by Charlie O. Mallonee

Sacramento – The Sacramento Kings defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 94-90 at Sleep Train Arena on Saturday night. It was the Kings second victory over the Blazers in a week.

The Kings were led by guard Darren Collison who scored 18 points in 32-plus minutes of playing time. Collison also pulled down seven rebounds and dished out three assists.

Portland’s CJ McCollum led all scorers with 30 points. McCollum was 5-for-10 from 3-point land and 11-for-20 from the field. He scored 19 of his points in the third to quarter to keep the Blazers in the game.

The Kings won the game by outscoring Portland in the paint 38-28 and by scoring 25 points off the fast break to just 13 for the Blazers.

Kings

1. The Kings started Rajon Rondo and Darren Collison in the backcourt for the first time in the preseason. According to George Karl it was the first time the pair had played together because so much their time has been spent in team scrimmages. Rondo and Collison combined for a total of 22 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists.
2. DeMarcus Cousins scored 18 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, had three assists and two steals in 23-plus minutes of playing time. He also picked up his technical foul of the preseason in the third quarter arguing over an out of bounds call. Cousins earned the “T” by not stopping after his first appeal to the referee.
3. Willie Cauley-Stein had a good game scoring seven points and pulling down nine rebounds. Cauley-Stein is a presence on defense but is still a work in progress on offense.
4. The Kings shot .408 (31-for-76) from the field. They were 7-for-22 (.318) from beyond the 3-point line.
5. Rudy Gay did not dress for the game. He is not injured. Karl was just giving Gay the night off to get some playing time. for other players in this contest,

Trail Blazers

1. Portland played the game without their very talented guard Damian Lillard. Lillard is nursing a left ankle injury.
2. The Trail Blazers had four players who did not dress for the game. All four players were out due to injury.
3. Portland shot .415 from the field and .353 (12-for-34) from beyond the 3-point arc.
4. The Blazers out-rebounded the Kings 50 to 41.
5. Portland scored 25 points off turnovers to just nine points off turnovers for the Kings.

What they said after the game

“We’re ahead of the curve right now. We have a long way to go, but we’ve done some very good things in every game we’ve played. We need to continue to get better.” said Kings head coach George Karl.

Kings center Kosta Koufous said, “We’ve got some things we’re going work on defensively but everybody is playing hard and that’s the biggest thing. As long as everybody’s playing with 100% effort, that’s all you can ask for.”

“I felt that we could have played better obviously. Foul trouble kind of got us close behind the eight ball early and we never really recovered. We had twice as many fouls called against (us) and it was just tough to bounce back from that,” explained Portland head coach Terry Stotts.

Leading scorer CJ McCollum told reporters, “I felt comfortable even in the first game when some shots didn’t drop really. Just like tonight, I missed my first few shots. The biggest thing is to just stay confident, try to get to my spots.”

Up next

The Kings will play again on Tuesday when they will face the Los Angeles Lakers in Las Vegas.

The Trail Blazers play the Jazz in Utah on Monday night.