[Game] Kings @ Phoenix Suns, 2/13/2024, 7:00p PT/10:00p ET (TNT)

[Tizzy Flip]

we really didn’t need his offense tonight. Monk, Domas and Fox were more than enough on that end. We couldn’t get stops against Durant and Booker when it counted. That plus the free throws did us in

I would argue we did need his offense just to give Fox some relief who looked gassed in the 2nd half and led to some untimely turnovers and missed FTs. Fox was a beast but 31 shots is way too many when you have weapons like Keegan

 

[iowamcnabb]

It seemed more like 3 things that sealed it.
1 Fox free throws
2 Barnes shooting a 3 well beyond his range
3 Not securing the last rebound

Before these it was a back-and-forth game

he had to shoot that because of the clock

 

[KF8]

Tough loss. Hurts due to standings but we played a solid game. Can’t be too mad about it

This loss wasn't bad and they had a chance to win it at the end, so it's hard to get mad. I think it's just the recent bad melt downs like losing a 20+ point lead to the suns prevciously and giving away the bucks game and losing to the pistons. It lessens their room for error and It's all adding up and taking its toll.

 

[megapoxy]

Everybody blaming HB for not getting the rebound at the end but he was very good (for his standards at least the past 2 seasons) in the 2nd half. Should have been more aggressive though against small ball Suns.
With Hurter benched for so long though we should have seem more of Ellis and/or Kessler in the court. They forced some tough shots from Booker and KD, some of them went in but still their defense was good. HB playing 37' with a back to back coming and his non existent first half didn't make much sense.

A bit off topic, Sasha had 2 of his best matches this season against the Suns. He could help quite much tonight with his ability to score either from 3 or cutting in the paint especially vs small ball Suns. Lyles would be a good fit as well, his illness is not described as "non covid illness" like they usually write when it's something else so I am not so sure if he will be good to go in less than 24 hours facing the Nuggets (that have both Murray and KCP doubtful I think).

 

[Tizzy Flip]

he had to shoot that because of the clock

That was the key possession where Keegan should have kept the ball and create. He deferred too easily to HB who was out of position with 5 secs left on the shot clock

 

[iowamcnabb]

No doubt, the Kings are in the play in/playoff range right now. Making the playoffs straight through is far from a guarantee. If Beal is out for a period of time that might change things though.

great, you know who else is in the play-in range? All the teams outside the top 4. If all these teams are so great and we suck why are they +1 on us? If they are superstars, why are they worse off than lesser talent in Minny? We are right there will all of them, we have the second hardest schedule in the NBA. If we fall to the play-in I don’t really care. It’s win or go home anyway. Bring em on and let’s see what happens.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

[Modding]

I gotta get up too early in the morning to spend all night monitoring this. Get back to talking about the game, and not each other, or the thread will be closed, permanently.

 

[NewArena]

Don’t get me wrong, this team shot themselves in the foot quite a few times. It just sucks that we always have another hill to climb, because we don’t have the big name guy that gets all the touch fouls called for them. Let’s shock everyone and win tomorrow, idk. *Sigh*

 

[luckytkp]

That was the key possession where Keegan should have kept the ball and create. He deferred too easily to HB who was out of position with 5 secs left on the shot clock

this is something Murray has to figure it out. He wasn’t even looking to do anything beside get rid of the ball

 

[SacTownKid]

great, you know who else is in the play-in range? All the teams outside the top 4. If all these teams are so great and we suck why are they +1 on us? If they are superstars, why are they worse off than lesser talent in Minny? We are right there will all of them, we have the second hardest schedule in the NBA. If we fall to the play-in I don’t really care. It’s win or go home anyway. Bring em on and let’s see what happens.

I'm not even sure the champ comes out of the West this year, and that is all that matters if you are basically trying to compete and have no cap space or 20 year olds waiting to blossom. Monte chose Fox. In the process of doing that he solidified his options and ability to stack talent without moving core pieces. If you aren't "it", you need to be making moves to become "it". There is still the end of the season to determine that but every game counts. This was one of those must wins. In the end it might not matter, but today, it does.

