Sacramento’s reserves made a valiant effort in the second half, but the damage had been done
The Sacramento Kings have had a lot of questionable performances this season, but Saturday night’s 117-103 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers might take the cake.
Following a demoralizing loss to the Charlotte Hornets on Friday, ideally, the Kings would have come out with some fire from the opening tip and really competed with the Cavs, regardless of the final result.
Well, that didn’t happen. In fact, the exact opposite happened.
The Kings were lifeless and laid an absolute egg in the first half on Saturday, trailing the Cavs 81-52 at the break.
The final score wasn’t quite as embarrassing, as the Kings reserves led a nice comeback in the fourth quarter. But, we’ve seen this movie before where the Kings’ reserves nearly dig them out of a massive hole and fall short. At no point did it seem like the Kings would actually come back and win.
Sacramento’s defense continues to be downright embarrassing. Guys are facing no opposition from the Kings’ guards at the point of attack and are able to get to the rim basically at will. This team has preached a lot about improving the defense, but it still hasn’t happened on any level regardless of who the coach is.
Shoutout to Davion Mitchell, who really brought the energy in the second half and helped lead the quasi comeback with his energy and effort. Mitchell finished with 14 points on six of 12 shooting and was somehow a +15 in a game the Kings were blown out in.
After playing well in his last few appearances, Marvin Bagley III got his first start of the season at the power forward spot. Bagley was pretty ineffective Saturday, shooting just three of 10 and scoring just seven points. In fairness to Bagley, he was matched up with rookie sensation Evan Mobley for most of the night, which is a tough ask for anyone.
I feel bad for all of the fans that were sucked back into this team after their mini three-game win streak. This team remains who they’ve always been. Not very good.
At a certain point, there needs to be and roster change because the current core just isn’t working.