Were the Kings playoff drought a human being, we'd say that it was cut down in its prime, barely even old enough to drive, but the playoff drought was just a concept and so to it I say, "Good riddance.”
Sixteen long years. Sixteen long, painful years filled with tears, suffering, frustration, tears, the Maloofs constantly plotting to tear the Kings away from the city, tears, randomly convincing ourselves Ramon Sessions was good at basketball only to finally acquire him and find out he stunk, more tears, Vivek saving the team, more tears (this time happy ones), NBA 3.0, abject misery, the Weasel, Vlade trading arguably the best player in franchise history while he was literally playing in the All-Star Game, De'Aaron Fox miraculously falling into our laps because NBA GMs inexplicably convinced themselves that Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, and Josh Jackson were better than him, lucking into the second overall pick only for the Bagpocolypse to happen, the scores, Vlade trading the team's leader for a half season of Alec Burks, several years of abject, numb misery courtesy of Puke Walton, the biggest Kings fan of us all passing away, the entirety of sports media lambasting us for trading for Domantas Sabonis, the Kings lottery luck finally turning, the entirety of sports media clowning us again (this time for drafting Keegan Murray), us narrowly avoiding hiring Mark Jackson (the darkest timeline), Mike Brown, and lighting the beam. Now finally, we are here: the island of relevancy.
In case you haven't noticed, (you probably haven't but just nod and pretend you have) I haven't really written many game threads of late. Heck, my post output in general has fallen quite a bit. Some of that is of course me just being busy with real life stuff but mostly it's been a conceited (if not subconscious) effort on my part to live in the moment and appreciate my favorite sports team finally being as good as I'd ever wanted them to be. If there's anything the last sixteen seasons has taught me, it's that you never know when your sports viewing experience will ever be this good again (hopefully the next playoff drought doesn't span four presidents though). Plus, you’d think it’d be easier to write about a team that’s actually good at basketball but apparently there are dozens of ways to describe soul-crushing suckiness but not many ways to discuss a team setting the record for most efficient offense in league history.
Of course, the rest of the league apparently didn’t get the memo as a full season of over-.500 basketball and holding onto the 3 seed for half the season hasn’t stopped the “pundits” from thinking we’re the same old sorry-ass Kings. Yes, the last week plus since the playoff matchups were set have revealed that most of the world will stop at nothing to show their whole bare ass the very first chance they get, including an anonymous coach claiming that the Warriors are going to sweep the Kings (it is important to note that there are a hell of a lot of bad coaches out there) and Warriors fans reminding us that they’re barely a step removed from Lakers fans in terms of a lack of basketball (and general) knowledge (“Mike Brown never won until he joined the Warriors!”).
I’ve had to preface pretty much every single one of my thoughts about this playoff series with something like “Yes, I know the Warriors are the defending champs and have four rings BUT” over the last week and, let me tell ya, it’s been exhausting. Yes, the Warriors have been the most dominant dynasty in sports over the last ten years BUT those dynasty rosters aren’t exactly the roster that’s going to show up on Saturday. Yes, Steph Curry is the greatest shooter to ever play in the NBA BUT that doesn’t mean every single other player in the league sucks by comparison. Yes, the Warriors have four rings BUT that doesn’t mean it’s going to be five. (Somewhere my old improv teacher is having a conniption for me turning all these into “Yes BUT”s instead of “Yes AND”.)
Do I know for sure if the Kings are going to beat the Warriors? Heck no BUT I certainly don’t know if the Warriors are going to beat the Kings either. Both of these defenses aren’t great. Sure, the Warriors have their wing defender back after half a season away but he’s also seeing his first game action in months and apparently going to be limited to 20-25 minutes a night. Also, for better or worse, the Kings aren’t exactly super wing-based as a team anyways and I’m not sure having Wiggins on Fox all game is going to work as well for the Warriors as their fans seem to think (and, no, GPII isn’t ‘locking down’ Swipa either). Sure, Kevon Looney is a very solid center and was a huge reason why they won the Finals last season BUT, with all due respect to both guys, Al Horford and Robert Williams aren’t Domantas Sabonis. Sure, the Kings are bad at defense according to all the numbers BUT we’ve seen them play good defense at times this season when properly motivated.
