The Kings' depth shined with an epic shooting performance in Sacramento's 135-130 win over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night at Golden 1 Center.
Seven different Kings players, including all five starters, finished in double-figure scoring. Sacramento also shot 21 of 38 (55.3 percent) on 3-pointers, with five different players making multiple attempts from beyond the arc.
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.
Harrison Barnes (5 of 8) and Trey Lyles (4 of 5) combined to shoot 9 of 13 from 3-point range, and Malik Monk drained three triples himself. Chris Duarte shot a highly efficient 4 of 6 from the field, including two 3-pointers in the second half.
Kings center Domantas Sabonis continued his recent dominant stretch, recording his second consecutive triple-double (24 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists), which also was his sixth in his last 10 games and NBA-second-most eighth of the season. He's the first player to record consecutive triple-doubles in the NBA this season.
Sabonis fouled out with 1:10 left in the game and a 20-point halftime whittled to just four, but the Kings were able to close out the game without him.
"We didn't want it to get to that, but we were able to finish this game," guard De'Aaron Fox told reporters after the win. "If you're up 20, you'd rather still not lose after giving up a lead. We never actually gave up the lead, so that was a good thing that we were able to get stops and score when we needed to, but finishing this game was obviously difficult, but we were able to get it done."
NBA
On a night when the Kings reportedly pulled out of trade talks for Raptors star Pascal Siakam, Keegan Murray again reinforced the organization's belief in the promising young forward as a blue-chip player. Murray drained all four of his 3-point attempts, and finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds.
Perhaps most importantly, the Kings displayed the ability to excel on both sides of the floor when needed. After lighting up the scoreboard in the first half with 77 points, Sacramento changed gears, digging in deep to make the required defensive stops and hold off Toronto's ferocious fourth-quarter comeback attempt.
Fox finished with 24 points and delivered a huge bucket in the game's final minute, further building on his much-deserved reputation as one of the league's most reliable players in the clutch.
While Fox and Sabonis are the faces of the franchise, the Kings sent a loud message by flexing their depth Friday. If Sacramento can consistently receive this level of production from the rest of its roster, the team's ceiling should creep ever closer to that of a genuine title contender.