[Game] 55/82: Kings @ Pelicans 13 FEB 2025, 5:00pm PT/8:00pm ET

[bball_nomad]

It was just stupid. To add insult to injury - last game before ASB.

 

[Rob-The-Great]

I see this loss as learning lesson for the new coach and the players.

Christie has got to learn to trust his coaching. Way too much respect for the starters man. There are other guys with plenty of talent on the team. Let them play. These minutes to the starters is not good at all

 

[KingsFanSince85]

The Kings blitzed him pretty much every single possession after the first three he hit in overtime but that just led to Matkovic being wide open at the rim every possession.

Another worthless scrub over-performing against you know who.

Allowing scrubs to show out is among the things this franchise has always done best.

 

[iowamcnabb]

Devin is playing for those with espn plus and needing a distraction haha

 

[Tetsujin]

I’m honestly one offseason away from being done with this team. Gonna see how things unfold in the summer. If there’s no true hope then I might be out. Going on 27 years as a fan from Los Angeles. The ineptitude is just too damn high. I wanna stay committed but the unnecessary stress may not be worth it anymore.

The Kings are 14-8 in 2025, a .636 winning percentage that would be the current 4 seed in the west if extrapolated over a full season. This is despite having the team’s “franchise player” quit on the franchise while also simultaneously tanking his own trade market and the team pretty much having to rebuild its entire roster on the fly.
Feels like you’ve been done with this team for a while because honestly this is probably the best position this franchise has been in in like 22 years.

 

[Kingster]

Christie might have gotten an A in the last game. Tonight, it was an F. Why in the world was DDR in the game in the latter half of the 4th instead of Keon Ellis?? The guy is 35 years old on a back to back. In this game he looked 40. His defense was awful; he had two consecutive weak defensive fouls in the 4th that resulted in 4 free points for the Pels. His offense was just as putrid with his best imitation of John Salmons he could possibly make with dribble, dribble, dribble, and dribble going nowhere.

And then there was CJ. He should really send Christie a Thank You note after the game, just out of politeness. He punked the Kings in this game. Just flat out punked them. He goes and drives a shoulder into Keon Ellis and lays him flat. Then, being the nice guy that he his, he offered him help up. Keon declined. If the scene sounds familiar it's because it is - CJ did the same darn thing to Monk in the prior game. Other than a bunch of yapping, the Kings did nothing. Yap, yap, yap, yap. CJ is like, "Whatever, dude." HA, HA, HA. See, CJ knows the rules: If you don't swing at the other player, it's no flagrant foul. And what's great about CJ driving his shoulder into Ellis is that Christie ends up taking Ellis out of the game (THANK YOU, Christie!). The toughest thing CJ had to do in this game was restrain his laughter. He punked Ellis. He punked Christie. He punked the Kings. Just another ass-kicking by CJ McCollum.

 

[DynaPamm]

Well dammit we made it way too easy in OT for them to win. No defense really no offense. We just couldn’t pull it together…And leaving CJ wide open to many times on 3 is unacceptable. But I’ve been whining all season actually , how we do not ever play defense and always leave them wide open for 3’s. Hopefully during all star break coach will have some good practices so they can gel a little bit. And please drill them on defending the damn 3’s

 

[Padrino]

The Mavs pretty much tried to give their game away today by resting pretty much their entire rotation and still won their game against the Heat despite Herro dropping 40. The Thunder suddenly forgot how to shoot and lost to the Wolves by 15. Basketball is weird like that and there are 82 games in the season. Let’s all just take a deep breath and step away from the ledge for a moment lol

Eh. Yes, you can chalk some of it up to the vicissitudes of fate. But the Kings are going nowhere with Monk/LaVine/DeRozan in the starting unit. It's not like the defense is just suboptimal with those three logging major minutes together. It's a smoldering crater.

The truth is, De'Aaron Fox detonated the Kings season. Trade deadline action that overhauls half a rotation is never healthy for immediate team success. The Kings will have to muddle along as a .500 team, hope they can find their way to the play-in and maybe sneak past somebody into the first round. But we're going to have to wait until the off-season to see if Monte can balance the rotation in any meaningful way. Doug Christie certainly isn't going to do it.

