Well, that certainly was fun, wasn't it?
Up until the Clippers-Suns game, game one of the I-80 series was the runaway favorite for best game of the weekend, featuring what felt like three dozen lead changes, Steph and Klay nearly going nuclear in the closing minutes, and Fox and Monk matching them blow for blow (with some clutch support from a vengeful Black Falcon). Oh, and the much ballyhooed Warriors fan takeover turned out to be non-existent with seemingly the only Warriors fan in attendance controversially being removed from the arena early.
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Awards Time, Playoff Edition
Tony Delk Memorial Award- Donte DiVincenzo.
The final stats weren't particularly amazing but DDV had a big effect on the game, hitting his open threes and contributing hustle effort plays all night against his old team. Wound up riding the bench for a lot of the 4th as the Warriors went with Wiggins for most of the quarter instead to the tune of 0-4 shooting and one egregiously missed open three with the game on the line.
Playoff Bonzi- Malik Monk.
With Jason Williams in attendance, Malik fittingly had one of the most erratically explosive games in Kings postseason history. 32 points on a ridiculously efficient 13 shots (going 14-14 from the free throw stripe helps) has a funny way of erasing the occasional dumb possession or five of randomly driving into traffic and getting the ball stripped or throwing the ball directly to the other team. That said, 32 points in 29 minutes is quite the feat and the Warriors wound up running a box-and-1 to try and stop Malik for parts of the second half, which only led to De'Aaron Fox absolutely torching Klay, Poole, and whoever else Steve Kerr decided to sacrifice to him.
Shaq Antics Bringer of the Game- Draymond Green.
Not only dd the guy apparently sprint off the court the second the game was over to go record a podcast but the most enduring play of the game might not be one of Steph's ridiculous threes or Fox putting dudes in blenders but Draymond trying to knock Sabonis out with the Stink Face in the closing seconds of the game.
WTF Moment of the Game- Rather than showing the atmosphere inside G1C, ABC devotes its entire pregame show to discussing Klay Thompson's potential contract extension with Woj.
VF21 Fan of the Game- The entire city of Sacramento.
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dUbS iN f0uR fIvE
In a total quirk of early round NBA scheduling, Mark Jones is apparently calling this game on NBC Sports despite the national broadcast being on TNT.
After the intense emotional roller coaster that was game one, the Kings and Warriors come together in Golden 1 Center again for a Monday evening game two. The Warriors reportedly cancelled practice to instead have a team meeting to announce a change to the starting lineup. While it hasn't been announced, this probably means Wiggins is replacing Donte DiVincenzo in the starting lineup, which in all honesty might actually be good news for the Kings since that means Steph is either going to be stuck guarding Fox to start the game or guarding Harrison Barnes or Keegan at an intense size disadvantage.
Obviously, the Kings are probably going to need their starters to play better to win this one. Sabonis had probably the single worst game of his Kings career (still wound up with a 12/16 double double), Keegan and Kevin wound up going a combined 0-8 from three (and Warriors fans have the gall to think THEY had a bad shooting night), and Harrison Barnes started and finished the game strong while being largely invisible for the middle 3/4 of the game. The bench came out strong with Len playing like he did when Vlade first traded for him pre-pandemic and Big Play Trey finally playing well for the first time since he choked out Brook Lopez. Mike Brown essentially just played his normal rotations sans Kessler Edwards's 8 minutes.
On the Warriors end of things, their bad three point numbers came not from them missing shots they normally make but from them taking so many shots most teams normally wouldn't take (after his hot stretch in the fourth, Klay took like three consecutive threes while double teamed with hands in his face and missed all of them). Of course we all know that the Warriors are perfectly capable of hitting those shots (I WILL NEVER FORGET THAT TIME KLAY THOMPSON ONCE DROPPED 37 POINTS IN A QUARTER AGAINST US, JERRY) but they are even more capable of hitting shots when they're in the flow of their offense and not shots that Buddy Hield would take.
The simple fact of the matter is that both teams did not play their best basketball on Saturday. Yes, the crowd may have had something to do with it but the level of execution from both teams is probably going to take some sort of leap over the next couple of games. We'll see if the Warriors fans actually do have their 'invasion' this time around but I expect the Sactown faithful to be just as raucous and undeniable as they were on Saturday. We'll see if that extra execution starts tonight.
Final Prediction: Kings 127, Warriors 123
Run it back! Domas plays better. Fox remains King Clutch. Keegan and Kevin both make at least one three. We light the beam on their asses again.
