Kings fan here. Your radio announcer is awesome. Dude just seems to love basketball and calls the game with no bias. Such a fun listen

GAME NOTES:

​

Holy hell was our zone defense absolutely dreadful tonight. We allowed Harrison Barnes to go 9-10 in the first half for like 26 points, mainly off of wide open corner 3’s. We were giving up so many open looks and the Kings just weren’t missing. The Kings ended up shooting 18-49 from 3.

​

Kind of a disappointing game in a number of ways. Our frontcourt didn’t look coherent, and Lauri really struggled the first quarter. Kessler was a nonfactor, Collins sat in the corner all game, and it was just an ugly game. Credit to Sabonis and the Kings quick rotations and defense for throwing our bigs off their rhythm.

​

Lauri ended up with 18 points on 15 shots, going 6-15. 10 rebounds though. He looked like he was hunting for some looks, and maybe wasn’t letting it flow through him. But in my opinion, that falls mainly on our guards for not setting him up the best. He did have a great alley-oop from THT. I do like that he was aggressive in shot hunting, it just wasn’t falling tonight.

​

Speaking of our guards, it’s a bad sign if Jordan Clarkson is the leading assist man. THT did not look good offensively, 8 points, 3-9 shooting. 4 assists, 1 turnover, but man I was so disappointed he started and ended up with 22 minutes. Lots of ugly basketball when he had the ball unfortunately.

​

Clarkson was our leading scorer with 24 points on 8-16 shooting. Like I mentioned above, 6 assists which led the team tonight. It took him a little to get going too, but he looks improved from last year. He is looking to pass out of drives when the defense collapses, which isn’t something that we are used to. He is so much fun to watch, and he seems to have passed his bad shot selection to THT.

​

Will Hardy ran some interesting lineups. He ran a lot of 3 guard lineups, Ochai, and a big man. We countered their stretch lineup by playing Olynyk at C, and even Lauri at C for some time in the 4th. It was actually decently effective in getting us points and stopping them from scoring. We saw lineups like these in the preseason, I was surprised Hardy whipped it out so soon.

​

Kris Dunn didn’t look too good tonight either. Our entire guard lineup was pretty iffy tonight. 16 minutes, 8 points, 4 turnovers to just 2 assists, and a team low -16. He was also postered by Malik Monk…

​

Agbaji didn’t light up the scoreboard, and scoreboard watching you’d say he was pretty much a non-factor. But he looks so beefy. He’s built, and he was giving the Kings some trouble. He resorted to his role from last season of mainly spot up shooting, which is different from what we saw in the preseason where he was making an effort to drive and be more involved. He finished with 5 points, 3 rebounds on 2-6 shooting.

​

Kessler was given trouble by everybody. Javale McGee, Domas Sabonis, anybody. He was the second worse on the team in terms of ±, with -14. 8 points, 8 rebounds, 1 block. He was a nonfactor tonight.

​

I want to see John Collins more involved in the offense. Too many times he was used in the dunkers spot, or just sat in the corner. 13 points 9 rebounds for him though. I just want to see more in the roller spot from him, but I don’t know how it will work next to a guy like Kessler. He was a nonfactor the second half, only scoring 4 points, all less than 4 minutes left in the game.

​

Kelly Olynyk was the best big for us tonight IMO. Again, didn’t light up the scoreboard, but he just seems to do a bit of everything. 5 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists. I think he fits the needs of this team nicely.

​

Sexton was just as brutal as THT tonight. 2-9 shooting, 9 points, 3 rebounds, 0 assists, 3 turnovers, 3 fouls. C’mon man. I love Sexton, but it is so frustrating seeing him throw this opportunity away. I was hoping he would take a leap forward in his playmaking and claim the starting spot. But man. 20 minutes of nothing out there.

​

Lastly, Keyonte George. His first basket was an and-1 goaltended layup, but his first real made shot (besides the free throw) was a 3 pointer. He had one bad pass in the 4th, but he was part of our 4th quarter rotation. 8 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists in 19 minutes.

​

We saw garbage time minutes from Yurtseven, Sensabaugh, Hendricks, Fontecchio, and Samanic. Fontecchio was the only one who scored.

​

I think that this game will be a good reality check for a lot of fans. The Kings are a great team, and showed it tonight. We just couldn’t keep up. Pair that with some iffy defensive schemes, and it’s a wrap. It also shows that we can’t rely on Sexton, THT, or Dunn to be our PG. We need a solid option if we want to try to get above .500

​

To me, we mainly beat ourselves with terrible 3 point shooting. 9-28, compared to 19-51 from the Kings. We gave them any shot they wanted, and we struggled to get ours. We won the fastbreak battle, the rebound battle, and the foul game, but just couldn’t disrupt their shots like they were to us.

​

0-1 bitches. See you Friday

Looked good: John Collins, Ochai Abgaji, Keyonte George, Jordan Clarkson

Looked bad: Sexton, THT, Dunn, Kessler

We have a giant Mike Conley sized crater on this team LMAO

Good job Kings

This just happened to be the first jazz game that ive had the opportunity to watch this season. And from what I saw, if im being honest with myself, im not impressed.

Tank starts today