The Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) tries to distract the Sacramento Kings center Richaun Holmes who takes a shot during Sat Feb 6, 2021’s game at Golden One Center in Sacramento (AP News photo)

By Barbara Mason

Friday night the Sacramento Kings took on the Denver Nuggets in a game that proved a lot more than previously thought about this team. The Kings were able to sneak one past the sixth place Nuggets 119-114 in a game that was hard fought from beginning to end.

Denver’s Nikola Jokic had a career high 50 points but it was not enough to deter the Kings as Sacramento celebrated a season sweep. Nikola had help from team mates Barton (11 points), Millsap (14 points), and Morris (11 points) but the Kings stubbornly hung in this game from the tipoff.

While the Nuggets starters were able to muster some real energy the Kings outplayed them with some great’ play by Harrison Barnes who scored 28 points and 7 rebounds which overshadowed the 50 point game that Jokic turned in. Barnes had a great supporting cast thanks to the play of De’Aaron Fox who had 24 points and Richaun Holmes with 21 points.

Coming off the bench Tyrese Haliburton had 23 points proving that the Iowa State phenomenon is going to be one of the strengths of this team. He really came up clutch in the fourth quarter of this game. We have seen this from day one and he is just getting started. We will be seeing a lot from this guy who looked so promising as the season got underway and he has not disappointed. At every turn Haliburton is getting high praise some of that praise coming from former Kings coach Michael Malone. In fact he did say that Haliburton “kicked our ass every time we’ve played him.”

The Kings have an 11-11 record at the present and with more games like the one we saw tonight they will no doubt make their presence knows as the season moves forward. They are on their way to proving that they could possibly be playoff contenders.

Tomorrow the Kings will be playing the Clippers. The Clippers Paul George will remain out in this game which is disappointing news for Los Angeles. Tipoff is at 12:00 as LA will try to hold off the surging Kings.