It wasn’t Zion Williamson, it wasn’t a problem for the New Orleans Pelicans. At least on Friday.
The Pelicans beat the Sacramento Kings 105-98 on Friday in the final game of the NBA play-in tournament despite losing their most recognizable player to a hamstring injury in the previous game. They are now set to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round as the West’s eighth seed.
The loss ends the Kings’ season, which continued through Friday with a cathartic victory over the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday. The team has not won a playoff series since 2004.
Brandon Ingram led the way for the Pelicans, with 20 points, six rebounds and six assists in an impressive night for a team that went 49-33 in the regular season. Sacramento held an early lead, but the Pelicans, with an enthusiastic Smoothie King Center crowd behind them, took control late in the second quarter and led by at least five points throughout the second half.
A 10-0 run early in the fourth quarter all but put the game away, although a late run by the Kings brought the lead back to single digits.
Now the Pelicans have the Thunder to worry about, and Williamson likely won’t help. He was diagnosed with a strained hamstring and will be re-evaluated more than a week later, leaving the Pelicans alone with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and company without him. The Pelicans went 1-2 against the Thunder in the regular season.
Game 1 is scheduled for Sunday at 8:30 pm CT in Oklahoma City (TNT).
Where do the Kings go from here?
The Kings entered this season with hopes higher than any season in recent memory. De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis led Sacramento to the third-best record in the West with one of the best offenses in the NBA.
That season ended disappointingly with a seven-game loss to the Warriors in the first round, but hope remained. The core of the team was young, with Fox, Sabonis, Keegan Murray, Malik Monk and Kevin Hurter all aged 27 or younger. It was reasonable to expect improvement, but the Kings saw stagnation.
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say the Kings would have to go back to the drawing board after two postseason disappointments, but they clearly can’t approach this offseason thinking all they need is a complementary piece here or there. Life is never easy in the Western Conference.
The Kings owe the Hawks their first-round pick in this year’s draft as part of the Huerter trade. If they want to duplicate this core, perhaps it’s time to trade even more draft capital for a veteran to slide somewhere between Fox and Sabonis.