Are you tired of all the narratives (Golden 1 is just Chase Center East! De’Aaron Fox is only considered clutch because his team isn’t good enough to blow other teams out!) yet because I sure as hell am. Sixteen years of waiting for the postseason finally coming to an end. The third seed in the west. Multiple all-stars. But we may as well still be coached by Kenny Natt.
Previously On...
The last Kings postseason appearance was so long ago that playoff games were on ESPN2 and HD didn't exist yet and Youtube barely did as well. This play still rocks though.
Match-Ups:
De'Aaron Fox vs. Steph Curry
Steph is great. Yes, way to state the obvious. He’s objectively the best perimeter shooter this game has ever seen but he’s far from perfect. I’m assuming the Warriors are going to do everything they can to keep Steph from having to guard De’Aaron Fox one-on-one in this series like they did in the Grizzlies series last season (Mike Brown actually coached most of that series!). As weird as it sounds, I have more faith in De’Aaron Fox guarding Steph than I do Steph guarding Swipa (that’s more on Steph than on Swipa if we’re being honest).
Kevin Huerter vs. Klay Thompson
And here we have a matchup between two of the best shooting shooting guards in the league. While they go about things a little differently (Klay moving more classically offball while Kevin operates with the ball in his hands as a secondary creator/gets spoonfed Sabonis handoffs), there is no doubt both of these guys can shoot the ever-loving hell out of the ball. Klay used to be one of the best defenders in the league. Now he’s roughly the same level of defender as Kevin Huerter. As a pure scorer, Klay still has Kevin beat (HEY DID YOU KNOW THAT KLAY ONCE SCORED 37 POINTS IN A SINGLE QUARTER AGAINST THE KINGS?!) but Kevin can still do a lot on the periphery to make this particular matchup a wash.
Keegan Murray vs. Donte DiVincenzo
With Wiggins coming off the bench (at least to start the series), be prepared for the Warriors to start the game small and go from there. If you’ve been on this site for the past two years, you know what to expect from DDV. If you weren’t, then what the hell are you even doing here? If the Warriors do play DDV and Klay to start, I’d expect Keegan to face a lot of Klay to being the game. It’s rare for playoff teams to start rookies but Keegan is not your typical rookie in that, unlike most other rookies, he has no soul and is probably eating another bowl of plain boiled chicken over rice as I type this.
Harrison Barnes vs. Draymond Green
Draymond famously kicked Harrison Barnes off the team after the 73-9 Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the Finals, blaming HB’s poor shooting in the series for the loss (although Draymond getting himself suspended for antics midway through the series may have also had more to do with the series shifting). Draymond is probably going to spend lots of time on Sabonis,
Domantas Sabonis vs. Kevon Looney
If you listen to Warriors fans, this matchup is actually going to be Domas versus Steph for some inexplicable reason (yes, I’d very much like to see 6’2” Steph Curry try to guard 6’11” Domantas Sabonis in the post.
Kings Bench vs. Warriors Bench
Malik and Jordan Poole get to have an erratic firecracker scorer showdown.
Kessler and Davion are going to have their hands full as our key defensive subs (Wiggins and GPII fulfill that role on the Warriors, at least to start this series). Kuminga has really turned into solid forward for the Warriors as has Trey Lyles for the Kings. Can you tell these teams run similar systems yet?
The rest: Mateen. (That one’s for you, Piksi, wherever you are.)
Mike Brown vs. Steve Kerr
Warrior fans will tell you that Mike Brown never won anything until he came to Golden State, which is ignoring the entire twenty plus years of Mike Brown's career prior to joining Steve Kerr's coaching staff. Earlier in the season when the Warriors were really struggling, the same Warriors fans claiming Mike Brown is nothing without the Warriors were claiming the loss of Mike Brown was impossible to overcome. Regardless of whichever narrative is closer to the truth (neither?), I’m just glad Brown is in charge of my favorite basketball team.
