All-Star big man Domantas Sabonis is hoping to lead the Kings to their 1st playoff series win since 2004.
The good news for the Sacramento Kings is that, after an absence of 17 years, they are back in the NBA playoffs. Better yet, they enter as the No. 3 seed in the West, with homecourt advantage at least through the first round.
The not-so-good news is that the Kings must face the NBA’s defending champions, the Golden State Warriors, who clinched the final full-fledged playoff berth on the regular season’s final day and seemed so pleased, it was as if Stephen Curry and crew had planned it that way all along.
“Oh, that’s who we’re playing? Oh, cool,” Golden State’s Klay Thompson said, informed of the matchup after Sunday’s final victory at Portland. “That’s gonna be fun, man. … I mean, great for the NBA, great for Northern California, and it’s great for us, we don’t have to travel too far.”
Right there, one of Sacramento’s presumed advantages in the best-of-seven already has gone sideways. Golden State was 11-30 in road games, but the ones in this series will be different, played literally up the road about 90 miles on I-80. If the Warriors were bothered by time zones or air miles this season, those won’t be issues now.
The Kings legitimately see themselves as favorites. They have a pair of All-Stars in Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox surrounded by a strong ensemble cast. Their breathtaking offensive rating of 118.6 dwarfs anything Golden State was putting up in its golden era (2015-19).
They also won the Pacific Division but wound up only four victories ahead of the Warriors overall, and Golden State took three of the teams’ four meetings. The Kings’ 25-16 road mark, tops in the West, might be dampened by the proximity and bus rides. A lot of fans figure to invade the other guys’ arena in this one.
Regular-season Results
Oct. 23: Warriors 130, Kings 125
Nov. 7: Warriors 116, Kings 113
Nov. 13: Kings 122, Warriors 115
April 7: Warriors 119, Kings 97
NBA TV previews the Kings-Warriors first-round matchup.
3 Things to Watch
1. De’Aaron Fox vs. Steph Curry. This is a microcosm of the series overall: A team/star on the rise against an established legend. Fox averaged 25.2 points per game, made his first All-Star team and established himself as one of the NBA’s most “clutch” players. Curry’s 29.5 ppg didn’t show up among the official leaders because injuries cost him too many games. But ask many scouts which guy they’d rather have with the ball in his hands late, it’s Curry. This matchup could start to change that.
2. Playoff Sabonis. The Kings’ All-Star center, who will get some Kia MVP love when ballots are counted, averaged 19.1 ppg, 12.3 rpg and 7.3 apg on 61.5% shooting. He also joined elite company by becoming only the third center in NBA history with at least 1,500 points, 900 rebounds and 500 assists in a season (The previous two? Wilt Chamberlain and Nikola Jokic). Now it needs to transfer to the postseason. Sabonis has only played in 13 playoff games, none since 2019 with Indiana, and his stats are mere shells of the player he is now: 9.6 ppg, 4.8 rpg and 1.6 apg.
3. Counting by threes. Twenty players made 200 or more 3-pointers this season, and five of them are in this series: Curry, Thompson and Jordan Poole for the Warriors, Kevin Huerter and rookie Keegan Murray for the Kings. Thompson became only the third player in NBA history to reach 300 (301), joining Curry and James Harden on that list. Murray (206) zoomed by Donovan Mitchell’s 2017-18 rookie record (187). Golden State ranked first in arc attempts, second in accuracy; Sacramento was sixth and ninth
X-Factor
Andrew Wiggins was key to the Warriors’ title run in 2022. Can he do so again this year?
Andrew Wiggins. He redefined his career last season, earning an All-Star spot and, with his two-way play, proving himself to be Golden State’s third best player right through the 2022 championship run. This year has been a mess, though, with a month in the middle lost to injuries and illness, then absent from the final 35 games due to personal leave for an apparent family issue. Finally last week, Wiggins came back, embraced by his teammates and coaches and immersed in conditioning work to be ready for the second season. If he is mentally present, the 6-foot-7 wing should be physically ready for the demands ahead, with his shooting (38.6% on threes as a Warrior) and on-ball defense restoring some of Golden State’s strengths.
Number To Know
+21.9 — The Warriors’ preferred starting lineup outscored their opponents by 21.9 points per 100 possessions, the best mark (by a wide margin) among 41 lineups that played at least 200 total minutes together. It had the best offensive mark (128.0 points scored per 100) and the fifth best defensive mark (106.1 allowed per 100) among those 41 lineups.
That lineup, which hasn’t played together since Feb. 4, should finally reunite for the first round. But while it’s been dominant, it can’t play 48 minutes a night. The lineup averaged just 12.2 minutes per game in the regular season and over their six runs to the finals, the most any Warriors lineup (that played in at least five games) averaged in the playoffs was 14.4 minutes per game. So, even if Andrew Wiggins is a full-go for Game 1, minutes from the Warriors’ bench (which ranked 17th in the regular season) will be critical.
Sacramento’s starting lineup played 900 minutes together, 162 more than any other five-man unit in the league. But it outscored opponents by just 2.2 points per 100 possessions, a mark which ranked 26th among those 41 lineups that played at least 200 minutes, with the eighth worst defensive mark (116.1 points allowed per 100 possessions) among that group. A key for the Kings will be making sure they stay in contact with the defending champs in the first six minutes of the first and third quarters, knowing that they should have an advantage with reserves on the floor.
— John Schuhmann
The Pick
It’s puzzling that these teams have never met in the playoffs – in their California incarnations, anyway – until you look at their timelines. The Kings qualified only twice and quickly were dispatched in the 13 years from 1986 through 1998. Then they made the playoffs eight consecutive years, and then not at all since 2006. Golden State missed every year from 1999-2006, part of a 1-in-18-year playoff drought. They rarely have been good at the same time, but they are now. The Warriors’ timing in health and pride in keeping its window propped open just a tad longer will help exploit the Kings’ playoff training wheels. Warriors in 7.
