[Game] 27/82: Kings vs. Nuggets 16 DEC 2024 7pm PT/10pm ET

Kings start a five-game homestand tonight. How many will they win?


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Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
Same thing happened to my Arizona squad this weekend. Had a big lead but had wasted all their timeouts fighting from awful start. Let UCLA make like a 12-0 run to go up. I get sometimes you only have one left but I still hate the idea of not using it to cool a run before you are in trade a basket crunch time.
But Mike not trying to burn a timeout early in that run allowed him to use that timeout to draw up a play to end the game. It just didn’t work out.
 
That sucks but the team showed some grit and fight. They can't come out flat and hope to dig out of trouble against a good team like the Nuggets. Nuggets showing that poise, that comes with experience, to close out the game.
We have the experience too. When you have a bit lead with not time left it’s going to come down to 3 pointers and turnovers. Joker, Murray and Gordon all made them down the stretch and we fumbled our opportunities outside of Fox and Domas
 
Even then DeMar was WWWWIIIIDE open. He just literally dropped the ball.
Maybe. It was pretty congested in there though. Jokic traveled far enough down to make a play on the shot if DeRozan got it and while Gordon was farther under the rim he might have still been able to challenge. The wide open shots were 3's. The Nuggets doubled the pick and roll and sent help down low too. While clearly the option was to swing over to Domas if they did double, I'm not sure they thought the Nuggets would. That's awfully high for Domas to have to make a move.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
But Mike not trying to burn a timeout early in that run allowed him to use that timeout to draw up a play to end the game. It just didn’t work out.
Ok that is fair. I do think this one is on the players. The Wildcats game was also on the players but CTL has a lot to answer for this season. Depressing down there in Tucson, glad this wasn't the year I tried snowbirding out.
 
Maybe. It was pretty congested in there though. Jokic traveled far enough down to make a play on the shot if DeRozan got it and while Gordon was farther under the rim he might have still been able to challenge. The wide open shots were 3's. The Nuggets doubled the pick and roll and sent help down low too. While clearly the option was to swing over to Domas if they did double, I'm not sure they thought the Nuggets would. That's awfully high for Domas to have to make a move.
Yea I’m pretty sure DeMar would have been fouled with no call at the end if he didn’t fumble the ball, so that’s the only solace I’ll take in this
 
we would have still won had we not been down by 20, because instead of being up by 10 with less than 5 we would have been up by much more.
It doesn’t really work like that imo. When a team is up big they let off the gas a bit subconsciously. Denver also stopped doing what was killing us too, Gordon wasn’t involved as much and neither was Light skinned Buddy.
 
No moral victory. We fd up the last 5:00 like the 2010 kings. Horrible decisions passing up threes to run clock. Just run your offense.

Moral victory isn’t a term that is in the Kings lexicon anymore. They are a veteran team.

Lessons should all be learned and applied over a year ago. Kings have used up all their moral victories.

Moral victory is just a way of saying terrible loss that should’ve been a win but wasn’t due to failure to execute. Nothing encouraging about that. Not for players or fans.
 
It doesn’t really work like that imo. When a team is up big they let off the gas a bit subconsciously. Denver also stopped doing what was killing us too, Gordon wasn’t involved as much and neither was Light skinned Buddy.
Just saying if you take every NBA team and put them down 20 points in the first half, I bet you would find that they wouldn't win near as many games as they would if they weren't down 20 in the first half.
 
We have the experience too. When you have a bit lead with not time left it’s going to come down to 3 pointers and turnovers. Joker, Murray and Gordon all made them down the stretch and we fumbled our opportunities outside of Fox and Domas
Nuggets have twice the years of experience playing together. On top of that, they have weathered and won tough playoff battles. They know pressure. We have played just one playoff series. It's not even comparable. On top of that, we're integrating a new piece like DeRozan.

I'm not saying it's ok to lose the lead rather we should never underestimate our opponent and take the foot off the gas.
 
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