[Game] Kings vs. Nuggets, 12/29/20, 7PM PST, 10PM EST

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Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#1
Well I guess 72-0 is off the table then.

The first 2.5 quarters of that second Suns game were pretty fun but then the Kings remembered it was the second night of a back-to-back and just popped like a balloon. Also Luke Walton effectively took De'Aaron Fox out of the game by inserting him into the game for the last five seconds of the third quarter for some reason only to pick up a foul on a sketchy moving screen call.

But all in all, it's been an encouraging first three games for the Kings. The guys seem to be trying, the defense isn't a total disaster, and Luke's rotations have only been moderately horrible instead of their usual degree of mindnumbing terribleness. Hell, we even managed to lose bad enough for the kids to see playing time!

It's a (blindingly fast paced but) long season and who knows where things go from here but I certainly feel more excited about firing up my iPad and tuning into Kings games to watch while halfheartedly pumping out bad subtitles for videos no one watches now than I did before the season stated and, if we lose, that's just one step closer to a good pick in the 2021 draft! There's still plenty of time to #SuckforSuggs or #MetastasizeforMobley so until then, go Kings!
***

Awards Time!

Tony Delk Memorial Award - Frank Kaminsky. In true TDM fashion, Frank the Tank, our 5th big for the entirety of preseason, came back against us in infuriatingly dumb fashion, scoring around the hoop and even hitting one of those threes that he kept missing until he got cut as a King. While apparently not good enough to cut it for our roster, the Wisconsin wunderkind sure decided to pick the perfect time to have a game that will probably keep him on the Suns for the rest of the season. Honorable mention goes to Cam Johnson. While the Suns were clowned for taking the kid in last year's draft, he's performed well and was physically incapable of missing against the Kings.

Jason Hart-Andres Nocioni Bench Mob Award- Glenn Robinson III. Following up on a good performance in the first Suns game, Little Big Dog came out looking like a mere Toy Poodle against the Suns reserves. To his credit, he only took one shot, so it was only like he didn't exist out there rather than him being so bad that you'd prefer he didn't exist.

Luke Walton Vacuum Cleaner Award - Luke Walton. Really self-explanatory at this point. Sure he won the challenge to save De'Aaron from picking up a foul but him reinserting De'Aaron with like a second left in the 3rd to get a 5th foul was really unnecessary to say the least. Also his preseason promises to push the pace and keep one of Fox or Buddy in at all times lasted roughly one game into the regular season.

Shareef Abdur-Rahim Award - Jae Crowder, who has made his living off of working hard and hustling, two things that get harder to do as you age. While he hasn't reached peak SAR at the end of his career sitting on the bench levels of cooked yet, it sorta felt like he was getting there as he was the only Sun to have a bad shooting night on Sunday.

WTF Moment of the Game - The last part of the third quarter, in which the Kings somehow managed to go from being tied to getting blown out and in major foul trouble in the span of like two minutes. While the entire start of the season prior to that was very much good solid basketball, that spurt was pure putrid Kangz.

Small Sample Size Theater -

***
The Nuggets! Again! One of the quirks of this bizarre shortened season is the inclusion of those back-to-back "series" games against the same time. This time, though, it's more of a series sandwich, with both teams having faced other opponents after the opening night buzzer beater.

Denver is coming off of the first night of a back-to-back in which they dispatched the semi-quarantined Rockets with relative ease to earn their first win of the year.

I don't anticipate some of the Nuggets being as lax this game as they were opening night. In Jamal Murray's case, it would almost be impossible for him to do any worse than he did in the first matchup.

In the Kings' favor, they also probably won't miss as many open threes this time around and, hopefully, will take more of them in this game if only to open up a bit more space for Fox and Bagley to work inside.
***
Starting fives:
Jokic vs. Holmes: Joker has started the year on an absolute dominant run (although in his case, it would really be more a slow deliberate trot than anything else). In the first game, Holmes had major issues matching up with the big Serbian center and sorta wound up taking a backseat to Hassan and Bagley even before fouling out in the 4th quarter. I see no reason things will be any different this time around, though, rest assured, if the Kings want to win, they'll need to do a better job of containing Jokic this time around. Advantage: Jokic.