 

[Tetsujin]

Naw your right right there lol. Whole team was on a pass it to derozen hype but monk

The Pels would double team him and he would pass out of it and then his guys would just wait for him to get undoubled before passing him the ball again. It was the worst possible time for the Kings to establish an actual shot hierarchy lol

 

[reptilexcq2]

With Zion not playing tonight, I absolutely knew the KINGS would lose to this trash team tonight. IDC how hungry they were to end their losing streak, that is a major trash team. They lost 10 consecutive for good reason. Should have been 11. But unfortunately our KINGS like to take siestas during games.

I’m also far past tired of CJ McCollum playing over his head almost every team these teams play. Angry over being slighted or not, the dude just isn’t near as good as he seems to play against us. Zion going off I can understand … he’s a freak athlete for which the KINGS have no answer. But CJ freaking McCollum? Dude is a dime a dozen 20 ppg guard that is by no means super athletic. Between Keon, Monk, and Keegan — that dude shouldn’t be roasting the KINGS as he does.

It’s just the basketball gods hating on Sacramento, per usual.

Gawd, what a horrible horrible loss. Gutless defensive performance.

Weak defensive teams like the Kings will allow anybody hot shooting any night. Ballhoggers like CJ, Kyrie...those guys can shoot the lights out if you don't even have players that can make it hard for them. That's why they can smile and laugh because the Kings have no one that can bother him lol.

 

[Tetsujin]

Like I said, make someone else beat you. If that happens then at least you tried. They didn’t do that.

Oh well. See all of you after the all star game.

They did and Matkovic beat them lol

 

[coolhandluke]

This loss is on Christie.

 

[reptilexcq2]

Refs make a huge mistake....when DeRozen was driving to the basket...he was fouled and should have been at the line.

 

[Tetsujin]

Christie might have gotten an A in the last game. Tonight, it was an F. Why in the world was DDR in the game in the latter half of the 4th instead of Keon Ellis?? The guy is 35 years old on a back to back. In this game he looked 40. His defense was awful; he had two consecutive weak defensive fouls in the 4th that resulted in 4 free points for the Pels. His offense was just as putrid with his best imitation of John Salmons he could possibly make with dribble, dribble, dribble, and dribble going nowhere.

And then there was CJ. He should really send Christie a Thank You note after the game, just out of politeness. He punked the Kings in this game. Just flat out punked them. He goes and drives a shoulder into Keon Ellis and lays him flat. Then, being the nice guy that he his, he offered him help up. Keon declined. If the scene sounds familiar it's because it is - CJ did the same darn thing to Monk in the prior game. Other than a bunch of yapping, the Kings did nothing. Yap, yap, yap, yap. CJ is like, "Whatever, dude." HA, HA, HA. See, CJ knows the rules: If you don't swing at the other player, it's no flagrant foul. And what's great about CJ driving his shoulder into Ellis is that Christie ends up taking Ellis out of the game (THANK YOU, Christie!). The toughest thing CJ had to do in this game was restrain his laughter. He punked Ellis. He punked Christie. He punked the Kings. Just another ass-kicking by CJ McCollum.

“Why is the guy with the most clutch points in the last decade playing in a clutch situation?”

 

[Turgenev]

The Kings have had so many disappointing losses I don't really think this one stands out. At least they're playing hard and trying to win.

But the Monk, Deebo, Lavine combo just doesn't work and is hard to watch on both ends.

Insisting on getting a win now player back for Fox vs an extra pick or someone who is good at more than just scoring has put us in a difficult spot.

 

[reptilexcq2]

This loss is on Christie.

I agreed. Ellis should be in there for Keegan. Keegan a bit slow guarding CJ. I guess he thought Keegan length could have bother him...didn't matter because Keegan is slow after getting pick around the corner.