 

[megapoxy]

26-4 fast break points, 72-42 points in the paint BUT 9/31 from 3 (13/31 for the Suns), not so many 3s but I think we could have taken way less and keep going inside the paint more often.
I agree with Fox taking many many shots, he was going "hero ball" or how you call it from the 3rd quarter when Suns turned things around, but then again without him we wouldn't be able to make it a tie game near the end.
So Kings with a similar record with last season are falling behind, mostly because of their unexpected losses vs weak/depleted squads (at Portland and vs Indiana, Charlotte and Detroit the easy ones coming to mind) and ofc those 2 defeats that hurt the most at Milwaukee and Phoenix. After the really tough schedule will end we need a good mini run not losing any "easy" match at all in order to gain momentum/winning mentality to make a good last push to secure the play offs. Unfortunately the West is much tougher this season, the Pacific division as well, the majority of our competitors got stronger in the offseason and trade deadline with our FO just "watching" them.

 

[TaxMan]

The dead ball foul at the end by Murray was bullcrap. If he did grab booker it wasn’t anything that impacted the play.

 

[captain bill]

Some of the Monk turnovers really hurt. I counted at least where he drove at the basket and jumped off his feet before deciding where to pass to. Needless to say corkscrewing in midair to try to find open Kings results in some turnovers. His high-flying acrobatics are a joy to watch, other than those ones

 

[hrdboild]

Not much more to say here other than giving up 130 points in 4 quarters is pretty much an automatic loss for any team. We've got to find some kind of answer defensively. Kings have now lost 4 of their last 5 and in every one of those losses their opponent shot better than 50% from the field. Our problems start and end right there.

 

[Donkey]

https://twitter.com/statuses/1757649085543452850

 

[kingsboi]

the two non-all stars did their thing but Booker and Durant got to their spot every time with zero resistance and made just about all of em

 

[megapoxy]

Not much more to say here other than giving up 130 points in 4 quarters is pretty much an automatic loss for any team. We've got to find some kind of answer defensively. Kings have now lost 4 of their last 5 and in every one of those losses their opponent shot better than 50% from the field. Our problems start and end right there.

In all of those 4 defeats our opponents hit 13+ 3 pointers with 41% or better, Kings never shot over 38% in any of those matches. Today was the first time we shot over 70% (75% exactly) in free throws compared with the previous defeats.
Cavs 23/41
Pistons 17/31
Thunder 13/27
Suns 13/31

Vs Denver we held them way below 120 points, we hit 17/34 from 3 (10/29 for the Nuggets) and had 89% from the free throw line. At Chicago and Indiana we also held them way below 40% from 3 while shooting better than 38% ourselves

 

[hrdboild]

https://twitter.com/statuses/1757649085543452850

Not only is that a not foul on Davion Mitchell, Booker took like 10 steps there with three dribbles.

 

[megapoxy]

Not only is that a not foul on Davion Mitchell, Booker took like 10 steps there with three dribbles.

And he also wanted the basket to count... the crowd was booing the refs for not counting it.

 

[iowamcnabb]

In all of those 4 defeats our opponents hit 13+ 3 pointers with 41% or better, Kings never shot over 38% in any of those matches. Today was the first time we shot over 70% (75% exactly) in free throws compared with the previous defeats.
Cavs 23/41
Pistons 17/31
Thunder 13/27
Suns 13/31

Vs Denver we held them way below 120 points, we hit 17/34 from 3 (10/29 for the Nuggets) and had 89% from the free throw line. At Chicago and Indiana we also held them way below 40% from 3 while shooting better than 38% ourselves

Yeh we can’t call ourselves a shooting team if we are going to continue to shoot a lower percentage from three than our opponents. I wish Keegan could find his stroke again soon, we really need that 40 plus percent from him.

 

[PurpleHaze]

Late in 4th Q Fox blows tire (sneaker fell off again in a game!!) and Kings started to wilt, ultimately lose to Phoenix. What is it with his damn shoes? Don't recall any player on Kings so many times have his shoe slip off. Is it constantly trying new shiny sneakers out of the box instead of settling on one that fits perfect? Game worn, tested, reliable, won't fly off critical moments. Just get perfect never ever fall off EVER, old reliable Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star canvas sneaker! And they come many colors now days. Purple...

