[Game] 20/82: Kings @ Trail Blazers 29 NOV 2024, 7pm PT/10pm ET

[KingsFanSince85]

Watching the action up close, we were sloppy but for Brown to say 3/4s of them were unforced doesn’t give credit to the Blazers on-ball pressure. Banton was hounding Ellis and Fox all first half. He and Camara made it really tough just to cross half court and then try to initiate the offense.

There’s nothing to give credit for. The Blazers, like a lot of teams the KINGS have been losing to, are lottery bound. They’re not good, no matter how much some of you want to tout their supposed “long ball hawk players” (Give me a break!). Portland has been $#/t for years and it hasn’t changed.

The KINGS have been losing to $#/t teams all season. Because the KINGS aren’t any good either. They are a lazy, careless, disinterested, and poorly coached team. There’s really no getting around that right now. And they’ve shown nothing to suggest that anything is going to change anytime soon.

Talking up their competition, specifically perennial cellar dwelling teams like Portland, is silly.

Despite how terrible New Orleans is this season, the KINGS will undoubtedly still lose to the Pels when they finally meet and we’ll still have to listen to that tired narrative too. At 4-16, the Pels can’t beat anyone — except the disinterested KINGS.

20 games into the season, there’s just no excuses to be made for how pathetic this team is playing most nights. They have talent. Lots of it. Unfortunately they don’t seem to have enough players with much heart or desire. Just a bunch of dudes collecting paychecks with no sense of pride or urgency.

 

[Jones2006]

Once more I don't like the fact that he just had a quick mention that he is the one to blame as well (for a couple of seconds only) and then just blaming the players non stop. How about his rotation, all those quick subs after quick subs after quick subs despite the team doing "ok" in the start of the game even though there were those turnovers? Couldn't he be so frustrated during the game and not after it ended during those timeouts? Like I wrote earlier he looked "chill" and he has been looking chill all season long unlike his first season that he was "living" the game and was communicating with the players all 48 minutes long in offense and defense.

I agree 100% with the quick subs ... Said this all year; he doesn't trust the bench guys or allow them to get into any rhythm. I'm pro-Len & believe he should be playing but also believe if you're throwing in Orlando Robinson in a game (like last night) - Why play him just 2 minutes? That's ridiculous. Let him shake off a little rust/jitters and play him a legit 15 minutes. It just demoralizes guys confidence in my opinion and makes them play less free when you swing them in for tiny spurts. Hard to evaluate players too. STICK WITH A ROTATION at the very least in singular games.

 

[GWD]

Brown needs to lay off Keegan. That approach may not work with his personality.

Buddy, you nailed it. About time someone, besides me, broaches the subject. Take note forum, it's a reap what you sow issue.

 

[sactowndog]

Kings will be fortunate to be a play in team this season with the injuries, inability to build any cohesion with the new addition and the lack of size and bulk. so unfortunate that the pick this season that could of been another building block may be going to ATL. Glad I didn't purchase league pass this season.

Being a playin team only to lose would be the worst possible situation as you would lose your draft pick in a good class.

 

[chief bromden]

Man, that was tough one to watch, something looks way off with this team. Maybe it's the curse of Roy Al...

 

[megapoxy]

https://twitter.com/statuses/1862862078597320736

 

[Caccia]

https://twitter.com/statuses/1862862078597320736

Huerter could use a change of scenery. So could the Kings. He currently is shooting 27.7% from three and 41.4% from the floor.

 

[joemama]

Why would the Kings be trying to tank? They're only 3.5 games out of third, with 75 percent of the season to go.

Don't think we are "trying," to tank but that is what we are "doing."

 

[dude12]

Once more I don't like the fact that he just had a quick mention that he is the one to blame as well (for a couple of seconds only) and then just blaming the players non stop. How about his rotation, all those quick subs after quick subs after quick subs despite the team doing "ok" in the start of the game even though there were those turnovers? Couldn't he be so frustrated during the game and not after it ended during those timeouts? Like I wrote earlier he looked "chill" and he has been looking chill all season long unlike his first season that he was "living" the game and was communicating with the players all 48 minutes long in offense and defense.

