Pacers 126, Kings 121: The Kings look broken

On occasion, the basketball gods gift a struggling but good team a random scheduling break. Tonight should have been that night for the Sacramento Kings.

Facing the injury and trade-affected Indiana Pacers, who were missing two All-Stars in Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam, and two starters in Bruce Brown and Aaron Nesmith, the Kings embarrassed themselves at home against a team that could only dress 11 guys, including a couple of two-way players. This team, which once had hopes of a deep playoff run, allowed the Pacers to punk them for the vast majority of the game, as they refused to play an iota of defense, refused to protect the rim, and refused to care about the fans in the packed Golden 1 Center who were more desperate for a win than the team they were cheering on.

Outside of a late run in the final two minutes that saw De’Aaron Fox finally look like himself and the Kings finally show an ounce of pride on the defensive end of the floor, TJ McConnell was the best player on the hardwood all evening, carving up Sacramento’s defense for 20 points and 10 assists, while Benedict Mathurin put up 25 points of his own, and the much less talented, and much more aggressive and focused Indiana Pacers walked out of Sacramento with an unlikely, but somehow unsurprising victory.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

The Good:

1. Red Hot Red Velvet: After struggling for the majority of the season, Kevin Huerter has come back to life as of late, and that trend continued on Thursday evening. He was the best player on the court for the Kings, on both sides of the ball, and Huerter ended the night with a career-high 31 points, including 7 of 12 from deep. It’s good to see one of Sacramento’s most important players (and trade assets) find his confidence again.

The Bad:

1. Free throws: The Sacramento Kings can’t shoot free throws. Despite a 32-19 free throw attempt advantage, the Kings added just three extra points in that column, as the made just 18 of their 32 attempts, good enough for 56%. De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk combined to make 6 of 15 free throws.
2. Late game execution: As the Kings made their run in the final two minutes, and as their defense tightened up and flummoxed the panicked Indiana Pacers, a slight breath of hope could be felt in the building, but the Kings snuffed that out with several late errors. Kevin Huerter committed an awful foul on Buddy Hield to send him to the line for two free throws, De’Aaron Fox took an ill-advised, difficult three-pointer instead of looking for the red hot Kevin Huerter, and Malik Monk missed a pair of free throws to seal Sacramento’s fourth consecutive loss. At some point, playing lazy, undisciplined basketball for 46 minutes spills over into a successful run, and that’s exactly what happened to the Kings.

The Ugly:

1. Defense: Normally, when a more talented team shoots 51% from the field and 41% from the three-point line, they find themselves in the win column, but Sacramento’s lackadaisical defensive effort throughout the entire night essentially neutralized their impressive offensive performance. They allowed a layup and dunk line, with the Pacers scoring 70 first half points and 62 points in the paint, and at no point did a single Kings player seem to care. There were certainly occasional individual efforts on that end of the floor, but the lack of leadership and accountability on defense was palpable, as it has been for the last several weeks.

The King of Kings

Whoever the Kings might trade for to rescue this season.