Disappointing.
Too many free throws, second chance points, and points off turnovers for Portland. Straight up I thought the Kings mostly did well defensively but they didn’t finish defensive possessions and went through too many sloppy spells mixed with FG droughts…especially when Fox or Huerter or both were out of the game.
Any lofty expectations for the Kings obviously assume that Sabonis even on his worst nights is a double double. This was a terrible out of control game from the start. He didn’t score much, he didn’t rebound, he didn’t do much facilitating. It didn’t seem to matter the style of matchup either. At first I thought maybe Nurkic and Eubanks were big boys up to the task on this night… but then he can’t get anything on clear mismatches either…so Domas was just terrible tonight.
If Domas was merely average tonight, the Kings probably win with a decent cushion.
Barnes was OK. We need more offense from him. Front court was mostly bad or quiet across the board.
the refs were lousy all game but that TD tech sucked the momentum out of the arena and turned a 2 point game into a 1point game. It was massive and it fell apart from there. You can’t call that trash.
Loved Huerter. The Kings were running away with the game until the exact moment he came out in the third. Didn’t get back in order until he returned in the 4th but by that point it was a toss up. Completely in control. Awesome player.
Fox had a great game outside of the turnovers.
TD was strong.
Mitchell stood out defensively as usual but the missed shots do start to add up as they did in that 3rd…but he’s going to be a big part.
Monk seems like he’ll be OK. Might be trying to do too much. There’s probably a lot more competition for minutes than he was anticipating. I think most of us assumed TD wouldn’t be getting the opportunities he got in preseason and opening night but Brown likes him…and he’s played better than Monk. He had a couple of nice plays but had some unforced errors.
Holmes needs to be better. Lyles needs to be better.