***
Final Prediction: Kings 129, Warriors 123
No matter what happens, let’s enjoy the ride. Hell, even if we lose this first game, there are still at least three more. Not that I expect us to lose. Let’s light that freaking beam, baby!
Sixteen long years. Sixteen long, painful years filled with tears, suffering, frustration, tears, the Maloofs constantly plotting to tear the Kings away from the city, tears, randomly convincing ourselves Ramon Sessions was good at basketball only to finally acquire him and find out he stunk, more tears, Vivek saving the team, more tears (this time happy ones), NBA 3.0, abject misery, the Weasel, Vlade trading arguably the best player in franchise history while he was literally playing in the All-Star Game, De'Aaron Fox miraculously falling into our laps because NBA GMs inexplicably convinced themselves that Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, and Josh Jackson were better than him, lucking into the second overall pick only for the Bagpocolypse to happen, the scores, Vlade trading the team's leader for a half season of Alec Burks, several years of abject, numb misery courtesy of Puke Walton, the biggest Kings fan of us all passing away, the entirety of sports media lambasting us for trading for Domantas Sabonis, the Kings lottery luck finally turning, the entirety of sports media clowning us again (this time for drafting Keegan Murray), us narrowly avoiding hiring Mark Jackson (the darkest timeline), Mike Brown, and lighting the beam. Now finally, we are here: the island of relevancy.
In case you haven't noticed, (you probably haven't but just nod and pretend you have) I haven't really written many game threads of late. Heck, my post output in general has fallen quite a bit. Some of that is of course me just being busy with real life stuff but mostly it's been a conceited (if not subconscious) effort on my part to live in the moment and appreciate my favorite sports team finally being as good as I'd ever wanted them to be. If there's anything the last sixteen seasons has taught me, it's that you never know when your sports viewing experience will ever be this good again (hopefully the next playoff drought doesn't span four presidents though). Plus, you’d think it’d be easier to write about a team that’s actually good at basketball but apparently there are dozens of ways to describe soul-crushing suckiness but not many ways to discuss a team setting the record for most efficient offense in league history.
Of course, the rest of the league apparently didn’t get the memo as a full season of over-.500 basketball and holding onto the 3 seed for half the season hasn’t stopped the “pundits” from thinking we’re the same old sorry-ass Kings. Yes, the last week plus since the playoff matchups were set have revealed that most of the world will stop at nothing to show their whole bare ass the very first chance they get, including an anonymous coach claiming that the Warriors are going to sweep the Kings (it is important to note that there are a hell of a lot of bad coaches out there) and Warriors fans reminding us that they’re barely a step removed from Lakers fans in terms of a lack of basketball (and general) knowledge (“Mike Brown never won until he joined the Warriors!”).
I’ve had to preface pretty much every single one of my thoughts about this playoff series with something like “Yes, I know the Warriors are the defending champs and have four rings BUT” over the last week and, let me tell ya, it’s been exhausting. Yes, the Warriors have been the most dominant dynasty in sports over the last ten years BUT those dynasty rosters aren’t exactly the roster that’s going to show up on Saturday. Yes, Steph Curry is the greatest shooter to ever play in the NBA BUT that doesn’t mean every single other player in the league sucks by comparison. Yes, the Warriors have four rings BUT that doesn’t mean it’s going to be five. (Somewhere my old improv teacher is having a conniption for me turning all these into “Yes BUT”s instead of “Yes AND”.)
Do I know for sure if the Kings are going to beat the Warriors? Heck no BUT I certainly don’t know if the Warriors are going to beat the Kings either. Both of these defenses aren’t great. Sure, the Warriors have their wing defender back after half a season away but he’s also seeing his first game action in months and apparently going to be limited to 20-25 minutes a night. Also, for better or worse, the Kings aren’t exactly super wing-based as a team anyways and I’m not sure having Wiggins on Fox all game is going to work as well for the Warriors as their fans seem to think (and, no, GPII isn’t ‘locking down’ Swipa either). Sure, Kevon Looney is a very solid center and was a huge reason why they won the Finals last season BUT, with all due respect to both guys, Al Horford and Robert Williams aren’t Domantas Sabonis. Sure, the Kings are bad at defense according to all the numbers BUT we’ve seen them play good defense at times this season when properly motivated.
