After an impressive performance Saturday evening against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Portland Trail Blazers hit the road for one game to face the Sacramento Kings on Sunday. Shaedon Sharpe lead the way for the Blazers against the Kings with 25 points, with Donovan Clingan adding 11 boards, and Caleb Love contributed 22 points and 7 assists. It was a solid night for Rip City, beating LA 132-116, with only a few moments of concern after the first quarter.
The King aren’t quite at the bottom of the Western Conference, but they don’t have to strain their eyes to see it. Sacramento is 12-30 on the season, only above the New Orleans Pelicans at 10-34. Easy sailing for the Blazers, right? Maybe not. The Kings are on a four-game winning streak, defeating the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Washington Wizards, all at home. That’s three recent wins over presumed playoff competition… and the Wizards. Sacramento will also have the luxury of not having to travel and not being on a back-to-back. So let’s not put this one in the win column just yet.
For the Blazers, they have a chance to get back to .500 with a win, a significant achievement after all of the injuries.
What you Need to Know
Portland Trail Blazers (21-22) at Sacramento Kings – (12-30) Sunday., Jan. 18 – 6:00pm Pacific
How to watch via antenna or cable: See your options on the Rip City Television Network
How to stream: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; League Pass everywhere else
How to listen: Trail Blazers Audio Network
Trail Blazers Injuries: Scoot Henderson, Damian Lillard, Kris Murray, Matisse Thybulle, Blake Wesley, Jerami Grant, Jrue Holiday, Robert Williams III (Out).
Kings injuries: Keegan Murray, Isaiah Stevens (Out); Keon Ellis (Questionable).
Kit: The Blazers will take the floor in its Statement Edition uniform.
Storylines
Deni Avdija’s Injury
Will Deni play? As of this writing it’s still unclear, although the indicators seem to point downward. While it’s never great to lose your best and most consistent player, the Blazers have weathered his absence so far, going 2-1 without him. If Avdija doesn’t play or is on limited minutes, Sacramento will provide another challenge for the injury plagued Blazers.
Are the Kings Suddenly… Good?
You’d be forgiven for seeing Sacramento on the schedule and mentally adding a W to the Blazers’ results column. The fact is that they may have recently found something. The Kings have suddenly found a confidence and competence on both ends of the court, and they are getting solid contributions from both their bigger names and the bench. Make no mistake, they do have some talent: DeMar DeRozan, Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk, and or course Drew Eubanks. Lately they’ve been reminding folks that they can play some hoops. Four wins in a row for the Kings could well prove to be an anomaly when the season is said and done, but the Blazers need to understand that they may up against a hungry team at the peak of their confidence, and they’ll need to play accordingly to get the win.
What Others Are Saying
Ian Goodwillie of A Royal Pain examines the turn of fortunes for the Kings
The most important part of this is that defense is flowing into the offense, then back onto defense. There is a real rhythm across the court, which is how they have secured their longest win streak of the season. Next up on the schedule are the Blazers, a team the Kings are capable of beating.
Akis Yerocostas of Kings Herald is pleading for Sacramento to take more threes
The biggest indictment of Doug Christie as a coach in my opinion is the simple fact that the Kings play offense like it’s the year 2000. Even against the Lakers where the Kings made an absurd 17 of their 26 three point attempts, the fact that they only shot 26 threes is ridiculous and was even lower than their league low 30.1 attempts a game. This problem started a little bit once the Kings got DeMar DeRozan with his affinity for midrange jumpers, but this year it’s become even worse. Russell Westbrook shouldn’t be leading this team in three point makes and attempts, but at least he is shooting them. It’s just simple math that shooting a three is better than shooting a two, unless the two is coming at the rim. Even shooting just 33.3% from three would result in the same amount of points as shooting 50% from two. DeMar DeRozan, as good as he is from mid-range, only shoots 46.9% from 16 feet to the 3 point line, and 48.7% from 10-16 feet. He’s shooting 36% from distance, the best of his career, but only 2.2 attempts a game. Zach LaVine, one of the best shooters in the NBA, is only at 6.7 attempts a game, the fewest he’s attempted since the 2018-19 season. Hell, Max should be shooting a couple attempts a game if we want to eventually develop him to be a stretch big, but he’s only at 0.8 attempts. This team needs to shoot more threes, and that’s on Coach Christie to implement.
