Kings vs Timberwolves Preview: Howling at the Gates

After a comfortable win against the Phoenix Suns, the Sacramento Kings are back in action tonight, taking on the team that beat them on opening night, the Minnesota Timberwolves. It’s an NBA Cup game, so with a new court, newfound joy in winning basketball (and $500,000) and a new chance to hit a normal, regular number of threes, the Kings will still try to defeat a Wolves squad looking to take their stride and return to the top of the Western Conference.

Let’s talk Kings basketball.

When: Friday 15 November at 19:00 PST
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
TV: NBCSCA
Radio: Sactown Sports 1140 AM

For your consideration

Ant-Man vs. Kangz the Conquerors: Man, I gotta say, the Kings made quick work of making me look stupid after the preview for Wednesday’s game against the Suns. I finally get a chance to diffuse my worries, and immediately they come out hot against the KD-less, Beal-less Suns – hitting 15 threes on 28 attempts, all while the bench plays decently without DeRozan and Monk. Only taking 28 threes is a bit crazy for me, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. Here’s to that game being fair game for Sacramento shooters.

Speaking of getting it right, the Kings have a chance to come right up against their home opener spoilers tonight with the T’Wolves in town. With the new Wolves still trying to fit pieces together, they sit right in the middle of the road at 6-6 with three straight losses thanks to the Heat and Blazers (twice) and look pretty beatable. in their current state. This is no time to bash the Wolves, just to state here: they have some real problems to start this season. First, Mike Conley, especially on offense, has fallen off a cliff averaging 7.4 points on 31.3% from the field with 4.7 assists and nearly a steal and a half. Sure it’s only down four points a game from last season, but it’s also a hair over 14% difference from the field. The guy is collapsing somewhat violently, and as such, and as a Kings fan, I fear a lot for the man who has nothing to lose. If anyone is going to have a breakout game, it’s Mike.

As a whole, the team just looks very kangz-ish in that they’re just not quite there. Adding and removing key cogs for the Kings has yielded both fruit and frustration, and the Wolves did so to an extreme degree and on the weekend before the start of the training camp. It should be expected to some extent that it would take more than twelve games for a team to adjust, but with a return to the Western Conference Finals hoped for by some and expected by others in the Wolves fandom, time is not something that Wolves have. much of. Julius Randle fills the KAT role nicely, within a point of KAT’s average last year while shooting a similar percentage, grabbing a little more than one less board, but dishing out one more assist. And yet, just the other side of the coin, Donte DiVincenzo was expected to be a strong 6MOTY candidate, averaging 9.4 points while making 7.1 attempts from deep on 30.6% from deep. Rudy Gobert drops a few points, Naz Reid is up, the seesaw goes back and it goes forward and in time it will stabilize. But it is not stabilized yet.

Whether they are up or down tonight is entirely in the hands of Anthony Edwards. Clearing out KAT, while a move primarily to save money, was also a sign for Anthony Edwards that his time has come, and expectations have risen to MVP levels for the 23-year-old. He is averaging a hair under 28 points a game, essentially two points higher than last season. His game has evolved this season – he’s taking nearly twice as many three-pointers, increasing his percentage from a respectable 35.7% on 6.7 attempts to a lethal 42.3% on 11.4 attempts. This, while maintaining a nearly identical total field goal percentage, is impressive stuff. Now he went 0-9 in his last game against the Blazers? Sure. Does he regress to the mean? Lord I hope so. The Kings’ 7th worst long-ball defense must smell like blood on the snow to a wolf like Edwards, and without some stellar play from the Kings’ guards, Ant could cause them some major, major pain. Nothing we don’t already know, but I’d like to cover my bases if there’s a 50 burger.

Okay, quick fire observations to talk around the water cooler today: Wolves are 8th in defensive rating, 6th in opponent points per game. game, and the Kings are without DeRozan tonight. Maybe the Kings can push the Wolves faster than their middle of the road, No. 16 in NBA pace, especially considering it mentioned all summer, all training camp, that they wanted to be top-5 in pace and currently sits at, oh, 13. ? What else? Well, despite Gobert and Randle manning the middle, the Wolves are 23rd in defensive rebounding and 25th overall, with the Kings 7th in defensive rebounding and 16th in overall rebounding. Feels unsafe with Stifle Tower in there. Okay, I think that’s it for this game. Everyone is enjoying the new track tonight which is about to start.

The little things

Where it should: Yes, sure, the game I decide to write about the Kings struggling from deep and with production from the bench, the Kings go out there and hit a normal number of threes, and the bench generally played well. I think my official prediction had Trey Lyles going 3-4 from deep and the guy going 3-5… so I’ll take it. Need to watch it for more than 22 minutes, but good lord, it was nice that the guy made a decent cut. Doug McDermott goes oh-fer on the other side…

Questionable handle: Look, I know we have some young fans out there and they’re excited about the Kings and less so about the Wolves. I’m begging you tonight, if you’re anything like the Kings fans sitting behind me and my Timberwolves best friend on opening night… Please find better slurs than just yelling “Dubious Handle” every 25 seconds of the game. I can handle you yelling “that’s a bad shot!” and “he’s not a winning basketball player!” as he goes 8-10 from the field in the first half, including 4-5 from deep. I can handle you saying that a three-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA, Top 8 MVP vote just “isn’t good for anything”… but for the love of all that is holy about this sport, so please find a better insult than “Dubious Handle”. We get it, it rhymes obliquely with Julius Randle. It’s really bad. It’s so bad.

Forecast

The game is tied with 0.7 seconds left and Julius Randle is at the line to put the Wolves in the driver’s seat. A lone shrill slips out from the crowd and pierces through the fans’ hum and into the shooter’s ears. It’s unnatural, it’s disturbing. Something deep in his soul bleeds, pierced by the inhuman scream that no one else seems to mind. It’s been on for a few seconds, but it feels like hours, like years, like it’s always been there, deep in his DNA, since fish grew legs and walked out of the sea in search of an escape from death. How long had he been on this line. On this earth. The sound vibrates him unconscious. Clank. Don’t worry, he has another try. The ball returns to him, the routine is set, take a second, a second too long, as the noise from the crowd returns. It speaks. “duuuubious“. His mind is blank: at once tense and completely smooth, a key to his frontal cortex. The ball feels a thousand pounds, his knees like wet sand. Vision blurred, ears ringing, his being screamed loudly to die and be done with this eternal torture. The ball goes up. “Swiss”. The sound stops. He did it. Somehow, through the agony of all that has come before, he has won the team the game. All through the next timeout, he can only look at the breadth of his life, a new man, changed from the eternity of soul twists he had felt from the sound seeping from the edge of the arena noise out of a dark, emotionless universe. Havana syndrome? Rudy had sent him an InfoWars clip about it. Maybe he’d look it up when he got back to the hotel, or ask Rudy about it, or—

Keegan Murray blows by stalling Julius Randle for an open tip at the rim for the win.

Kings: 119, Timberwolves: 118