The Kings scored 119 points against the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night, and stars De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis led the charge with 37 and 28 points, respectively.
In Mike Brown’s eyes, that was more than enough to win. But Sacramento’s ultimate 125-119 loss at Golden 1 Center had little to do with its offense, and everything to do with the team’s defense.
“I’m disappointed in our weakside defense,'' Brown told reporters after the game. “It was not good at all tonight. There were countless times that guys were either late, or they were there, and they moved out the way and they didn’t want to take the hit or take the charge for the team.”
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SIGN UP HERE Brown was frustrated in a Kings defense that failed to protect the rim, as Sacramento was outscored 72-58 in the paint and 24-6 in second-chance points.
“So for me, it’s going to be a fun film session tomorrow, because we’ll see who did what on the back side,” Brown said. “We didn’t have anybody who could guard tonight. They were collapsing our defense, our weakside wasn’t there to help out.
“And then when we did have somebody come over and help out on a drive, we didn’t help the person going to help.”
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In short, Brown said, the Kings’ defensive performance was “a recipe to get our behinds kicked.”
And it came against a Charlotte team that was on an eight-game losing streak before coming to Sacramento, though Brown knew the Hornets’ losing record (7-23 coming into Monday) didn’t indicate who they are as a team.
The Kings certainly know what it’s like to be a bad-record team that upsets a winning one. But in the middle of a season where their playoff hopes are very much alive, they were on the other side of that coin Monday night.
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If the Kings want to end their 16-year postseason drought, they can’t be a good team that loses to the bad ones.
It starts and ends with a full-team effort on defense.