Have The Sacramento Kings Regressed This Season? Escaping The NBA Play-In, Defensive Changes & More

Have The Sacramento Kings Regressed This Season? Escaping The NBA Play-In, Defensive Changes & More

On today’s show have the Sacramento Kings regressed from last season or has the rest of the league just gotten that much better what are the Kings chances of escaping the play in tournament bracket in the Western Conference and how head coach Mike Brown is trading some of the Kings offensive potency for

Improved defense it’s all coming up on today’s locked on NBA you are locked on NBA your daily NBA podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day what’s up and welcome to another edition of locked on NBA the biggest stories with the local experts I’m your host Jackson

Gatlin also host of locked on Rockets right here on the locked on podcast Network your team every day now today’s episode is brought to you by prize picks prize picks is America’s number one fantasy sports app with over three million members they’re the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy

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Host of locked on Kings Matt George you can track down wherever you’re list to your podcast and on YouTube just search locked on Kings and Matt right now the Sacramento Kings kind of fighting to maybe escape the play in tournament bracket in the Western Conference so I

Want to start right there after last season success right finishing as the three seed in a very very good a stacked Western Conference how should this season be viewed at least up to this point as the kings are currently sitting in seventh they’re half game back of the

Suns in that six seed and and trying to you know fight out of the playing tournament area of the of the standings yeah I think it’s all a matter of perspective and this is what a lot of Sacramento Kings fans I think have been processing over the course of this

Season the reality is from a Kings fan perspective it’s been a long time since Sacramento has come into a season with high expectations and with the expectation to not to not just return to the playoffs but to build upon a playoff year so uh I mean a lot of people

Probably aren’t surprised by where the Sacramento Kings are specifically in the sense that they ran the same group back right they they they basically took last year’s team and and brought him back in made some minor adjustments and minor additions like venkov and Chris Duarte and pieces like that but for the most

Part this core is basically the same and then the same thing at this trade deadline they decided not to really do anything and stick with this group lo and behold the kings are right on Pace to match that 48 win total from last season the only difference between last

Season and this season is the Western Conference decided to turn into a big ugly beast so 48 wins might be a six seed at best this season versus a third seed last year so to me what I think this season ultimately is is turning out

To be now the Kings could still make it further and could be a more successful season if the kings make it out of the first round of the playoffs even if they get into the playoffs through the playin but make it out of the first round and

Make it to the second round arguably this season’s more successful than the third seed last year but I think what this season is ultimately about is there’s no kind of polite way to put this it’s kind of separating the boys from the men it’s essentially okay which

Of this group do we actually believe can help us win a championship and which of this group is is good but not good enough and I think that’s become more and more clear as we’ve gotten to this part of the season the Untouchables are there the foxes the sabonis I think

Keegan Murray is up there although he’s not necessarily untradeable Malik monk might be gone this summer in free agency but Malik is definitely a core piece of it and then there’s guys like Kevin herder maybe Harrison Barnes to some extent guys that you’re okay if you have

Them on your team they’re not bad players But ultimately they’re probably not what you need to accomplish your your your main goal which is eventually winning an NBA championship yeah and at that point you’ll have you know kind of two years worth of data points and information to be basically be like make

It a make a better more informed decision about okay can we really you know run this group back a third year and expect different results right the the definition of insanity just doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result now when we look

At all the jockeying taking place in the standings right now this kind of you know 67 thing going on between the Suns and the Kings is going to come down to the wire it feels like with uh there’s still one more Meetup between these two teams weirdly one more meet up a fifth

Game between these two teams to decide the season series currently tied up at two games a piece how crucial is that game going to be for Sacramento to ideally completely avoid the play in well Jackson I Wanna I want to help you out here too because you don’t want to

Piss off Nick angstead and the the Dallas Mavericks fans out there out too because they’re just very they’re very much in the mix as well the Kings next week have two massive games Tuesday night and Friday night against the Dallas Mavericks who the Kings as of right now are are tied within the

Standings both teams the first time they meet will be playing on the second night of a back-to-back the only problem is the Kings will be playing the 76ers while the Mavericks will be playing the Utah Jazz so there’s probably a higher expectation of the Mavericks winning their game than the Sacramento Kings

Winning theirs so the Mavericks are very much in the mix as well so the Kings got to get through those two games first and they have to if they win both those games hopefully that will it wouldn’t it wouldn’t put the Mavericks Away by any means but create enough separation for

Them to then solely focus on the Phoenix Suns the reality is in all the meetings that the Kings have had against the Suns they’ve been the better team Sacramento has looked better than Phoenix every single time they’ve played but that hasn’t mattered because they completely collapsed blowing an over 20po lead in

The fourth quarter in one of their sons losses and the other game was kind of back and forth and ultimately Phoenix got out of there with the victory so these two teams are are very evenly matched of course the star power favors Phoenix but star power doesn’t

Necessarily always win you a game and the Kings like I said have been have looked better when those two teams have faced regardless like it won’t shock me at all if we’re looking at game 81 or game 82 is when this race is decided which I guess is exactly what the NBA

