NEW YORK – The odds were stacked against the Sacramento Kings on Thursday night (Friday, Manila time), but they still found a way to grind out a victory to clinch their best season in 17 years.
On the second night of a tiring back-to-back schedule, they lost their starting shooting guard to injury, and their league-best offense stalled.
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The Kings dug deep in their tanks to pull off a gritty 101-96 win over the reeling Brooklyn Nets.
Their 42nd win kept the Kings at No. 2 in the Western Conference and assured the franchise of their first winning season since going 44-38 in 2005-06.
“I never imagined that I would use that word gritty with this team this year,” Kings coach Mike Brown said. “But the guys showed grit definitely tonight.”
It was a win that Brown was most proud of as they held their opponents under 100 for the first time this season.
Brown, who built his reputation in the league as a defensive coach, uncharacteristically transformed the Kings into a well-oiled offensive machine as they turned out to be this season’s biggest surprise in his first year on the job.
Their offense is the king of the league. They ran their opponents to the ground in high-scoring games until today.
“This easily could have been a game that we just kind of mailed it in early, especially when [Brooklyn] started hitting the amount of threes that they did, and for us to shoot 39% from the field and score 101 points,” Brown said. “I tell you what, the defensive side of the floor was fun to watch.”
Domantas Sabonis collected his league-best 56th double-double of the season with a monster 24-point and 21-rebound performance. His fourth 20-20 game this season shattered a 3-3 deadlock with MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Nets did not have an answer for Sabonis. The Kings survived a poor shooting night by crashing the boards. They had a sizable 57-41 advantage in rebounds.
Sacramento held Brooklyn without a second-chance point, the first time it happened in the NBA over the last eight years.
“I think all five guys need to do a better job of getting involved,” said starting Nets center Nic Claxton, who grabbed 14 rebounds and scored 14 points.
No other Nets player pulled more than six rebounds.
“For us to take another step forward — we talked about it the other day — I think we were 26th [in defensive boxouts] going into the last game. We can’t be in that 20 range,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn rued.
“Every guy has to crash [the boards]. If you’re not touching somebody, then you’re wrong. If you’re not helping your teammate, then you’re wrong.”
Seth Curry’s hot hands and Mikal Bridges’ shotmaking in the fourth quarter kept the game close as the Nets rallied from a 17-point deficit in the third quarter.
Bridges led the Nets with 23 points, while Curry was the only player from the Nets’ bench to score in double figures with 14 points.
“You got to give the Nets a lot of credit,” Brown said. “They got long athletes that are 6’7 and bigger, and they just switch a lot of stuff, and sometimes it beats you into playing iso ball, which we did a couple of times tonight. And usually, when that happens, we stall out, and we did at times, but I thought we were just gritty, and we found ways to get stops.”
The Nets started hot, building a 21-12 lead, as they took advantage of their weary visitors. The Kings did not reach their hotel here until dawn after a gutsy 117-114 win in Chicago on a De’Aaron Fox 3-pointer. Then they lost Kevin Huerter to a hamstring injury in the game's first six minutes.
But the Kings regrouped with Sabonis dominating the Nets frontcourt with 12 points in the second quarter.
Kings reserve Kessler Edwards —who started the season with the Nets until they shipped him last February in a salary dump — came back to haunt them with 10 points and three rebounds as he filled in admirably for Huerter.
“After they came out on fire, I said, ‘hey, we got to our hotel room at 3:30 in the morning and had a game last night, then Kevin got hurt early,’ but our guys just kept playing, and that was really encouraging to see,” Brown said.
It was a test of character for these Kings, who are poised to make the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. If things go south in the postseason, they can look back to this game and know they have it in them to grind out a victory even when their high-powered offense gets checked.
Double celebration
Sacramento will have both their NBA and G League teams in the postseason. The Stockton Kings, where former PBA MVP and six-time PBA champion Jimmy Alapag serves as an assistant coach, clinched a playoff berth earlier this week.
The Stockton Kings are sitting atop the Western Conference with a 22-6 record, the second-best in the G-league.
The Long Island Nets, Brooklyn’s G League affiliate, own the best record at 22-5 to pace the Eastern Conference.
Wild finish
The Nets’ second straight loss dropped them to 31-39, falling 1.5 games behind their crosstown rival New York Knicks (41-30), for the fifth seed. The Nets hold a 1.5-game lead over the 38-33 Miami Heat, coached by Filipino-American Erik Spoelstra, for the sixth seed.
The top six teams in each conference will go straight to the playoffs, while the seventh to 10th seeds will fight for the last two playoff berths in the play-in tournament.
The Heat have the fourth-easiest schedule remaining, while the Knicks and Nets have the 22nd and 23rd strongest schedules left.
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Alder Almo is a former senior sportswriter for Philstar.com and NBA.com Philippines. He is now based in Jersey City, New Jersey, and writes for the New York-based sports website empiresportsmedia.com.