Brown is spot on with everything he said. Not sure how anyone can be critical of him when he’s chewing them out for effort. It’s exactly what should have been said. Effort on D, not blocking out, worried too much about offense, no desire to go get 50 50 balls and a lack of wanting to keep in front of them on D. It’s why we lose to teams like this. Called them out on it.

 

[joemama]

Huerter could use a change of scenery. So could the Kings. He currently is shooting 27.7% from three and 41.4% from the floor.

Huerter's 3s

Hawks 1/10
Clippers 0/4
Nets 1/5
Thunder 0/2
Timberwolves 1/5
Trailblazers 0/1

3 of last 27 shots
3 in last 6 games

 

[iowamcnabb]

Huerter could use a change of scenery. So could the Kings. He currently is shooting 27.7% from three and 41.4% from the floor.

He’s like John Collins in some ways. Looked like a rising player for a couple years, forgot how to shoot and had an injury and then gets traded. Collins is on a bloated contract but he is probably having his best season since those first couple years. I’m confident Kev turns it around elsewhere

 

[midtowner]

Don't think we are "trying," to tank but that is what we are "doing."

The Kings are not tanking - the Kings just sTank?

 

[joemama]

The Kings are not tanking - the Kings just sTank?

They may not want to be a losing team but they are.

 

[Tizzy Flip]

Brown is spot on with everything he said. Not sure how anyone can be critical of him when he’s chewing them out for effort. It’s exactly what should have been said. Effort on D, not blocking out, worried too much about offense, no desire to go get 50 50 balls and a lack of wanting to keep in front of them on D. It’s why we lose to teams like this. Called them out on it.

Here’s what bothers me about the press conference. He had the opportunity to chew them out during the game. Aside from coaching moments for Keegan and Keon, he didnt lay into them. I was a few rows from them and made a point to watch how Brown communicates to the team. Honestly, are we going to question Keegan’s, Keon’s, and Deaaron’s effort on defense? They were the ones getting burned all game with the dribble drive. It felt like the players were constantly confused on what to do on defense, Louks was always giving instruction to one of the players during dead balls (which either felt like over coaching or evidence of a poor defensive plan), and it felt like we had no clear plan on how to defend them.

There was a point earlier about Brown being more CEO like. There were times when Brown would tell Louks to tell Crowder to do something or defend a certain way, instead of telling Crowder himself. Was really interesting. He definitely was a lot less vocal at his players than he was his first 2 seasons

 

[coolhandluke]

Once more I don't like the fact that he just had a quick mention that he is the one to blame as well (for a couple of seconds only) and then just blaming the players non stop. How about his rotation, all those quick subs after quick subs after quick subs despite the team doing "ok" in the start of the game even though there were those turnovers? Couldn't he be so frustrated during the game and not after it ended during those timeouts? Like I wrote earlier he looked "chill" and he has been looking chill all season long unlike his first season that he was "living" the game and was communicating with the players all 48 minutes long in offense and defense.

I agree with Mike's assessment. That's one of his strengths.

The Kings were not locked in and disrespected the game by not respecting their opponents. The Blazers were very shaky early on and with our lackadaisical play, we let them come into their own. A good team would have smelled blood and stomped them. Unfortunately, there's no leader in this team that drives and holds people accountable on the floor. The only guy who brings it every game is Sabonis. Fox's focus goes on and off. Not exactly leadership material where you have to be consistent everyday. We just have to work around it at this point.

Mike took that leadership role in 2022-23 and provided structure and direction to help the team succeed. But from 2023-24, Mike went away from the "teacher/leader" role into a veteran playoff coach role who barks at people and acts irrationally when players fail. The quick yanking of players didn't allow our bench to grow any chemistry. Players are more afraid to make mistakes and that stifles creativity and makes them tentative. Rome isn't built in a day and chemistry isn't automatic, you need to water it everyday and grow it. Acting like the players should know better when the rotations are inconsistent isn't really fair. He needs to simplify actions, have consistent rotations and avoid introducing more variability in the system. He needs to emphasize what works from one game and carry it over to the next. It looks like we're starting from scratch every game and try to create something. How do you improve if we don't learn the lessons and advance the baseline? Not starting Keon is a prime example where we didn't carry forward our lessons from last year.

