Disappointing but ultimately 12-40 from three and turnovers You aren’t going to beat most teams with that percentage, let alone the Warriors. It’s only game 2 of 82 but hate to see old things resurface. Especially the poor third quarter.
Fox was great tonight. He looks prime to take it to yet another level this season. However. he needs to be more careful defensively. He didn’t need to be bodying up Chris Paul like he was at half court in the first half or getting cheapies like that.
He’s too valuable and doesn’t have anything to prove by hovering over the GOAT of drawing cheap fouls. His foul trouble was the domino that led to Kevin Huerter primarily being on Curry in the third quarter. Curry saw the insult and saw red(literally and figuratively). That’s on Brown too. He’s been so wishy washy with Huerter since training camp but let that happen..for several minutes before Curry took off never to return.
Domas had a solid game. Actually a pretty good game. The first few minutes were rough where he lost the handle of the ball, missed a bunny, and then indecisively bull rushed to the hoop instead of taking an open shot and I was like “here we go again” but after that I was happy with his performance.
He took care of the glass. There was really no Looney turns into Rodman nonsense going on tonight, he didn’t turn the ball over after the first one, he found his shooters(who couldn’t shoot), and scored. Also, 5 steals. That late rally was powered in part by him getting his hands on the ball and Fox scoring. I would like him to score in the mid 20’s in these level games but there really isn’t too much to nitpick outside of 2 or 3 bunnies he missed.
Keegan missed way too many open threes but still encouraged by him showing signs of becoming more than a catch and shoot player. It will come together.
Now for the ugly
You can’t have 71 combined minutes from guards not named DeAaron Fox and only have 13 combined points(almost all by Monk). The dearth of offense from Huerter, Mitchell, and Duarte tonight cost the Kings.
Huerter looks lost. I don’t want to speculate but I wonder if he’s sulking and that he was perhaps not happy about Duarte starting over him that preseason game. Dlo and KC had said after seeing a video of a pregame interview with him that day, that he looked pissed about it. But I haven’t seen it. This is obviously not the way to respond to job insecurity.
Mitchell hasn’t scored this season.
Duarte couldn’t shoot tonight but I have liked his on ball defense even if it didn’t stop anybody from making shots tonight.
Monk’s numbers were pretty good but he kinda kicked off the sloppy play that sold the lead.
More Sasha. I have a feeling I might be saying this a lot this season. I don’t care about his defense and Coach “Why not Huerter on Curry?” probably shouldn’t care either. Besides, he hasn’t looked that bad compared to many other Kings or high minute NBA stretch 4’s in that regard. In fact, I think he’s working hard out there. He has seamlessly dropped 8 and 10 in his first two games in limited action. He’s already a bucket for a guy who is trying to feel out the league and his teammates. MORE SASHA!