The Kings have no time to lick their wounds from defeat with the Suns on the horizon originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
SACRAMENTO — The Kings are stumbling through the worst moment of the season, but they don’t have time to feel sorry for themselves or lick their wounds.
With the Phoenix Suns arriving at Golden 1 Center for another important game on Friday, time is no longer on Sacramento’s side.
The Kings were handled easily by the New Orleans Pelicans in a 135-123 defeat on Thursday in G1C, losing for the fourth time in five games and moving into a three-way tie with the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers for eighth place in the Very crowded Western Conference.
This sets up what should be wild and crazy in the coming days.
The Kings can still reach 7th place, especially if they can beat the Suns and win the tiebreaker between the two teams. They also have a tiebreaker advantage over the Warriors and Lakers.
It’s also conceivable that if Sacramento doesn’t turn things around quickly, it could fall all the way to the final play-in spot.
Any margin for error the Kings have left is slim at best.
“We know the meaning,” Keegan Murray said. “We know it’s a close race and when you play significant games in the regular season, you have to take responsibility. I feel like we have to throw that out the window because tomorrow is a big game against Phoenix.”
Friday night’s game against the Suns could very well be the Kings’ biggest of the 2023-24 NBA season.
Finishing as a 7th or 8th seed gives coach Mike Brown’s team the opportunity to lose a play-in game and still have another chance at making the playoffs. With the No. 9 and 10 teams, one loss and the season is over.
The Kings clearly know what’s at stake.
“You’re 9-10, you wake up that day and you just have a bad day, that’s it,” De’Aaron Fox said. “At least when you’re 7-8, technically you have the opportunity to have a bad first game. Obviously you don’t want to do that. But having two opportunities is much better than basically having one and then you have to win and then win another game.
“So it’s much easier to make it 1-1 than to make it 2-0 at a time like this.”
Sacramento only needs to look in the mirror to see why the season has reached this point.
The day before leaving for their final road trip of the season, the Kings had a slight lead into 8th place and were two games ahead of the Lakers in the loss column.
In a very short period, however, the classification became really confusing.
The Kings lost three of their next four games after blowing several big leads on the road trip, then came home and were held in check by the Pelicans.
Sacramento will know its fate within the next 72 hours. After hosting the Suns, the Kings face the lowly Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday afternoon in the regular season finale.
Brown is embracing the challenge his team faces and encouraged Sacramento players to do the same thing.
“I go home and bang my head against the wall, like everyone else in that locker room, in those losses,” Brown said. “But man, maybe the last 10 games or so, maybe a little longer, every time we step on the floor there’s an expectation of trying to win.
“A victory can move up three positions, a defeat can drop three positions. For all of us to be able to go through this, especially now in our second year with the team we have… it’s an invaluable learning experience. I hope we come out victorious, but to have to fight for that play-in spot and realize how good it will be to play at home in that first game, knowing that we have two chances, I’m excited about that.
“If we could have finished sixth, I wanted that more than anything else, or fifth, but at the end of the day this is where we are. Let’s pick it up and learn and grow from it and see what happens. There is no doubt that this is what we would all prefer and what we are trying to achieve. But we have to do it on the court. It’s that simple.”