Mike's main job is to make the player's job easy. Has he provided them with a system that plays to their strengths? Do we have a map of the preferred spots on the floor for every player? Do we have defined set plays to get them open at their spots? This will help avoid players stepping on each other's toes and get them to their best spots. We will avoid the wasted helter-skelter movements that are done without purpose. If the players have no idea about when & where they would get a shot, they're going to do more mental processing and their efficiency craters (e.g. three-point percentage). This is especially true for role players. Often our movement without purpose does more to hinder our offense than the opponent's defense.

Mike's "in-game" adjustments are his weakness. Instead of a tweak to address a hole, there's often wholesale changes to the scheme or personnel on the floor. I don't want him searching for some combination that would work. That's homework that he should have done in practice. How can we expect a random combination of players to execute when we're under pressure? We just didn't have a proper thoughtful counter to the pressure defense of the Blazers. This is the exact same thing that the Pelicans used against us and we just shrug saying that we don't have players with length and do no meaningful changes. Similarly, on defense, we had no counter to the drive-and-kick game of the Blazers. Instead of moving up to put more pressure on their ball handlers, we let them get speed and it just opened up the floor for them. It's no surprise that their threes started falling.

Mike needs help on both offense and defense. Losing Jordi certainly did not help. The faster he accepts his shortcomings, the faster we can get better. Monte has work to do too. He addressed our need for a second "go-to" player but he never got the defensive frontcourt help or length that we lack.

Despite all the gloom and doom, I still believe this team has talent to be a playoff team. We need some tweaks and a swift kick in the pants.

 

[Tizzy Flip]

There’s nothing to give credit for. The Blazers, like a lot of teams the KINGS have been losing to, are lottery bound. They’re not good, no matter how much some of you want to tout their supposed “long ball hawk players” (Give me a break!). Portland has been $#/t for years and it hasn’t changed.

The KINGS have been losing to $#/t teams all season. Because the KINGS aren’t any good either. They are a lazy, careless, disinterested, and poorly coached team. There’s really no getting around that right now. And they’ve shown nothing to suggest that anything is going to change anytime soon.

Talking up their competition, specifically perennial cellar dwelling teams like Portland, is silly.

Despite how terrible New Orleans is this season, the KINGS will undoubtedly still lose to the Pels when they finally meet and we’ll still have to listen to that tired narrative too. At 4-16, the Pels can’t beat anyone — except the disinterested KINGS.

20 games into the season, there’s just no excuses to be made for how pathetic this team is playing most nights. They have talent. Lots of it. Unfortunately they don’t seem to have enough players with much heart or desire. Just a bunch of dudes collecting paychecks with no sense of pride or urgency.

I give credit to the Blazers since they had a great game plan specifically on defense and we had no answers. The latter part is what concerns me. A team without 4 of its key players could disrupt us and make us feel that uncomfortable on both sides of the ball is a major issue. A big part of my point is I didn’t see last night as an effort or desire issue. I saw it as we didn’t have a great plan to begin and let guys like Blanton and Avidja look like all stars. It was as if we had no scouting report on those 2

 

[Warhawk]

Glad to be able to meet @pdxKingsFan in person at the game yesterday. Other than the shoot around and some selfies with players, that may have been the highlight. My son got Fox, Monk, and Domas signatures on his hat (that’s him in the Domas photo).

 

[coolhandluke]

Nice pics. Saw Mike's photos shared in another site. Kings fans are truly special.

 

[kingsboi]

I dont even think it has anything to do with most of that, this team can't get out of its own way with stupid turn overs and pee poor shooting from 3 and the ft line. Every problem they have is self created. It is the most baffling thing.

where do they rank in the league in terms of turnovers per game?

 

[Elektrik]

Reading the comments , I’m glad I was unavailable to put myself through this game

 

[Caccia]

I agree with Mike's assessment. That's one of his strengths.

