Photo credit: @NBCSKings

By Jeremiah Salmonson

The Sacramento Kings were back on the court on Saturday night. After playing on Friday in Boston, the Kings traveled to take on the Philadelphia 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday night. The Kings weren’t able to math the 76ers and fell 129-105 in regulation. 

Flashback Friday: The Sacramento Kings did something they hadn’t done since 2007 on Friday night. That feat was beating the Boston Celtics in Boston. The Kings had a very uncharacteristic win on Friday beating the Celtics 107-96. The Kings defense is what was on display on Friday as they held the Celtics to only 15 points in the fourth quarter. 

Saturday night recap: The Kings were set to take on the 76ers on Saturday at 4:30 PM PST in Philadelphia. 

In the first half, the Kings didn’t play particularly great. It was the teams defense that let them down again. The first quarter saw the 76ers outscore the Kings 42-21. It was an embarrassing defensive performance for a team not known much for defense as it is. In the second quarter, the Kings offense picked up the pace, but the defense remained ineffective. The Kings and 76ers both scored 31 points in the second quarter. An improvement on the first quarter for the Kings, but not really enough to close the 20-point gap heading into halftime. The score at half was 73-52 76ers on top. 

In the second half, the Kings played better, but didn’t get the effort they needed to perform a comeback. The third quarter saw the 76ers outscore the Kings again 33-28 and saw the lead grow to 26 points. At this point, playing the final quarter was just a formality. The Kings outscored the 76ers in the fourth quarter 25-23, but came up drastically short of mounting a comeback. The Kings ultimately fell 129-105 in the city of brotherly love. 

Tobias Harris led the victorious 76ers with 29 points as Buddy Hield led the Kings in defeat with 25 points. It was a tough pill for the Kings to swallow after their improved play of late. The Kings fell to 17-25 as the 76ers improved to 29-14 (Best in the Eastern Conference) on the season.

Up Next: The Kings travel to Cleveland for the final game of their six game road trip to play the Cavaliers at 4:30 PM PST on Monday.