Are you tired of all the narratives (Golden 1 is just Chase Center East! De’Aaron Fox is only considered clutch because his team isn’t good enough to blow other teams out!) yet because I sure as hell am. Sixteen years of waiting for the postseason finally coming to an end. The third seed in the west. Multiple all-stars. But we may as well still be coached by Kenny Natt.
Previously On...
Match-Ups:
De'Aaron Fox vs. Steph Curry
Steph is great. Yes, way to state the obvious. He’s objectively the best perimeter shooter this game has ever seen but he’s far from perfect. I’m assuming the Warriors are going to do everything they can to keep Steph from having to guard De’Aaron Fox one-on-one in this series like they did in the Grizzlies series last season (Mike Brown actually coached most of that series!). As weird as it sounds, I have more faith in De’Aaron Fox guarding Steph than I do Steph guarding Swipa (that’s more on Steph than on Swipa if we’re being honest).
Kevin Huerter vs. Klay Thompson
And here we have a matchup between two of the best shooting shooting guards in the league. While they go about things a little differently (Klay moving more classically offball while Kevin operates with the ball in his hands as a secondary creator/gets spoonfed Sabonis handoffs), there is no doubt both of these guys can shoot the ever-loving hell out of the ball. Klay used to be one of the best defenders in the league. Now he’s roughly the same level of defender as Kevin Huerter. As a pure scorer, Klay still has Kevin beat (HEY DID YOU KNOW THAT KLAY ONCE SCORED 37 POINTS IN A SINGLE QUARTER AGAINST THE KINGS?!) but Kevin can still do a lot on the periphery to make this particular matchup a wash.
Keegan Murray vs. Donte DiVincenzo
With Wiggins coming off the bench (at least to start the series), be prepared for the Warriors to start the game small and go from there. If you’ve been on this site for the past two years, you know what to expect from DDV. If you weren’t, then what the hell are you even doing here? If the Warriors do play DDV and Klay to start, I’d expect Keegan to face a lot of Klay to being the game. It’s rare for playoff teams to start rookies but Keegan is not your typical rookie in that, unlike most other rookies, he has no soul and is probably eating another bowl of plain boiled chicken over rice as I type this.
Harrison Barnes vs. Draymond Green
Draymond famously kicked Harrison Barnes off the team after the 73-9 Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the Finals, blaming HB’s poor shooting in the series for the loss (although Draymond getting himself suspended for antics midway through the series may have also had more to do with the series shifting). Draymond is probably going to spend lots of time on Sabonis,
Domantas Sabonis vs. Kevon Looney
If you listen to Warriors fans, this matchup is actually going to be Domas versus Steph for some inexplicable reason (yes, I’d very much like to see 6’2” Steph Curry try to guard 6’11” Domantas Sabonis in the post.
Kings Bench vs. Warriors Bench
Malik and Jordan Poole get to have an erratic firecracker scorer showdown.
Kessler and Davion are going to have their hands full as our key defensive subs (Wiggins and GPII fulfill that role on the Warriors, at least to start this series). Kuminga has really turned into solid forward for the Warriors as has Trey Lyles for the Kings. Can you tell these teams run similar systems yet?
The rest: Mateen. (That one’s for you, Piksi, wherever you are.)
Mike Brown vs. Steve Kerr
Warrior fans will tell you that Mike Brown never won anything until he came to Golden State, which is ignoring the entire twenty plus years of Mike Brown's career prior to joining Steve Kerr's coaching staff. Earlier in the season when the Warriors were really struggling, the same Warriors fans claiming Mike Brown is nothing without the Warriors were claiming the loss of Mike Brown was impossible to overcome. Regardless of whichever narrative is closer to the truth (neither?), I’m just glad Brown is in charge of my favorite basketball team.
***
Final Prediction: Kings 129, Warriors 123
No matter what happens, let’s enjoy the ride. Hell, even if we lose this first game, there are still at least three more. Not that I expect us to lose. Let’s light that freaking beam, baby!