The Kings were not locked in and disrespected the game by not respecting their opponents. The Blazers were very shaky early on and with our lackadaisical play, we let them come into their own. A good team would have smelled blood and stomped them. Unfortunately, there's no leader in this team that drives and holds people accountable on the floor. The only guy who brings it every game is Sabonis. Fox's focus goes on and off. Not exactly leadership material where you have to be consistent everyday. We just have to work around it at this point.

Mike took that leadership role in 2022-23 and provided structure and direction to help the team succeed. But from 2023-24, Mike went away from the "teacher/leader" role into a veteran playoff coach role who barks at people and acts irrationally when players fail. The quick yanking of players didn't allow our bench to grow any chemistry. Players are more afraid to make mistakes and that stifles creativity and makes them tentative. Rome isn't built in a day and chemistry isn't automatic, you need to water it everyday and grow it. Acting like the players should know better when the rotations are inconsistent isn't really fair. He needs to simplify actions, have consistent rotations and avoid introducing more variability in the system. He needs to emphasize what works from one game and carry it over to the next. It looks like we're starting from scratch every game and try to create something. How do you improve if we don't learn the lessons and advance the baseline? Not starting Keon is a prime example where we didn't carry forward our lessons from last year.

Mike's main job is to make the player's job easy. Has he provided them with a system that plays to their strengths? Do we have a map of the preferred spots on the floor for every player? Do we have defined set plays to get them open at their spots? This will help avoid players stepping on each other's toes and get them to their best spots. We will avoid the wasted helter-skelter movements that are done without purpose. If the players have no idea about when & where they would get a shot, they're going to do more mental processing and their efficiency craters (e.g. three-point percentage). This is especially true for role players. Often our movement without purpose does more to hinder our offense than the opponent's defense.

Mike's "in-game" adjustments are his weakness. Instead of a tweak to address a hole, there's often wholesale changes to the scheme or personnel on the floor. I don't want him searching for some combination that would work. That's homework that he should have done in practice. How can we expect a random combination of players to execute when we're under pressure? We just didn't have a proper thoughtful counter to the pressure defense of the Blazers. This is the exact same thing that the Pelicans used against us and we just shrug saying that we don't have players with length and do no meaningful changes. Similarly, on defense, we had no counter to the drive-and-kick game of the Blazers. Instead of moving up to put more pressure on their ball handlers, we let them get speed and it just opened up the floor for them. It's no surprise that their threes started falling.

Mike needs help on both offense and defense. Losing Jordi certainly did not help. The faster he accepts his shortcomings, the faster we can get better. Monte has work to do too. He addressed our need for a second "go-to" player but he never got the defensive frontcourt help or length that we lack.

Despite all the gloom and doom, I still believe this team has talent to be a playoff team. We need some tweaks and a swift kick in the pants.

That is quite an assessment, but I agree with almost all of it, especially "Has he provided them with a system that plays to their strengths?"

 

[pdxKingsFan]

My favorite photo of the night after they dropped the streamers on us...

One thing I will say is on the floor the tournament court isn't remotely as distracting as it can be on TV.

 

[Jones2006]

That is quite an assessment, but I agree with almost all of it, especially "Has he provided them with a system that plays to their strengths?"

This is a good point - specifically the “push the pace” and “play physical” mantra … there’s clear contradictions in rotational decisions to that:

- If you are gonna push the pace you need to balance out minutes. Can’t have starters play 36+. See Indiana last couple years. You need to use your bench to maintain fresh guys on floor
- DeRozan is older … push pace doesn’t mesh with his game
- “play physical” is tough if you’re physically lacking length and size. Specifically not playing Alex Len and choosing to go small is also in opposition to this mantra and makes no sense as well.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

At the end of the day I just wish we could have 2022-2023 offense back. Did we just forget how to play it? On paper we've upgraded the roster. And even though we're not great and 3pointers are up, we are better defensively at the point of attack. Keegan has grown remarkably on that end. (We're better at 3pt defense fractionally than last year but record wise we are not trending the right direction and that has to do with our own woes).

Even last night's game we had a lead in the first quarter or so before just going to sleep in part of the 2nd and to open the 3rd and just traded buckets after that.

Maybe much has to do with the injuries early and not getting time to gel and they can turn around but I fear we're a lotto team again.

