The Sacramento Kings are once again careening towards the abyss. A fourth-straight loss, this time at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies, was only compounded by the uncertainty surrounding an injury to their star player.
There is plenty to take away from the Kings' 121-117 defeat on Saturday night. But those takeaways feed into larger scale issues. Why does this team struggle with consistency? Can this group commit on the defensive end? Can they find an identity, whether DeMarcus Cousins is in the lineup or not?
[RECAP: Instant Replay: Kings' comeback attempt falls short vs Grizzlies]
For three quarters, the Kings looked disinterested, lethargic and every bit the part of a team on the outside looking in. They spent the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter playing to their potential, while all but erasing a 15-point lead, only to commit a handful of mistakes down the stretch that cost them a chance to compete.
A week ago, this team was finding ways to win in crunch time, but when things go wrong, this manic group of millionaires throw years of basketball understanding out the window. There is no telling what is next.
To start, George Karl and his staff have to figure out how to press the right buttons on the defensive end. During their five-game winning streak, the Kings held their opponents to 96.4 points per game on 40.1 percent shooting from the field and 25.3 percent from behind the arc.
Over the last four games, they are surrendering 115.5 points per game in regulation. That number jumps to 119 a game if you factor in the two overtime sessions against the Charlotte Hornets on Monday. In this stretch, the Kings are allowing their opponents to shoot 45.6 percent from the field and 39.8 percent from long range.
“I thought our turnovers and our bad offense was creating our bad defense,” Karl said. “And at times, our defense was way too soft.”
Soft is an understatement. The Grizzlies shot 53.2 percent through three quarters on their way to a 92-77 lead going to the fourth. As far as bad offense being the culprit, Karl may be onto something.
The Kings shot just 40 percent from the field in the game’s first 36 minutes. Not only could they not hit a shot, but they turned the ball over 16 times, leading to 25 points for the Grizzlies before entering the final frame.
All of Rajon Rondo's seven turnovers and five of Cousins' six miscues came before the fourth as both of the Kings' heavy usage players failed to value the ball.
Memphis is a quality defensive team, allowing just 99 points per game on the season. Big man Marc Gasol won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year trophy a few years back and their style of play may have forced the Kings hand into plenty of mistakes.
“We haven’t played a team quite like them in a while,” Rudy Gay said. “They pack the paint, get you passing the ball out and we’re the type of team that likes to bury the ball into the paint. So they’re good at defending that and we played to their strength.”
Sacramento stormed back in the fourth quarter, riding the hot hand of both Gay and Darren Collison. Gay scored 13 of his 21 points in the final 12 minutes, while Collison scored 14 of his 20.
The Kings outscored Memphis 40-29 in the quarter and had plenty of opportunities to come away with the win.
“We played with some urgency and aggressiveness,” Karl said. “They missed shots, we made them miss shots. We got the turnover on our side of the court instead of against us. We worked hard on the boards and got a lot of extra possessions, extra points because of our energy. It just came a little bit too late.”
But like so many games early in the season, the Kings found a way to lose, instead of the reverse. Countless mistakes down the stretch by seasoned NBA veterans proved to be the team’s undoing.
A rushed 3-pointer here, a foul with none to give there. It was a comedy of errors by the Kings’ regulars that allowed Memphis to escape with the win.
“We were saying no foul, don’t foul, don’t foul, don’t foul, solid, solid, solid” Karl said.
With 8.6 seconds remaining in the game and the Kings trailing by just three, Collison lost the ball on the way to the hoop, effectively ending the game. In a game filled with gaffs, one of the few players who brought energy from start to finish looked to the heavens with a look of anguish.
Adding injury to insult, Cousins went down in the first half after rolling his left ankle on Ryan Hollins foot. He went to the locker room during the second quarter and had the ankle re-taped. He returned to the game to start the second half, but with 2:07 remaining in the fourth, Gasol rolled up his left leg and Cousins had to be helped off the floor.
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[HAM: Cousins' X-rays come back negative, timetable unknown]
“It’s fine, I can walk on it,” Cousins said following the game. “There’s some pain in it, but I think I’ll be fine.”
X-rays were negative and the Kings are calling the injury a left ankle sprain and listing him as day-to-day. Sacramento is 1-7 on the season without their star big man and there is no word yet on his availability for Monday night’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks.
After fighting their way into the eighth spot in the Western Conference standings last week, the Kings trail Portland by a game and a half. The talk of playoffs has once again been put on the back burner as the Kings try to find a way out of another skid.