The Kings and the warriors seem to have the most competitive, nerve-racking games you will ever see. Even though the Kings were without star point guard De’aaron Fox, every second of this game was entertaining.
Just when you had thought the Kings had won the game when Domantas Sabonis hit a jumper in Draymond Green’s face with 14 seconds left in the game, the Warriors go down the court with no timeouts left to use and get the ball to Klay Thompson with 3 seconds left in the game. He took a few dribbles and nailed a tough mid range shot on 2 defenders to take the lead 102-101 with 0.2 seconds left, which sealed the deal for the warriors in a super close and cutthroat game.
The Kings did a lot of things right this game; they sent a lot of double teams on Steph Curry, making anyone else beat them, which I think should have been the strategy for Mike Brown’s team a lot sooner, but it was good to see the Kings finally play defense the correct way on the Warriors, the offense just could not execute enough without Fox on the court.
Keegan Murray deserves a special shout out for guarding Curry the whole game, and doing an excellent job, forcing Curry into 7 turnovers and altering some of his shots with his mobility and length. Keegan did not have a great offensive game, but the defensive upside to him has a very high ceiling.
Sabonis was aggressive like everyone expected him to be without Fox, tallying 23 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists going 50% from the field. What really came back to bite the Kings was the 5 missed free throws by Sabonis. That does not sit well when you know simply making 80% of your free throws would have won your team the game. Outside of that, Sabonis played an excellent game, but it is getting to the point where he needs to really work on his free throws to elevate his game any further.
I saw a sizable amount of people on social media blaming the refs for the loss, but I thought the refs were fairly consistent with what they were calling. They were letting a lot of stuff go last night, but they were doing that for both sides from what I was seeing. Yes, the Kings did deserve more calls, but I think the Warriors had a few calls missed as well for them.
Overall, I do not believe in moral victories, but the young Kings team played well without their leader. All of the starting 5 scored 10 or more points, and the defensive upside to this team was on display all night. You just have to hand it to the Warriors, their championship experience aided them to outplay the Kings once again in the last few minutes of the game.
Once the Kings can learn to mix in this gritty defense with their dynamic offense, we will have a contender on our hands. It is just a matter of time.