 

[iowamcnabb]

At the end of the day I just wish we could have 2022-2023 offense back.
Maybe much has to do with the injuries early and not getting time to gel and they can turn around but I fear we're a lotto team again.

missing the playoffs is certainly on the table but we were 24 games over .500 the past 2 seasons with largely the same core and 8-6 through 14 games this season. We were top 8 in offense and top 12 in defense during the beginning stretch. That’s a pretty big sample size collectively versus the 1-5 stretch we are currently on. The offense of Keegan, Huerter and to a lesser extent Keon plus the injuries to important pieces can largely be blamed for this bad stretch. The problem is how do we fix it? If Kev is out and Keegan can’t snap out of it, what do we do?

 

[pdxKingsFan]

missing the playoffs is certainly on the table but we were 24 games over .500 the past 2 seasons with largely the same core and 8-6 through 14 games this season. We were top 8 in offense and top 12 in defense during the beginning stretch. That’s a pretty big sample size collectively versus the 1-5 stretch we are currently on. The offense of Keegan, Huerter and to a lesser extent Keon plus the injuries to important pieces can largely be blamed for this bad stretch. The problem is how do we fix it? If Kev is out and Keegan can’t snap out of it, what do we do?

Bring Roy Al back?

 

[SacTownKid]

https://twitter.com/statuses/1862862078597320736

Gee, shocker. My guess is they are looking for value out of him still. I get it, if he goes to the right team he's gonna pop right back but still? Just bench him if he's not what you need. Ride out the contract. Both he and Lyles fall off at the right time anyway. Just keep them on as emergency depth at this point.

 

[SacTownKid]

At the end of the day I just wish we could have 2022-2023 offense back. Did we just forget how to play it? On paper we've upgraded the roster. And even though we're not great and 3pointers are up, we are better defensively at the point of attack. Keegan has grown remarkably on that end. (We're better at 3pt defense fractionally than last year but record wise we are not trending the right direction and that has to do with our own woes).

Even last night's game we had a lead in the first quarter or so before just going to sleep in part of the 2nd and to open the 3rd and just traded buckets after that.

Maybe much has to do with the injuries early and not getting time to gel and they can turn around but I fear we're a lotto team again.

For sure other teams have started to figure it out and also changing out Barnes for a player like DeRozan is going to change things with the DHO. As we know it started in the playoffs really. The Warriors weren't consistent with it but pretty much all the DHO guys fell off. Then the play in game last year. The Kings biggest issue with length isn't for their defense, it's their offense. The Pels challenged those DHO's, even sending two guys up at times and totally shut it down. I've brought it up before but this really isn't too dissimilar to the 2000's Kings. The Mike Bibby trade did one major thing and that was augment their offense to more pick and roll and in particular guard shooting out of it which works far better in the playoffs. This team is kind of in some sort of transition. The kicker right now as you said are the injuries and the fact that the West is so tough. No chemistry and facing tough teams almost every night can kill a teams confidence. As we're seeing now. The Kings built some up after the Wolves game but then once the wheels started coming off against the Blazers and the game wasn't as easy as they thought it would be they got frustrated again. Even Domas is starting to look like he hates the game.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

missing the playoffs is certainly on the table but we were 24 games over .500 the past 2 seasons with largely the same core and 8-6 through 14 games this season. We were top 8 in offense and top 12 in defense during the beginning stretch. That’s a pretty big sample size collectively versus the 1-5 stretch we are currently on. The offense of Keegan, Huerter and to a lesser extent Keon plus the injuries to important pieces can largely be blamed for this bad stretch. The problem is how do we fix it? If Kev is out and Keegan can’t snap out of it, what do we do?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. This offense has missed Terence Davis the last two seasons. I don't care if nobody else signed him or not, he fit well with this offense. He wasn't just a shooter, but also an athlete who can get to the rim and create

 

[TheMobb]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. This offense has missed Terence Davis the last two seasons. I don't care if nobody else signed him or not, he fit well with this offense. He wasn't just a shooter, but also an athlete who can get to the rim and create

I may be wrong but I believe he tore his achilles or something of that nature. Probably not the same athlete he was if no one has picked him up.