[Game] Kings @ Milwaukee Bucks, 1/14/2024, 4:00 PST/7:00p EST

[ShastaKingsFan]

Despite the refs, the team choked the win away at the FT line. Monk, the team's best FT shooter missing both while Giannis sinks his was the difference here.

Fox missed one as well, that would have put them up by 3 and locked in at least a second overtime. So Monk and Fox go 1/4 and Giannis goes 3/4.

This is the worst free throw shooting team in the NBA and there are a huge amount of college teams that shoot a better %. Tough to expect much in close games, with that stat looming over your head

 

[NewArena]

Sorry, maybe that's an excuse last year, but coming off taking the defending champs to 7 games, a 58 win season and on pace again for a 50 win season this year? Not to mention 2 of the best stars in basketball.

Kings have proven they're for real and they still get treated like the same old garbage bin Kings

THIS! We absolutely have work to do and these guys have got to be more focused and poised down the stretch, but they should not have to play through mistreatment and flat out cheating. Enough. We have stars too. Does Fox have to be damn near 40 years old to start getting the same crap calls Dame gets? Come on.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

The guys can practice free throws all week in practice but the best practice is in real games when it matters. Maybe if they even got close to a fair whistle they'd shoot better.

At least Monk owned it. I hope he retires a King.

 

[iowamcnabb]

The guys can practice free throws all week in practice but the best practice is in real games when it matters. Maybe if they even got close to a fair whistle they'd shoot better.

At least Monk owned it. I hope he retires a King.

the piggy back ride on the ejection was pretty epic

 

[pdxKingsFan]

the piggy back ride on the ejection was pretty epic

oh I'm confused because I heard Monk hates Brown.

 

[Showtime]

Re-watching the last shot has me baffled at what Sabonis was doing. We know Dame has R-A-N-G-E range and Lopez is sagging behind as they both cross midcourt. The wings are spread to the corners, and where is Sabonis? He's at the freaking circle! Monk gets switched onto Giannis and Sabonis appears to wave him off from a switch knowing there's no time.

Fox pressures and Dame hits the jets blowing by, and instead of Monk being there (because Sabonis denied the switch), Sabonis should be there above the 3 pt line, but instead he sagged too far back as if he's trying to prevent him from a drive despite the lack of time to do so (he's also too far away to rotate and cover if Giannis got a pass for the catch and shoot over Monk). He should have been waaaay further up to be able to contest a deep shot or switched earlier in transition allowing Monk to double Dame. Even if his goal was to cover Brook he knows he's too far back to do anything, so he essentially took himself out of the defense.

 

[iowamcnabb]

oh I'm confused because I heard Monk hates Brown.

Eventually you will come around to see it my way

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Re-watching the last show has me baffled at what Sabonis was doing. We know Dame has R-A-N-G-E range and Lopez is sagging behind as they both cross midcourt. The wings are spread to the corners, and where is Sabonis? He's at the freaking circle! Fox pressures and Dame hits the jets blowing by, and instead of Sabonis being there above the 3 pt line, he is sagging as if he's trying to prevent him from a drive despite the lack of time to do so. He should have been waaaay further up to be able to contest a deep shot.

should have smothered Dame and let Giannis get the inbounds.

 

[kingsboi]

Coach on ESPN already haha

Stever Kerr, Darko and now Mike Brown. This is a good start. Let's keep them coming from the rest of the head coaches

 

[iowamcnabb]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746738004629262669

 

[ick300]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746738004629262669

You have to wonder if it is being so hard to pull him off or Monk is just laughing ...

 

[Caccia]

Tough loss. They showed courage but failed to seal the win. The Kings are now 4-4 in 2024. They need to step it up the way they did last night, because through the end of February, they have 13 games on the road, including 7 straight, and only 6 at home.

Happy Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to all you NBA fans!

 

[King Baller]

Heartbreaking loss. Make your free throws. Referees suck. Kudos to Coach Brown. That is all.

