The Sacramento Kings desperately are clinging to the final spot of the play-in tournament in the Western Conference.
Losers of six of their last seven games, the Kings (36-39) aim to change their fortunes on Wednesday when they visit the Washington Wizards (16-59).
The Wizards are far from singing a happy tune, too. They have dropped the first three contests on their five-game homestand and eight games in their last nine overall.
While Washington likely stopped looking at the standings long ago, Sacramento finds itself residing in 10th place in the Western Conference. The Kings are a half-game behind the ninth-place Dallas Mavericks and one game in front of the Phoenix Suns. The Suns play the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday night.
Sacramento dropped a 121-91 decision to the Orlando Magic on Saturday and a 111-109 setback to the Indiana Pacers on Monday to begin its six-game road trip. The Pacers overcame a 16-point deficit in the second half to hand the Kings a critical defeat.
DeMar DeRozan collected 31 points and eight assists for the Kings on Monday. Domantas Sabonis had 25 points and 16 rebounds against his former team and Zach LaVine finished with 20 points.
Malik Monk was limited to five points on 2-of-14 shooting with five turnovers on Monday. That performance came on the heels of a nine-point, six-turnover effort versus the Magic.
“Malik is going to make shots,” Kings interim head coach Doug Christie said. “This is two tough games for him in a row, but it’s not anything he hasn’t faced before. With the amount of shots he gets, he will be able to find his way. I’m extremely confident in that.”
Christie, however, took issue with the Kings getting outscored 20-12 in points off turnovers.
“We just have to make sure all of us — not only (Monk) — all of us are taking care of the basketball,” Christie said. “That’s big, especially against these teams where the margin for error is so, so small. Those are not the points we can give away. You cut that down in half to 10 and we win the game going away.”
Sabonis recorded 29 points and 18 rebounds, DeRozan added 24 points and Monk had 23 to help Sacramento to a 123-100 win over Washington on Jan. 19.
Jordan Poole, who made just 4 of 11 shots for 11 points in that game, sank seven 3-pointers to highlight his 35-point performance in the Wizards’ 120-94 setback to the Miami Heat on Monday.
Unfortunately for the Wizards, the rest of the team made 24 for 69 shots from the floor and 6 for 30 from beyond the arc.
“To be honest, we missed some shots (Monday). We were just out of rhythm, could never really get it going,” Washington head coach Brian Keefe said. “We missed some chippies, some easy ones around the rim. We missed some open 3s. … Sometimes the game is going to go that way.”
Poole is shooting a career-best 38.1 percent from 3-point range this season.
–Field Level Media
