SACRAMENTO – The Kings haven’t exactly been rock solid when it comes to closing teams out this season. Crunch time often has turned into cave-in time.
They were facing a similar situation before Saturday's eventual 123-118 win over the New Orleans Pelicans, after Domantas Sabonis picked up a two fouls in three seconds during the third quarter. That sent Sacramento’s all-world center to the bench for nearly eight minutes before he came back in the fourth quarter and eventually fouled out.
That wasn’t the story, though.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
How well the Kings played without their go-to scorer is what really stood out, both to the media and Sacramento’s players.
Already without one of their top play-makers following De’Aaron Fox’s trade to the San Antonio Spurs, the Kings had to dig deep once Sabonis went to the bench.
They did just that.
While Sabonis watched from the bench, the Kings stormed through the final four and a half minutes of the third quarter and the first three minutes in the fourth. They outscored the Pelicans 27-14 during that stretch, weathering the storm until Sabonis returned.
NBA
“We came together as a team,” Malik Monk said. “We just had to lock in and come together. I was super happy to have it happen, especially at home in front of the crowd, in front of the fans.
“We seen we could do it. We got to do it a little more often now.”
Sabonis and Fox were a dynamic one-two punch before the Kings made the trade. It was like Batman losing Robin, to a certain extent.
The newcomers Sacramento received in that trade and others still are going through the feeling-out process, so it wasn’t like the Kings were at full strength rolling down the road when Sabonis ran into foul trouble.
Rather than buckling under pressure, the Kings basically buckled up and got it done.
“That’s kind of our job,” Keon Ellis said. “There’s going to be nights like that when guys go out. We just have to pull together and try to finish the game out.
“For us to finish out a game like that the way we did when Domas fouls out, definitely great for us. Not in the sense of just finishing when Domas is out, but just finishing the game collectively. For us to get the win like that, it just helps us as a team try to figure out how we’re going to play down the stretch.”
Monk blamed a collective laziness by the Kings for falling behind by as much and as early as they did.
Interim coach Doug Christie, however, relished in how well Sacramento’s bench played while starters like Sabonis and others were out.
“Those are things that we need from our bench,” Christie said. “Sometimes it'll be we're ahead, they keep the lead. Sometimes we're behind and they need to bring us back. And tonight it was the latter.”