Kings vs. Jazz Preview: Facing the Music

The Jazz are in town and after a 60 burger to De’Aaron Fox ended in an overtime loss, the Kings will have to pick themselves up and bounce back against a young team still trying to climb the Western Conference – the ladder. Can the Kings recover from a heartbreaking loss with no rest and tired legs? Can Keon Ellis take big open jump shots without the entire fanbase yelling at him to do it? Can John Collins just stay back and be a king already?

Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Saturday 16 November at 19:00 PST
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBCSCA
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM

For your consideration

Follow-up performances: The Wolves game last night was an absolutely ugly piece of work – ugly, disjointed basketball with no flow until the Kings went down by 20 and De’Aaron Fox decided to be unstoppable with 26 of his franchise-high 60 points in the fourth . quarters and overtime. I had completely lost interest in this game when I was waiting for Old Man vs. Youtubers were to release it on Netflix – starting in the fourth quarter with the game on mute and the match on an iPad. By the end of the fourth, the fight was completely abandoned, except for light glances here and there, with my eyes glued to every pixel of Fox’s performance. I’m sure there will be a more thorough recap of the night this morning if it hasn’t already been released, but god, Fox is cold. What a waste of an absolutely masterful night from De’Aaron.

And now we’re on the second night of a back-to-back, playing the current bottom team in the West, nursing an OT hangover and potentially without DeMar DeRozan, Malik Monk and maybe, just maybe, Domantas Sabonis. I’m wondering here about Domas. He left the game in the fourth to go back to the locker room, and it certainly looked like he was keeping his back funny. Knowing the man, it’s two broken vertebrae, a severed spinal cord, and he’s still giving us 17-14-6.

Okay, to the Jazz: they are 3-3 in their last six games: losing big to the Nuggets, Bucks and Suns while beating the Bulls, Spurs and Mavericks – this latest win is the now-infamous Luka staring into the -space- while-Collins-clips-the-backdoor-for-a-winning-layup. I know the Kings handled their business earlier this month against Utah, but at this point in the season the Kings are still just the Kings and prone to falling into fits of less than quality performances after a long night the night before. Win in overtime against the Suns? Come out the next night and stink it up against the Spurs. Lose in OT against the Wolves? Well, hey, here’s a chance to change the narrative a bit. It will be without some of the better players in your team, and in the middle of a team wide that is still trying to get crushed, but such is life.

The Jazz will give you chances to win the game: they turn the ball over more than any team in the league, they are the third-worst shooting team in the league, and they score the third-fewest points. Jazz gives the fifth number of points per battle to start, so despite the tired legs and broken hearts from last night, the possibility of redemption is there. Since it’s 6am on a Saturday and I’m writing this before a long day, I’ll briefly say that the Jazz is not pushed over. Their offense at this point is fairly balanced, with five players averaging between 15 and 18 points per game. battle so anyone (or everyone) could go out and stay the problem for Sacramento. If Sabonis is out, Walker Kessler, John Collins and Lauri Markkanens can party, if Fox is a step slow, Colin Sexton and Keyonte George are ready to fight. Hell, Jordan Clarkson has always, always been a guy who wants to kill the Kings. This won’t be easy, it might not even be fun, but if the Kings want an outright playoff spot, winning a game shorthanded and tired is all too necessary.

The little things

The Roy Al with cheese: Tonight, the Kings officially debut this season’s City Edition uniforms and with them their new mascot, Roy Al. If you haven’t seen the nasty little pervert, we threw in an article that included him when the jerseys were officially announced a few days ago. The raised eyebrow, the devilish upturned smile, the light bulging in his eyes, Roy Al is instantly the sexiest mascot this franchise has ever seen, and the more I stare at him, the more I think I’m rooting for his inclusion in this season. . If I could make a suggestion, it would be simply to keep him out of public appearances – the youngsters have enough of that right now without the dire threat of Roy Al haunting their nightmares. Outside of that little stipulation, 10/10, I love him and I would absolutely gun him down in my driveway if I saw him crawling around my doorbell at 10am. 3 in the morning. Big things.

Forecast

Fox goes to 70 and the rest is gravy.

Kings: 116, Jazz: 110