 

[NewArena]

Hard to bounce back from this even though they can. Pretty much everyone competing with them, just won tonight. Jeez this sucks

 

[NewArena]

They have had walk throughs and that’s going to continue, Doug said as much. He said they aren’t going to burn their legs out in practice. He said teams don’t generally practice this time of year. I’d imagine they might get one or two full contact ones in over the break

Even just one or two practices can really help, even if they aren’t strenuous. So many new faces and strangers out there now

 

[reptilexcq2]

Keegan softness, non-aggressive passive tendency may be a position where the Kings can upgrade to bolster the overall team defense.

 

[NewArena]

I just hope they don’t stay with this team in offseason if it doesn’t work out. This team has low floor and low ceiling. I don’t see this team succeed in the West

Oh they’ll make changes of course. They still have that big trade exception and pieces to play with - Fox and the front office just put us in a very difficult spot and everything can’t be done in one month, unfortunately.

 

[Joshyjosh31]

DeRozan is literally the best clutch player in the league by pretty much every single metric. Tonight he just didn’t have it.

Lol he’s not lebron, Luka, or Jokic I don’t care if he’s “the best clutch player” that crap is bad offense and shouldn’t be ran especially when Lavine is red hot. Derozan isn’t passing in those situations and mind boggling even when teams run iso for guys like Luka the team is involved and getting the best shot possible. Not us derozan has to shoot it he’s clutch smh

 

[NewArena]

Eh. Yes, you can chalk some of it up to the vicissitudes of fate. But the Kings are going nowhere with Monk/LaVine/DeRozan in the starting unit. It's not like the defense is just suboptimal with those three logging major minutes together. It's a smoldering crater.

The truth is, De'Aaron Fox detonated the Kings season. Trade deadline action that overhauls half a rotation is never healthy for immediate team success. The Kings will have to muddle along as a .500 team, hope they can find their way to the play-in and maybe sneak past somebody into the first round. But we're going to have to wait until the off-season to see if Monte can balance the rotation in any meaningful way. Doug Christie certainly isn't going to do it.

That lineup may not work in long stretches but Doug just has to balance things out better. No way Keon plays the way he did last night, and he just sits on the bench in the clutch.

 

[luckytkp]

Christie has to strike the balance of lavine/ddr/monk and Keon defense.

For example, he should have put Keon in when we were up 5.

 

[The_Jamal]

“Why is the guy with the most clutch points in the last decade playing in a clutch situation?”

Sure, but he failed tonight. Shot us out of the game, extremely poor defense. A better coaching performance would have recognized this and put your best defender on the floor against a guy who dropped 43 on 25 shots.

 

[NewArena]

Highlights will be shown on TNT tonight so they can crap on us some more as well. Yay!

 

[SLAB]

Well that’s a terrible way to go into the break.

 

[TheMobb]

Christie has to strike the balance of lavine/ddr/monk and Keon defense.

For example, he should have put Keon in when we were up 5.

Agreed. And if they’re just going to 1 guy down the stretch, might as well close with your best defenders.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

There will be nights like this. No biggie, we got a good team that will finish at top 6.

Love your optimism!

 

[Tetsujin]

The Kings have had so many disappointing losses I don't really think this one stands out. At least they're playing hard and trying to win.

But the Monk, Deebo, Lavine combo just doesn't work and is hard to watch on both ends.

Insisting on getting a win now player back for Fox vs an extra pick or someone who is good at more than just scoring has put us in a difficult spot.

Meh, the alternative was probably taking back Vassell’s contract to make things work money wise and that absolutely would not be better lol

 

[Joshyjosh31]

Not going to happen when the teams best defender doesn't play the last 13 minutes of the game, outside of 9 seconds in regulation and for a 1:22 when down 5 in OT.

The TO's I think get cleaned up with more familiarity. But this team is not going to work unless Doug manages this roster properly and staggers these guys as they should be played. Or trust the game flow of the game and say "Hey, DDR's off, CJ is killing us, time to get Keon in."

We’re honestly dreaming if we think that change is happening you should easily be closing games with Keegan/ellis but the adjustment we made was just switching Keon for Keegan. I have zero faith that DD, Monk, or Lavine will be subbed out to close games too much ego. We have one defender out there and a center that’s gonna concede two points when the rim is attacked.