By Charlie O. Mallonee
The Sacramento Kings suffered their fifth consecutive loss on Saturday night to the Portland Trail Blazers 96-85. The Kings trailed by as many as 20 points but made a comeback late in the fourth quarter. It was too little and too late.
In his post-game comments, Coach Michael Malone said his team needs to be more physical on defense. His team allowed the Blazers to pull down 19 offensive rebounds which created second and third chance opportunities for Portland to score.
Malone made no bones about what is going to happen before the Kings next game versus Brooklyn. He said, “… there will be changes.” He stated after six games he had seen enough to know that changes have to be made.
Malone also said that the Kings comeback attempts are coming too late in the game to give the team a chance to win. He knows his team has a great deal of work to do on both ends of the floor.
The Kings were outscored in three of the four quarters on Saturday night. They did manage to outscore the Blazers 31-27 in the final period.
On Friday night, the Kings were undone by the combination of LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard. Lillard scored just four points on Saturday in 36:45 minutes of playing time.
It was the combination of Aldridge and Wesley Matthews who inflected the pain on Saturday. Aldridge shot 10 for 19 from the floor scoring a team leading 22 points. Matthews was 8 for 11 from the field putting up 21 points for the game.
Coach Malone felt the play of Matthews was one the keys to Portland’s victory. He felt Matthews just scored at will.
Four of the five Portland starters scored in double figures. As a team, the Blazers shot 43.9% (36-82) from the field. That was well below their 48.8% of Friday night, but things became sloppy for the Blazers in the fourth quarter.
The Trail Blazers out rebounded the Kings 52-33. They also kept the Kings out of the paint in the first half forcing them take low percentage outside shots.
After the game Portland Head Coach Terry Stotts said,”It’s good to get a win. Back-to-back wins against the same team is not easy to do. The Kings are a good home team here. They’ve come back on everybody that they’ve played. It’s good to get out of here with a win. We played three good quarters of very good defense; they just made a strong run at the end.”
DeMarcus Cousins scored 30 plus points for the second consecutive game. Cousins finished with 33 points and 12 rebounds. He scored 15 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter. Cousins led all scorers in the game.
Isaiah Thomas added 12 points but only two of those points came in the second half. Thomas played just 17:20 minutes in the game. Greivis Vasquez played 32:19 at the point and scored six points plus he had five assists.
The play of Ben McLemore was one of the highlights for the Kings on Saturday night. The rookie played 27:30 minutes scoring 13 points. He was three for three from 3-point land and shot 50.0% (4-8) from the field. McLemore pulled down three rebounds along with one steal and one assist.
12 of the 13 Kings players saw playing time versus the Blazers. Only Ray McCallum did not enter the game for Sacramento.
The Kings shot 46.2% (36-78) for the game. Sacramento shot an abysmal 25.0% (3-12) from beyond the 3-point line.
The Kings coaching staff must search for answers between now and Wednesday when the Brooklyn Nets come to Sleep Train Arena.
That search for answers has already begun. As I walked to my car after the game, I observed Coach Malone and two of his assistants standing in the parking lot talking about what they should do to change things.
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