 

[GWD]

Why is a good shooting team missing free throws? It is worth a deeper look.

 

[iowamcnabb]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746755735185396208

 

[ick300]

Why is a good shooting team missing free throws? It is worth a deeper look.

I had always wondered how is possible a professional player to has less then 80% of the easiest thing in the game but yet ….

 

[midtowner]

That was a super fun game until it was a horrible, awful, no good, very bad game.

I shut my TV off one second after DAME shot it.

 

[twslam07]

Why is a good shooting team missing free throws? It is worth a deeper look.

I don’t think you have to look that deep to understand where the problem is.

This year…

• 49.3% of our FTAs come from Sabonis (67.3%) and Fox (72.6%)
• 22.4% of our FTAs come from Barnes (80.5%) and Monk (84.9%)

Last year…

• 42.7% of our FTAs came from Sabonis (74.2%) and Fox (78.0%)
• 30.2% of our FTAs came from Barnes (84.7%) and Monk (88.9%)

All 4 of those guys have decreased their FT% between 4%-7% year over year (which isn’t acceptable) but the shift in where those FTAs are coming from is also playing a role.

You can be a good shooting team but if the bulk of your FTAs are coming from guys like Sabonis, your team FT% is going to be low.

 

[joemama]

You have to wonder if it is being so hard to pull him off or Monk is just laughing ...

Monk was smiling not struggling.

 

[ick300]

Monk was smiling not struggling.

I thought so

 

[Vinny Basketballerino]

Why is a good shooting team missing free throws? It is worth a deeper look.

I knew there would come a game when missed FTs in the final minute would cost us the game. Good FT shooting is so obviously a way to secure wins and I'm shocked bad FT shooting hasn't been coached out of the game. We need to be practicing the maximum amount of FTs per day that the training staff will allow this side of creating an injury.

We did almost everything right in this game except missed crucial free throws. Absolute gut punch.

 

[The_Jamal]

I don’t think you have to look that deep to understand where the problem is.

This year…

• 49.3% of our FTAs come from Sabonis (67.3%) and Fox (72.6%)
• 22.4% of our FTAs come from Barnes (80.5%) and Monk (84.9%)

Last year…

• 42.7% of our FTAs came from Sabonis (74.2%) and Fox (78.0%)
• 30.2% of our FTAs came from Barnes (84.7%) and Monk (88.9%)

All 4 of those guys have decreased their FT% between 4%-7% year over year (which isn’t acceptable) but the shift in where those FTAs are coming from is also playing a role.

You can be a good shooting team but if the bulk of your FTAs are coming from guys like Sabonis, your team FT% is going to be low.

Bingo. HB's decline in FTr has had a big impact to our offense. And we saw with a massive Huerter game, how much his decline this year has affected our overall offense too.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I knew there would come a game when missed FTs in the final minute would cost us the game. Good FT shooting is so obviously a way to secure wins and I'm shocked bad FT shooting hasn't been coached out of the game. We need to be practicing the maximum amount of FTs per day that the training staff will allow this side of creating an injury.

We did almost everything right in this game except missed crucial free throws. Absolute gut punch.

There are certain details that most very good and great free throw shooters do. The Kings players don't do these things. Even Monk who is generally very good, is not particularly disciplined with his details.

Sometimes it's not a matter of shooting more of them in practice, but instead getting more detailed and improving your routine. One detail example that I don't like from Sabonis, is that he stares at the rim too long. Tends to create tension and minimize rhythm into the release

 

[reptilexcq2]

I see Fox and Monk as un-cerebral players. In other words, they play with emotion but don't think and concentrate when the moment count. If they make shot or missed shots, they think it's part of the game and don't think too much of it. Since they play with emotion, they can be explosive, but can also lose concentration when distracted by other things such as opponents getting into their head. You notice Malik Monk were smiling and talking back at a Bucks' player when he was at the line after what it seems like the Kings could have sealed the win if he made both.

