[Game] Kings @ Miami Heat, 1/31/2024, 4:30p PT/7:30p ET

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Well we lost. I don’t feel too bad about this one. We were competitive for the most part and we did so with very little help for Keegan and to a lesser extent Domas and Kevin. We aren’t talented enough to win regularly if we have 3 or 4 guys have an off night.

having said that, this was almost a guaranteed loss. Miami was on the ropes and they desperately needed this win. I’d love to win 2 of the next 3 for an outstanding road trip but would still be happy with 4-3. We are due for a hot shooting night too
If someone told me we are going to lose this one , was not going to atgue too much , Heat is a good team, that is out of question ...
But to loose it in this way was anoying thing ...
HB Fox and Coach were not ready for this game at all ...
From the bench Monk and Mitchell did aboslutely nothing at all too
Lyles did not bring much as well ...

And there is a bit of a bitter taste that we did not see Elis in the game at all , Len as well , maybe even Duarte could have make an impact ...

And coach with frustrating decisions , pull out fox for Davion and we get back down from 0 to minus 10,12 and kept Barnes and Fox for the whole time of the 4th , when even the blind ones saw they aren't good for the game ...
 
It's so frustrating. Maybe because there are steps I thought we'd be taking this year but aren't...
Can not judge well i compare to last year obviously , but there are small things this which separate this team from being great and they are just very good ...
One of the most important is Brown in my eyes ...
He has one idea which obviously did well last year but he isnt having a second plan ... If one of this staritng 5 is not delivering he is in trouble , if 2 arent he is just lost ...
 
All of these bad games are starting to pile up for Fox. When is it acceptable to start freaking out about how disengaged he's look like all month long?

It feels like he's giving us the same level of effort during the Haliburton era.
 
The performance was ugly from the beginning till the end with the exception of some moments that Keegan and Domas did their things. All the other players (apart from Kevin that was just "okay") were either bad or awful.

12/40 3 pointers 5/29 excluding Keegan, so many wide open ones from Fox, Monk and Barnes (1/22 from that "trio"). Meanwhile the Heat shot 13/28.
Another match that we were outscored in the free throw line, last season I think Kings were 3rd (and were 2nd at some point) in "free throw differential" (a wide margin behind the Lakers though that are a "lock" in this area, historically speaking), this season is nothing like it. I remember Keegan shooting so many free throws in summer league, making many drives to the basket and all thought that we would be shooting even more this season but nope, the opposite happens and the percentage went down as well as we all know.

Defense wasn't that good either, as someone mentioned Heat had 40 assists with just 9 turnovers, Kyle Draper told when the match was ending that all Miami field goals in 2nd half were "assisted" , incredible. On the other end Kings had 26 half of them from Sabonis. Monk had 0 with 3 turnovers in the limited time he was on the floor. Ok will stop "reading the boxscore.

Fox still looks either mentally or physically or both not at 100%. Bad shot selection, bad choices running the offense and at this point it looks like he won't make it in the All Star Game and to an All NBA team if the awards were to be given right now (Hali, Brunson, SGA, Doncic, Ant, Booker, Donovan, Curry and even perhaps Maxey have more chances -if eligible- to be the chosen ones). Barnes after those 2 epic performances is worse than he used to be since he is not passive any more, taking a decent amount of shots (mostly open ones, corner 3s etc) missing most of them. With Sasha injured he still gets to play a lot of time since Brown doesn't trust anyone else to fill in for him. Somehow all starters today played 37+ minutes even though most of them didn't play well. No idea why Ellis has done to deserve no playing time at all, no clue why Len isn't playing either, for Duarte ok i get it (no idea what happened to him after his rookie season that was so impressive), for Kessler this 1 minute max time also doesn't make so much sense. He helped us a lot last season, rarely gets the chance the current one.

To me it's a miracle that the team has a slightly better record compared with last season facing so many issues, losing half of the matches with double digit margin. Last year Fox and Monk barely had a handful of bad performances but this season despite starting well, things not looking good for them in January.

I don't think a potential trade can turn things around, I just hope that the team "remembers" to play well at least in offense like last season because it is frustrating to see similar things repeatedly in every match. At least not so many turnovers this time, especially after the 1st quarter that we gave the ball quite easily.

I love the team so I hope they will "wake up" soon enough and surprise us all again.
 
Kings take too many 3's for a mid 3 point shooting team. Doesn't bode well for the playoffs. They have nothing else if the 3's aren't going. Sadly it's not going to change. I think I heard kings coaching staff say that's the way they want to play.. to shoot 40 3's a game.
So is it the way the “staff” wants them to play? Or is that the way the “team” wants to play? Either way Just makes more sense to me that if your 3’s aren’t dropping , why keep shooting them with no success instead of maybe just going in the paint for 2? I mean 2 points is better than a air ball or riming out or just not going for whatever reason. It makes no sense to me why they keep doing what’s not working.
 
All of these bad games are starting to pile up for Fox. When is it acceptable to start freaking out about how disengaged he's look like all month long?

It feels like he's giving us the same level of effort during the Haliburton era.
He's coming off an excellent 3-game stretch, so not like it's just been a month long of suck. Very much looked like he snapped out of his slump, only to jump right back into a stinker in this one.

But I think does highlight that Fox simply cannot just take games off and play this poorly. Done it far too often the last 15 games and it just flat out sinks us. Reality is that Fox as a top 15 player, has to show up with 25-5-5, 90%+ of the time. And certainly can't have games where your shooting just sinks the team.
 
