It's a spooky Halloween game for the Sacramento Kings as they embark on their first road trip of the season! And it's Halloween! Spooky!
Awards Time
Tony Delk Memorial Award -Tyler Herro. There was pretty much no other choice in this game as his scoring explosion in the second half is pretty much the only thing that put the Heat in a position to win. Thankfully, the guy gave up as many points on defense as he was getting on offense and also got
The CoJo Award - Richaun Holmes, who didn't play a particularly good or bad game but just sorta took up minutes without really doing anything of note with Sabonis in foul trouble, which is sorta a CoJo staple.
Mikki Moore - Davion Mitchell. Is a 1-4 assist to turnover ratio good?
Shareef Abdur-Rahim - I am contractually obligated to give this award to 576-year-old Udonis Haslem, who saw playing time because the Heat are a weirdly constructed team and have pretty much no depth at the big man spot with Dwayne Dedmon out. In true UD fashion, his highlight reel pretty much consisted of him drawing a couple charges, kinda setting half-screens and almost knocking several people out with his elbows.
Spooky Moment of the Night- The Kings take a twenty point lead into the second half and nearly lose it.
We're Talking Boo-sketball
And the Kings are on the road for the first time in the young season. Normally, you'd expect a dip from a team hitting the road for nine days but, considering the Kings are 1-4 and coming off a stretch of games against the hottest team in the league (Portland), the defending champions (Warriors), the Grizzlies, and the Clippers before Paul George was cursed by a witch and immediately forgot how to play basketball, I'm not sure how much of one we'll see.
Based purely off their roster, the Hornets are by far the weakest team the Kings have faced this season and yet they have a better record than the Warriors and Clippers. With LaMelo Ball still out due to an injury and their second best player who was fresh off of a breakout season no longer on their team thanks to, well, you can google why, the Hornets have started the season under new/old head coach Steve Clifford at 3-3 on the back of Gordon Hayward, PJ Washington, and a resurgent Dennis Smith Jr. filling in for Melo.
The Hornets latest victory was a seven point overtime victory over the Golden State Warriors, who as we saw in our game with them are have major issues with their bench depth at the moment. In true Steve Clifford fashion, the Hornets are playing slower and more assertively on defense though a lot of that might have to do with Lamelo Ball being out and Kelly Oubre being in the midst of one of his patented hot stretches (that will convenient end a game or two after he plays the Kings).
With all their early success, the Hornets also gave the Magic their first win of the season the night before beating the Warriors so they also can play down as often as they play up.
In the middle, Miles Plumlee is still in the league, the last Plumlee standing and a fairly solid replacement level center who has lucked himself on a franchise permanently cursed to not acquire a better big than him despite them drafting four different guys in the last two drafts alone. Plumlee's fairy big but he's not a brute force bruiser like Steven Adams or Zubac, which bodes better for a strong Domanatrix Sabonis performance tonight than if he were.
DSJ is defending at a very solid level to start the year and producing well on offense. While he'll probably never live up to the "Better than Fox?" hype he was getting during the draft. The good news for him is he has a chance to prove it by going head to head with Swipa tonight! De'Aaron had an off scoring night against the Heat but made up for it with rebounding and strong defensive stands against Tyler Herro.
The one area of strength the Hornets still do have is at the forward/wing position, where even without Miles Bridges they still have Gordon Hayward, PJ Washington, Kelly Oubre, Jalen McDaniels, and Cody Martin (when healthy) playing productive minutes. Keegan Murray might finally have a bad game against the length of the Hornets or, since this is Slim Duncan, he might just drop his usual 20 on 4-8 from three and call it a night.
Hopefully, tonight will be what Davion needs to get going because if there's one thing that we saw him enjoy doing his rookie season it was terrorizing James Bouknight like an axe murder mowing down a cabin full of co-eds in an 80s straight to video horror spinoff. Malik Monk also gets to come back to the arena where Michael Jordan once smacked him in the head during an actual NBA game. While his scoring numbers are all down, Monk is playmaking at a higher rate than he has before. Hopefully he'll see more time with Fox and Sabonis since, unlike a certain other sharpshooting shooting guard the Kings once employed, he actually plays better off of stars than just bombing away from the perimeter like a psychopath. Trey Lyles had a nice showing against Miami and, while I don't particularly like this matchup for him against the Hornets, I'm hoping he'll stay in the rotation seeing as he's apparently the only bench forward capable of doing something at this point.
All in all, the Hornets aren't to be taken lightly but they also aren't the Memphis Grizzlies at this particular point with their start player still out with no timetable to return. If the Kings don't let down their guard and play how they're capable of doing, they'll win.
Spooky Injury Report
Kings-
No one listed.
Hornets-
LaMelo Ball - OUT (bought a haunted doll)
Terry Rozier - DOUBTFUL (possessed by demon)
Cody Martin - DOUBTFUL (ate too much candy corn )
Final Prediction
One win down. Let's get the next before it's time to go trick'r'treating!
