What we learned as Kings collapse vs. Suns, drop to West’s No. 9 seed

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What we learned as Kings collapse vs. Suns, drop to West’s No. 9 seed originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SACRAMENTO – Domantas Sabonis notched another double-double but it wasn’t enough, as the Sacramento Kings suffered through a scoring drought in the final minutes and lost to the Phoenix Suns 108-107 at Golden 1 Center on Friday.

The loss prevented the Kings from clinching a spot in the 7-8 play-in game. They went into the night tied with the Lakers and Warriors for the No. 8 spot. The Lakers won and the Warriors lost, pushing the Kings a tie for the No. 9 spot.

The Kings (45-36) can avoid the single-elimination game by winning their regular-season finale on Sunday against Portland coupled with a loss by the Lakers. Just beating the Blazers would guarantee Sacramento of at least hosting the 9-10 game.

Sabonis had 25 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists for the Kings, who have lost five of six.

De’Aaron Fox and Keegan Murray each scored 23, while Keon Ellis added 17. Harrison Barnes has 12 points and six rebounds. Fox passed DeMarcus Cousins for second place on the Kings’ all-time scoring list (9,918 points) during the Sacramento era. Hall-of-Famer Mitch Richmond owns the career scoring mark 12,070.

The Kings led for most of the game before the Suns made a run at the end.

Sacramento led 105-99 with three-and-a-half minutes remaining but scored just once after that – on a put-back by Barnes with 2 minutes left.

Kevin Durant made two free throws with 52 seconds remaining then Jusuf Nurkic made one of two from the stripe with 8.7 seconds remaining.

The Kings got the ball back for one last shot but with a foul to give, the Suns fouled Fox to prevent him from driving. Sacramento then inbounded the ball but failed to get a shot off as the buzzer sounded.

Here are the takeaways from Friday’s game:

Swipa leads the defense

The Kings looked a lot better on defense than they were 24 hours earlier.

The Suns were held to 22 and 23 points in the first two quarters and made only 4 of 13 3-point tries in the first half. Phoenix overcame that and made things close in the fourth quarter before Sacramento held on for…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/learned-kings-collapse-vs-suns-051808590.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-04-13 05:18:08

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