Call the front office and tell them to give :
Vezenkov , Lin , Duarte , Ellis , Kesslar and Jones to have the almighty Smith in ... (we are not using those 6 anyway)
Lets just pray that this Smith will turn Lyles , HB , DM and Monk to wake up again ... (higly foubt that two of those can at all ... )
Not sure why but nobody is worried how big whole is Lyles at the moment ... He is getting ave 18/19 minutes per game while last 10 games he is under 5 points ave ...
Same with Barnes , he played 3 excellent games and now we will have to wait another 15/20 for the next good game ...
Mitchel is pretty much pathetic every time he is on the floor ( he did well with GS)
Since Bucks burnout Monk is not the same
Fox is missing already for a while ...
But all of this will change with a new defensive player !?
Team is good at the moment , wasting many players for one is not the solution ... Coach is there to see all of the above and change the players accrodingly to their performance not the be ice cold stuburn with 5/6 guys and that is all ...
My opinion of course
 

hrdboild

Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Staff member
Kindof hard to figure how a team that was praised last season for their mental toughness could now be viewed as exactly the opposite of that with mostly the same players. Is it the weight of expectations changing our perception? Guys unhappy with their roles and upsetting the team chemistry by not putting in the same effort? Mike Brown demanding more and getting push-back?

Unfortunately most of these road games are too early in the day for me to watch them so all I see are box scores and highlights lately. TOs and missed free throws are the big recurring problems statistically. Seems like this would have been a 1 or 2 possession game when it counted with better ball security and decent free throw shooting. I also can't help feeling like the NBA has just openly declared war on any coach who dares to criticize their officials publicly. We had one game on this trip where Fox was the only player on the team to get to the free throw line at all didn't we?
 
Kindof hard to figure how a team that was praised last season for their mental toughness could now be viewed as exactly the opposite of that with mostly the same players. Is it the weight of expectations changing our perception? Guys unhappy with their roles and upsetting the team chemistry by not putting in the same effort? Mike Brown demanding more and getting push-back?

Unfortunately most of these road games are too early in the day for me to watch them so all I see are box scores and highlights lately. TOs and missed free throws are the big recurring problems statistically. Seems like this would have been a 1 or 2 possession game when it counted with better ball security and decent free throw shooting. I also can't help feeling like the NBA has just openly declared war on any coach who dares to criticize their officials publicly. We had one game on this trip where Fox was the only player on the team to get to the free throw line at all didn't we?
Talk to me mate , they are starting 2.30 am here haha
 
We had one game on this trip where Fox was the only player on the team to get to the free throw line at all didn't we?
Yes Fox going 6/10 in that match, it last happened 3 years ago when only ONE player for a team shot free throws (SGA in February '21 for the Thunder).
I also can't watch live the matches in the East, but I do everything to avoid spoilers and watch the whole game afterwards (kind of convenient skipping time outs etc) with League Pass.

I don't think the referees were an issue either today, or in that match against Memphis.
 
There are basically three things you need to know about this game:
  • Players not named Keegan Murray shot 5/29 (17%) from 3pt line
  • Our bench scored 18 pts, Heat bench scored 47 pts
  • If we don't count HB's charity points at the end, we scored only 18 pts in the fourth quarter
I really hope Sasha is recovering well from that ankle sprain, we desperately need a boost from the bench, as both Monk and Lyles have pretty much disappeared offensively during the road trip
 
Vinny B. postulates that the team is "soft". Maybe so.

Perhaps we can add bored, unenthusiastic, complacent, stressed, not engaged, and/or over-pressured/coached.

A telling scenario during the game was the lessening of Domas's engagement with teammates and leadership. His encouragement, excitement, and interactions seemed way below usual. He still brought his own self-enthusiasm, however. Keegan and Huerter also looked engaged but subdued.

The argument that Barnes plays because of "leadership" issues was not justified in this game.
 
Kindof hard to figure how a team that was praised last season for their mental toughness could now be viewed as exactly the opposite of that with mostly the same players. Is it the weight of expectations changing our perception? Guys unhappy with their roles and upsetting the team chemistry by not putting in the same effort? Mike Brown demanding more and getting push-back?

Unfortunately most of these road games are too early in the day for me to watch them so all I see are box scores and highlights lately. TOs and missed free throws are the big recurring problems statistically. Seems like this would have been a 1 or 2 possession game when it counted with better ball security and decent free throw shooting. I also can't help feeling like the NBA has just openly declared war on any coach who dares to criticize their officials publicly. We had one game on this trip where Fox was the only player on the team to get to the free throw line at all didn't we?
Expectations changed. These are roughly the same players, other than Keegan improving considerably.

Last night, there were some sloppy possessions and some poor defense, but they had some juicy, wide open looks down the stretch and missed the shots. They just had to make a couple more 3s to be right there at the end, sometime shots just don't fall. Miami is a good team, trying to break a losing streak at home after a team meeting, it was always going to be tough to pull out the W last night. I was pleasantly surprised they looked like they could win last night to be honest, and I take that as a positive.

Can't win em all!
 

dude12

Hall of Famer
Sacramento wins 4 of 5 games. Focus on the one game they lose to a team who played in the finals last year who have been scuffling but still have that team. Hahahahahahaha. Hot takes.
 
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