By: Eric He

A night after routing the Knicks by 38 points, the Sacramento Kings were on the receiving end of a rout on Wednesday, falling 112-85 to the Spurs on the road.

On the back-end of a back-to-back, the Kings looked fatigued and it showed as the game went on.

After a close first quarter, the Kings were outscored 28-11 by the Spurs in the second quarter. It wasn’t that the Spurs were dominant offensively, but clamped down on defense as the Kings shot 4-of-15 from the field.

Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green shot the ball well to help the Spurs gain separation and a 54-38 advantage at halftime.

The second half wasn’t much better, as the Kings could not keep up with the Spurs on defense and were swarmed on the offensive end. DeMarcus Cousins had a rough night, defended well by the Spurs. He finished with 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting.

San Antonio led 85-61 after three quarters, and pushed its lead to as high as 40 at 110-70 in the fourth quarter.

Leonard finished with a game-high 21 points and Tony Parker had 19. Tim Duncan played just 19 minutes and finished with five points; no Spurs starter played more than 30 minutes as everyone on the Spurs’ active roster got on the court.

The Kings shot just 37.2 percent from the field and committed 17 turnovers. Cousins’ 14 points actually led the team, as no player had much of a scoring output whatsoever.

It looked promising at first.

The Kings started the game missing their first four shots and committing three turnovers, allowing the Spurs to jump out to an early 11-2 lead. But the Kings clawed their way back in it, and a fastbreak layup by Ray McCallum tied the  game at 18-18. Derrick Williams scored seven consecutive points for the Kings late in the quarter, and the Kings led 27-26 after one.

Sacramento has another back-to-back upcoming: in Orlando on Friday and Miami on Saturday.

Notes

Frustration got the better of the Kings in the second, as both Jason Thompson and Rudy Gay picked up technical fouls. … The Kings drop three of four games to the Spurs in the season series. Sacramento is 55-109 all-time against San Antonio. … The Kings are 3-4 since George Karl took over as head coach.