest against Houston and used solid team play to bank their first home win of December.
“We had 47 made field goals and 33 assists,” Kings coach Mike Brown said. “We made the game easy for one another, we played together.”
Brown said what he witnessed against the Rockets “is who we are supposed to be.”
“That’s our standard,” Brown said. “We have to compete and we competed for 48 minutes.”
Malik Monk was particularly effective with 17 points and a game-high 12 assists. Domantas Sabonis led the way with 27 points and De’Aaron Fox added 22 along with seven assists.
“You talk about having the ball in your hands during a lot of possessions during a game,” Brown said of Monk. “And to have 12 assists and no turnovers shows you what he is capable of.”
Brown said the Kings didn’t do anything different to snap out of their doldrums.
“I told them we are a lot better than we’ve been playing and they went out and (played better),” Brown said. “We didn’t do anything different or tricky.’
The Grizzlies saw their six-game win streak snapped on Tuesday with a loss on the road to the Mavericks.
Dallas rallied from 15 points down in the final quarter to get a 121-116 win. Memphis led 111-103 after a Ja Morant 3-pointer at the 3:31 mark but the Mavericks closed the game on a 18-5 run to seal the NBA Cup game.
Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins was upset after the game that the Mavericks shot 26 free throws in the fourth quarter to only three for the Grizzlies, who, Jenkins emphasized, play an attacking style.
According to ESPN Stats & Info, the disparity was the largest in a quarter in an NBA game since 2015.
“I don’t know how in an NBA Cup game you have that big of a disparity,” Jenkins said. “I’m going to be careful with my words and stuff, but in an NBA Cup game, I don’t know how you have a team shoot 30 more free throws.”
With their overall win streak snapped, Memphis will have another streak on the line Thursday night as the Grizzlies have won five in a row at FedEx Forum.
Despite the loss to Dallas, there’s reason for hope in Memphis. Morant had a team-high 31 points against the Mavericks and seems to have recovered from a November hip injury. Desmond Bane, who had missed several games with a strained oblique, snapped out of a shooting slump to finish the game with 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting.
Rookie big man Zach Edey appears close to returning from an ankle injury and fellow rookie Jaylen Wells continues to out-perform his first-year status.
Wells was named NBA Western Conference Rookie of the Month for October and November. A second-round pick out of Washington State, Wells averaged 12.2 points and shot 45.4 percent in 20 games, 15 of which he started. He leads all Western Conference rookies in scoring.
–Field Level Media