As a certain fan once said,
I LOVE THIS TEAM
Up until the Clippers-Suns game, game one of the I-80 series was the runaway favorite for best game of the weekend, featuring what felt like three dozen lead changes, Steph and Klay nearly going nuclear in the closing minutes, and Fox and Monk matching them blow for blow (with some clutch support from a vengeful Black Falcon). Oh, and the much ballyhooed Warriors fan takeover turned out to be non-existent with seemingly the only Warriors fan in attendance controversially being removed from the arena early.
---
Awards Time, Playoff Edition
Tony Delk Memorial Award- Donte DiVincenzo.
The final stats weren't particularly amazing but DDV had a big effect on the game, hitting his open threes and contributing hustle effort plays all night against his old team. Wound up riding the bench for a lot of the 4th as the Warriors went with Wiggins for most of the quarter instead to the tune of 0-4 shooting and one egregiously missed open three with the game on the line.
Playoff Bonzi- Malik Monk.
With Jason Williams in attendance, Malik fittingly had one of the most erratically explosive games in Kings postseason history. 32 points on a ridiculously efficient 13 shots (going 14-14 from the free throw stripe helps) has a funny way of erasing the occasional dumb possession or five of randomly driving into traffic and getting the ball stripped or throwing the ball directly to the other team. That said, 32 points in 29 minutes is quite the feat and the Warriors wound up running a box-and-1 to try and stop Malik for parts of the second half, which only led to De'Aaron Fox absolutely torching Klay, Poole, and whoever else Steve Kerr decided to sacrifice to him.
Shaq Antics Bringer of the Game- Draymond Green.
Not only dd the guy apparently sprint off the court the second the game was over to go record a podcast but the most enduring play of the game might not be one of Steph's ridiculous threes or Fox putting dudes in blenders but Draymond trying to knock Sabonis out with the Stink Face in the closing seconds of the game.
WTF Moment of the Game- Rather than showing the atmosphere inside G1C, ABC devotes its entire pregame show to discussing Klay Thompson's potential contract extension with Woj.
VF21 Fan of the Game- The entire city of Sacramento.
---
dUbS iN f0uR fIvE
In a total quirk of early round NBA scheduling, Mark Jones is apparently calling this game on NBC Sports despite the national broadcast being on TNT.
After the intense emotional roller coaster that was game one, the Kings and Warriors come together in Golden 1 Center again for a Monday evening game two. The Warriors reportedly cancelled practice to instead have a team meeting to announce a change to the starting lineup. While it hasn't been announced, this probably means Wiggins is replacing Donte DiVincenzo in the starting lineup, which in all honesty might actually be good news for the Kings since that means Steph is either going to be stuck guarding Fox to start the game or guarding Harrison Barnes or Keegan at an intense size disadvantage.
Obviously, the Kings are probably going to need their starters to play better to win this one. Sabonis had probably the single worst game of his Kings career (still wound up with a 12/16 double double), Keegan and Kevin wound up going a combined 0-8 from three (and Warriors fans have the gall to think THEY had a bad shooting night), and Harrison Barnes started and finished the game strong while being largely invisible for the middle 3/4 of the game. The bench came out strong with Len playing like he did when Vlade first traded for him pre-pandemic and Big Play Trey finally playing well for the first time since he choked out Brook Lopez. Mike Brown essentially just played his normal rotations sans Kessler Edwards's 8 minutes.
On the Warriors end of things, their bad three point numbers came not from them missing shots they normally make but from them taking so many shots most teams normally wouldn't take (after his hot stretch in the fourth, Klay took like three consecutive threes while double teamed with hands in his face and missed all of them). Of course we all know that the Warriors are perfectly capable of hitting those shots (I WILL NEVER FORGET THAT TIME KLAY THOMPSON ONCE DROPPED 37 POINTS IN A QUARTER AGAINST US, JERRY) but they are even more capable of hitting shots when they're in the flow of their offense and not shots that Buddy Hield would take.
The simple fact of the matter is that both teams did not play their best basketball on Saturday. Yes, the crowd may have had something to do with it but the level of execution from both teams is probably going to take some sort of leap over the next couple of games. We'll see if the Warriors fans actually do have their 'invasion' this time around but I expect the Sactown faithful to be just as raucous and undeniable as they were on Saturday. We'll see if that extra execution starts tonight.
Final Prediction: Kings 127, Warriors 123
Run it back! Domas plays better. Fox remains King Clutch. Keegan and Kevin both make at least one three. We light the beam on their asses again.
As a certain fan once said,
I LOVE THIS TEAM
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