Milsap vs. Bagley: Milsap is having a great start of the season to help the Nuggets get past the loss of Jerami Grant. How good? Well, he's currently shooting .545 from three on almost four attempts a game. Of course, at this point in his career, that outside spacing is almost all the slightly undersized big can offer. While Milsap is still a solid team defender, the Kings would possibly be wise to try to use Bagley's athleticism advantage on offense more than they did in the first game. Advantage: Bagley

Porter Jr. vs. Barnes: Porter is among the more preeminently inherently good at scoring prospects to emerge in the league over the last couple of seasons. Long, relatively athletic and very good at shooting, he is pretty much everything you look for on offense from a modern swing forward, a fact that is more than slightly offset by the issue of him being an absolutely bad defender for 95% of his time on the court. Porter, much like Buddy Hield, isn't bad at defense via a lack of talent but rather because someone messed with the settings on real-life 2K and set his defensive awareness to 0 (50, if we're being generous). In the first matchup, the Kings took advantage of this by simply giving Harrison Barnes the ball pretty much every single time the Nuggets were matched up in man defense with Porter in the game to marvelous effect. Malone is an excellent defensive coach so I'm anticipating him scheming up a bit more protection against this strategy this time around but if his game is close in crunch time, I'm not so sure we'll be seeing all too much of this matchup. Advantage: Porter (on offense), Barnes (in not potentially giving the game away by doing something dumb)

Harris vs. Buddy: Gary Harris has had an interesting career as one of the longest tenured Nuggets. To start the season, he has absolutely sucked from beyond the arc despite being a good shooter for most of his career. Buddy has been a much better defender to start the season although his offensive game has been lagging. Is this the game where Buddy catches fire? Advantage: Buddy. Better scorer. Suddenly satisfactory defender.

Murray vs. Fox: Fox won the first matchup by virtue of being the only one to show up for the game. This time Murray should be better but how much better remains the question. I'm expecting a bounce back game from Swipa and if the Kings have any chance of winning, he'll have to control the tempo of the game on both sides of the court. Advantage: Potential wash but I'm going with De'Aaron.

Nuggets Bench vs. Kings Bench: As we saw in the first matchup between these two teams, the Nuggets offseason of losing role players was most heavily felt in their bench, which is now merely very good instead of absolutely loaded. Bol Bol has been relegated to the end of the bench rather than the big role most pundits had envisioned for him over the offseason. Will Barton is a nice role player for the Nuggets and probably the one dude on their roster capable of really playing defense. Monte Morris is another solid point guard. After those two players though the Nuggets talent takes a pretty big nosedive. Isaiah Hartenstein is their main backup big, for whatever that's worth. Meanwhile, Tyrese Haliburton continues to absolutely thrive to start off his NBA career. Hassan has done well as our third big. Bjelica can be good too (Also a guy who could potentially really look nice on the Nuggets roster). CoJo also exists. Advantage: A wash but the Kings might be a tad bit deeper in this category.

Final Prediction: Nuggets 121, Kings 114
The Nuggets are going to be motivated to put that opening night loss behind them. This should be a hard-fought game but two in a row against the Nuggets is still a tall task for this Kings team, no matter how many role players the Nuggets have bled.
 
#4
While I agree with the final prediction, I disagree with a few takes.

Milsap vs Bagley: You underestimate the craftiness of the old man in this matchup.
Harris vs. Buddy: Harris is actually an elite defender.
Benches: Slight advantage Kings, because of the familiarity.

If Kings try to double Jokic, they are dead. IMO, it is better to use 18 fouls on Jokic defending 1 on 1, than to double and open passing lines. See what happened to the Rockets.
 

SacTownKid

Hall of Famer
#5
I'm not sure the matchup will necessarily turn into something like the Suns but hopefully Malone just keeps doing what he did in the first meeting. If so, the Kings have a chance. If not, better bring some extra redbulls haha. Jokic was mostly playing Shaq it will be interesting to see if they play him out high and spread it this time.
 

SacTownKid

Hall of Famer
#6
While I agree with the final prediction, I disagree with a few takes.

Milsap vs Bagley: You underestimate the craftiness of the old man in this matchup.
Harris vs. Buddy: Harris is actually an elite defender.
Benches: Slight advantage Kings, because of the familiarity.

If Kings try to double Jokic, they are dead. IMO, it is better to use 18 fouls on Jokic defending 1 on 1, than to double and open passing lines. See what happened to the Rockets.
Yeah, no doubles with the kind of defense the Kings play. Not only does it leave players open in the high percentage 3 zones but they'll just keep you on that string with swing passes and then your offense dies because the players are gassed. And you can't expect Murray to play like he did in the first meeting so I would assume the shooting will be better.
 
#11
Denver is a good team and has incentive to win the rematch.

AND, 1) Denver's coming off a win, Kings off a loss; 2) Denver played last night, Kings didn't.

Mind you, no Nuggets player logged more than Jokic's 34 min last night in that blowout, but I expect a high-intensity effort and, certainly, fresher legs from the Kings, including bounceback games for De'Aaron and Buddy and more offensive engagement from HB. I think this one should be tight and my homer-colored glasses see another Kings' win tonight.
 

SLAB

Hall of Famer
#30
I really don’t understand the rotations at this point. You can’t chalk it up to matchups either since we saw different combinations on opening night last week.
Its random. In then out after short stints, different guys, different times. It’s very strange.
 
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