Kings 123, Hornets 112
Awards Time
Tony Delk Memorial Award -Tyler Herro. There was pretty much no other choice in this game as his scoring explosion in the second half is pretty much the only thing that put the Heat in a position to win. Thankfully, the guy gave up as many points on defense as he was getting on offense and also got
The CoJo Award - Richaun Holmes, who didn't play a particularly good or bad game but just sorta took up minutes without really doing anything of note with Sabonis in foul trouble, which is sorta a CoJo staple.
Mikki Moore - Davion Mitchell. Is a 1-4 assist to turnover ratio good?
Shareef Abdur-Rahim - I am contractually obligated to give this award to 576-year-old Udonis Haslem, who saw playing time because the Heat are a weirdly constructed team and have pretty much no depth at the big man spot with Dwayne Dedmon out. In true UD fashion, his highlight reel pretty much consisted of him drawing a couple charges, kinda setting half-screens and almost knocking several people out with his elbows.
Spooky Moment of the Night- The Kings take a twenty point lead into the second half and nearly lose it.
We're Talking Boo-sketball
And the Kings are on the road for the first time in the young season. Normally, you'd expect a dip from a team hitting the road for nine days but, considering the Kings are 1-4 and coming off a stretch of games against the hottest team in the league (Portland), the defending champions (Warriors), the Grizzlies, and the Clippers before Paul George was cursed by a witch and immediately forgot how to play basketball, I'm not sure how much of one we'll see.
Based purely off their roster, the Hornets are by far the weakest team the Kings have faced this season and yet they have a better record than the Warriors and Clippers. With LaMelo Ball still out due to an injury and their second best player who was fresh off of a breakout season no longer on their team thanks to, well, you can google why, the Hornets have started the season under new/old head coach Steve Clifford at 3-3 on the back of Gordon Hayward, PJ Washington, and a resurgent Dennis Smith Jr. filling in for Melo.
The Hornets latest victory was a seven point overtime victory over the Golden State Warriors, who as we saw in our game with them are have major issues with their bench depth at the moment. In true Steve Clifford fashion, the Hornets are playing slower and more assertively on defense though a lot of that might have to do with Lamelo Ball being out and Kelly Oubre being in the midst of one of his patented hot stretches (that will convenient end a game or two after he plays the Kings).
With all their early success, the Hornets also gave the Magic their first win of the season the night before beating the Warriors so they also can play down as often as they play up.
In the middle, Miles Plumlee is still in the league, the last Plumlee standing and a fairly solid replacement level center who has lucked himself on a franchise permanently cursed to not acquire a better big than him despite them drafting four different guys in the last two drafts alone. Plumlee's fairy big but he's not a brute force bruiser like Steven Adams or Zubac, which bodes better for a strong Domanatrix Sabonis performance tonight than if he were.
DSJ is defending at a very solid level to start the year and producing well on offense. While he'll probably never live up to the "Better than Fox?" hype he was getting during the draft. The good news for him is he has a chance to prove it by going head to head with Swipa tonight! De'Aaron had an off scoring night against the Heat but made up for it with rebounding and strong defensive stands against Tyler Herro.
The one area of strength the Hornets still do have is at the forward/wing position, where even without Miles Bridges they still have Gordon Hayward, PJ Washington, Kelly Oubre, Jalen McDaniels, and Cody Martin (when healthy) playing productive minutes. Keegan Murray might finally have a bad game against the length of the Hornets or, since this is Slim Duncan, he might just drop his usual 20 on 4-8 from three and call it a night.
Hopefully, tonight will be what Davion needs to get going because if there's one thing that we saw him enjoy doing his rookie season it was terrorizing James Bouknight like an axe murder mowing down a cabin full of co-eds in an 80s straight to video horror spinoff. Malik Monk also gets to come back to the arena where Michael Jordan once smacked him in the head during an actual NBA game. While his scoring numbers are all down, Monk is playmaking at a higher rate than he has before. Hopefully he'll see more time with Fox and Sabonis since, unlike a certain other sharpshooting shooting guard the Kings once employed, he actually plays better off of stars than just bombing away from the perimeter like a psychopath. Trey Lyles had a nice showing against Miami and, while I don't particularly like this matchup for him against the Hornets, I'm hoping he'll stay in the rotation seeing as he's apparently the only bench forward capable of doing something at this point.
All in all, the Hornets aren't to be taken lightly but they also aren't the Memphis Grizzlies at this particular point with their start player still out with no timetable to return. If the Kings don't let down their guard and play how they're capable of doing, they'll win.
Spooky Injury Report
Kings-
No one listed.
Hornets-
LaMelo Ball - OUT (bought a haunted doll)
Terry Rozier - DOUBTFUL (possessed by demon)
Cody Martin - DOUBTFUL (ate too much candy corn )
Final Prediction
One win down. Let's get the next before it's time to go trick'r'treating!
Kings 123, Hornets 112
They better start undoing some of what they did to get him back to a decent shooting point guard. They tried to get more arc on his shot and instead they created this studied, robotic shot that will get him out of the league sooner rather than later if they don't do something about it.