Now, if you look at both players and compare them to Sabonis, they're night and day. Sabonis will get upset if he missed the first free throw and really want to concentrate on the second. Sabonis is what you called a true cerebral player, he play with intelligence. He knows every shot he made mean so much in a close game and he want to maximize it by focusing. Nothing can distract him.

 

[Padrino]

I see Fox and Monk as un-cerebral players. In other words, they play with emotion but doesn't think and concentrate when the moment count. If they make shot or missed shots, they think it's part of the game and don't think too much of it. Since they play with emotion, they can be explosive, but can also lose concentration when distracted by other things such as opponents getting into their head. You notice Malik Monk were smiling and talking back at a Bucks' player when he was at the line after what it seems like the Kings could have sealed the win if he made both.

Now, if you look at both players and compare them to Sabonis, they're night and day. Sabonis will get upset if he missed the first free throw and really want to concentrate on the second. Sabonis is what you called a true cerebral player, he play with intelligence. He knows every shot he made mean so much in a close game.

I can't speak for Malik, but if you've ever listened to De'Aaron Fox talk about basketball (or anything, really), you'd recognize that isn't true.

 

[hrdboild]

The only mistake Fox made on that buzzer beater was in trying to guard anyone other than Dame on the inbound play. It should have been obvious that he was taking the last shot no matter what and it was probably going to be from logo range. Denying him the ball entirely would have been a better strategy.

 

[Kingster]

The positives: The ball did "snap" around the court, more than I've seen it for a long time. I wonder if this ball movement helped Heurter get his game back. It does help with getting him open, getting him the ball, and with rhythm. More please. The overall effort was also there with this team. Unfortunately, we don't see it consistently. More effort consistently, please. And as far as I'm concerned, Brown exploding over the officiating was a positive for the longer term. His point in the presser that the refs around the league have two different ways they are calling fouls - either two hands up is not a foul or one hand up with the other lower hand as a "bar" is not a foul - is irrefutable. The league can talk all they want about the fact that missed calls are part of the game, but the refs literally not knowing what the rule is is ridiculous and pathetic. I'd be outraged too if I were in his place. Lastly, Matt Barnes should be a permanent fixture in the Kings' broadcasting crew, hopefully as the analyst/color commentator.

The negatives: obviously free throws. Without improvement in that area, we all are doomed to future heart-breaks. There were also some defensive lapses, but the effort was there so it's difficult for me to harp on any of that because the #1 thing for this team is to bring defensive effort.

P.S. Hopefully, the Murray injury is not serious. He's the player of overriding importance this season,.

 

[Jones2006]

I can't speak for Malik, but if you've ever listened to De'Aaron Fox talk about basketball (or anything, really), you'd recognize that isn't true.

I think that poster respectfully is just using the word wrong. But his overall point and analysis I tend to agree with. There’s a little bit of a “too cool for school” demeanor Fox has, which has its positive of not being rattled in high tense moments, but the negative in some cases could be having blind spots of concentration in certain high tense moments too. Hard to put into words but Sabonis has a seriousness about him, a heightened level of focus when it’s required it seems.

Now this is more of an abstract part of the game of course so hard to put into words. But I get what the other guy was saying.

 

[63royals]

My main takeaway, other than Make Your Damn Free Throws, is that Fox is better than Lillard. And if the game were called fairly it wouldn't be close.

 

[SacTownKid]

Bingo. HB's decline in FTr has had a big impact to our offense. And we saw with a massive Huerter game, how much his decline this year has affected our overall offense too.

This is the issue when you push someone like Keegan up and over Barnes in terms of role and attempts because Keegan simply doesn't get to the line very often. He's still under 2 per game despite seeing both his minutes and attempts climb. Now of course, thankfully they are giving Keegan more of a role since he's the long term piece but in the interim it's pushing the Kings from 5th in FTA per game last season to around 21st this season. Keegan has potential to get to the line but he's still basically a player in catch and shoot for the most part.