Wants but maybe not what you want if you’re the King sons or Mavericks trying to get yourself as right as possible for a playoff run shout out to uh our our fearless leader nick angstead uh my apologies for looking at the standings through some purple tinted Shades there

For a moment just looking at the at the 67 match up but I didn’t say I didn’t hate it I love it I love it count the Mavericks out I’m in there we go all right you know just earning some points with some Kings fans while I’m here uh

Now I I know you you touched on this a moment ago just the the the competition in the Western Conference and how much more of a blood bath it’s been kind of this season but I’m curious just when you look at the numbers actually right last year the kings were the best

Offense in the NBA this year they’re clocking in at 12th in the NBA so I’m curious is it is it just do you feel like it’s just that the rest of the NBA has gotten that much better or do you feel like the Kings have actually kind of regressed offensively compared to how

Good they were last season it’s a little of both I I mean offenses have definitely gotten better this year statistically there’s no doubts about it like the Kings had the best offensive uh rating and and highest points per game in NBA history last season and I think

There are two or three teams right now that are ahead of that and like they’ve been that way from start to finish so offense is at a premium it continues to be at a premium and and in a lot of ways statistic Sacramento is again on par

Very similar to how they were last season it’s just this year is it’s not the same as last year right so it’s a it’s a mixture of that but also I do think the Kings have gotten a little bit worse offensively in the name of getting better defensively now for in the grand

Scheme of this season the kings are at best an average defense mostly slightly below average but for the month of March the kings are a top two top three defens the NBA right now in this month they’ve figured something out and a lot of it has to do with three guard lineups that

Mike Brown has figured out and also the implementation of of Keon Ellis a two-way player who probably a lot of people listening to this podcast have never heard of or or or didn’t know before maybe a week or two ago he was undrafted out of the University of

Alabama joined the Sacramento Kings was on a two-way contract in Stockton last season started this season on a two-way contract he is eight in one as a starter and every single game that he has started has been in place of either injured dearon Fox injured Kevin herder

Or at one point injured Keegan Murray and the Kings have enjoyed a lot of success with him he’s getting more playing time he’s picked up the defensive intensity so the offense I won’t say has taken a backseat because it’s still very much a focus here in Sacramento it’s still very much the

Strength of this team but unlike last season there have been less situations and less games where the Kings have just ridden their offense to victories they especially this stretch right now like in in March they’re winning basketball games still they’re in a lot of compe games they just beat the Orlando Magic

The other night but they’re not scoring 120 points to do it like they normally would have to they’re scoring in the 110s range and they’re holding like this is a crazy stat Jackson and I won’t ramble too much on this but I think this is nuts like in the first 63 games of

The season the Kings held their opponent under 110 points in regulation 13 times they’ve done that in the last seven straight games so I mean that’s the defense is figured something out right but as the defense has become more of a focus the offense is not where it was

Which kind of makes sense considering going back to the playoffs last year the Kings defense was really good in the playoffs against the Warriors offensively they didn’t look at all like themselves from the regular season so maybe that’s how they know they have to win games in the playoffs you mentioned

Earlier on right this group and and you know running it back and trying to kind of build on the success that they did have last season right building on last year’s playoff appearance what what lesson or lessons do you think that Mike Brown and this team can kind of take

Into this year’s postseason that they learned about them about the team about themselves from last year’s playoffs well again I I think it’s a lot of like you know who your dogs are you know who your guys are and you you’ll get a little more context from that I think

What the kings are still trying to figure out is how they can play with the physicality and intensity on the defensive end that they showed they were capable of in the playoffs last year without it completely plummeting their offense right the were not nearly as bad of a three-point shooting team as they

Showed in the playoffs last season on top of that like the the Kings need to get more of a balance out of everybody right last season it was the dearon fox and damont sabonis show although we know damont sabonis struggled a little bit Malik monk had some really big games but

Wasn’t great all seven games Keegan Murray took three games before he started getting going Harrison Barnes and Kevin herder were Mia basically the entire Series so I think one of the things the Kings can learn is hey repli the way we played on defense and the

Energy that we played with but find a way to get a more consistent offense and more output from everybody not just our top guys because again their goal is to make it past the first round and and Beyond from Sacramento’s perspective you make it past the first round that might

Be worth a parade in some in some situations but ultimately it’s it’s just growing and building upon what you showed you were capable of last year can the Kings carry their Newfound defense into the postseason where will they ultimately land in the Western Conference standings you’re going to

Have us covered for all of that and so much more over at locked on Kings Matt thanks for stopping by lock on NBA with me always a pleasure Jackson

Have The Sacramento Kings Regressed This Season? Escaping The NBA Play-In, Defensive Changes & More

Jackson Gatlin (@LockedOnRockets) is joined by Matt George (@LockedOnKings) to discuss how this Sacramento Kings season should be viewed after the success of last season, chances of escaping the Western Conference play-in tournament bracket, running things back while other teams got better, trading offense for defense post-All-Star Break, and lessons learned from last season’s playoff experience.

#Kings #DeAaronFox #DomantasSabonis

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