 

[NewArena]

A positive that i will touch on - Sabonis and that scoring. Love the trible doubles but he was dominant in that paint tonight and i'd love to see him get more touches in the deep paint as well as Barnes giving us more of that mid range shot in and around the key, similar to Fox. There's a lot they can take from this game and it's not just the fire and intensity that we saw. I hope the over helping, unnecessary double teams and wide open corner 3's can stop though. PLEASE CHANGE THIS HORRID DEFENSIVE SCHEME, Coach. I'm begging you

 

[Volblorx8634]

Fox, Domas, and Monk and had incredible individual offensive performances to make this close. Offense struggles to get easy baskets, but defense is the issue as everyone's mentioning. Our perimeter defense is atrocious. You just mentioned the double teams, but also the over-switching in the 4th. Why switch every. single. screen? Weak half-screen at half court? Switch an inferior defender on an elite iso player in Durant or Booker to give the Suns exactly the mismatch they're hunting. Those schemes destroyed the team all 2nd half after than initial run in the 3rd.

 

[SLAB]

Sabonis might be the biggest All-Star snub of all time. There hasn’t been a lot that’s made me mad this season because I just don’t care, but that has pushed me.

 

[ockingsfan]

Late in 4th Q Fox blows tire (sneaker fell off again in a game!!) and Kings started to wilt, ultimately lose to Phoenix. What is it with his damn shoes? Don't recall any player on Kings so many times have his shoe slip off. Is it constantly trying new shiny sneakers out of the box instead of settling on one that fits perfect? Game worn, tested, reliable, won't fly off critical moments. Just get perfect never ever fall off EVER, old reliable Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star canvas sneaker! And they come many colors now days. View attachment 12428 Purple...

Didn’t Fox switch to Curry’s shoes? The Warriors probably put a self destruct button on Fox’s shoe to fall off at a touch of a button!

 

[joemama]

Everybody blaming HB for not getting the rebound at the end but he was very good (for his standards at least the past 2 seasons) in the 2nd half. Should have been more aggressive though against small ball Suns.
With Hurter benched for so long though we should have seem more of Ellis and/or Kessler in the court. They forced some tough shots from Booker and KD, some of them went in but still their defense was good. HB playing 37' with a back to back coming and his non existent first half didn't make much sense.

A bit off topic, Sasha had 2 of his best matches this season against the Suns. He could help quite much tonight with his ability to score either from 3 or cutting in the paint especially vs small ball Suns. Lyles would be a good fit as well, his illness is not described as "non covid illness" like they usually write when it's something else so I am not so sure if he will be good to go in less than 24 hours facing the Nuggets (that have both Murray and KCP doubtful I think).

Sasha was in a walking boot for the game.

 

[megapoxy]

Sasha was in a walking boot for the game.

I know he was injured, and Lyles was also unavailable, I meant that both of them could be quite useful if they were available to play.
No official update on Lyles for tonight (nothing from Kings reporters either) but some fantasy sites have him as "OUT" again. Like I wrote yesterday when someone is ill and misses a match they usually write "non covid illness" or specify what the illness is, for Lyles it was just "illness" so in case it is covid it's unlikely to play so early. I saw Sasha on the bench last night but not Lyles, or at least I didn't notice, TNT not showing so many clips of our bench, like "Kings" in League Pass.

 

[chief bromden]

I know he was injured, and Lyles was also unavailable, I meant that both of them could be quite useful if they were available to play.
No official update on Lyles for tonight (nothing from Kings reporters either) but some fantasy sites have him as "OUT" again. Like I wrote yesterday when someone is ill and misses a match they usually write "non covid illness" or specify what the illness is, for Lyles it was just "illness" so in case it is covid it's unlikely to play so early. I saw Sasha on the bench last night but not Lyles, or at least I didn't notice, TNT not showing so many clips of our bench, like "Kings" in League Pass.

I've noticed this season that COVID references have completely vanished for players out due to illness.

 

[TaxMan]

https://twitter.com/statuses/1757649085543452850

That foul call on davion was so stupid. It was super frustrating that the broadcast didn't show a replay and I don't understand why we didn't challenge. Is it possible on the other angle Davion is pulling booker with his arm? It seems unlikely but that's the only potential explanation.

 

[Section 101]

https://official.nba.com/l2m/L2MReport.html?gameId=0022300774

So jumping on a players back is OK as long as he can still get the shot off.