On tail end of six-game trip, Kings try to get back up to running speed against Clippers
The game plan is still the same, but the game itself has changed.
The Kings aren’t playing with the same frenetic pace they exhibited at the start of the season. As a result, they’re getting fewer possessions, taking fewer shots and scoring fewer points.
“The scouting report on us is to stop us from running,” Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox said. “Everybody has a scouting report and (against) the good teams, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do, they’re going to do what their identity is, what they plan on doing, and we have to be able to get to that level.”
The Kings (25-24) will try to get back up to speed when they conclude a season-long six-game trip against the Los Angeles Clippers (27-22) on Sunday at Staples Center. The Clippers handed the Kings a 133-121 loss to Golden 1 Center on Nov. 29 and a 127-118 loss on Dec. 26 in Los Angeles.
The Kings have failed to score 100 points in three of their last five games. They barely broke the century mark in a 103-101 victory over the Detroit Pistons last weekend.
Defenses have adjusted to the Kings style of play and deployed different strategies to slow them down. Fatigue also seems to be a factor. Kings coach Dave Joerger rested Fox, small forward Iman Shumpert and power forward Nemanja Bjelica in Tuesday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors, but giving those players four days off between games didn’t seem to jump-start the team’s tempo in Friday’s 99-96 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies.
Joerger said the Kings are not playing slower by design.
“I haven’t pulled back at all,” Joerger said. “We’re trying to play as fast as we can, and there are different factors why it’s slowed down a little bit, and that just is what it is, but we want to push it and get up and down as fast as we can.”
Fox said the win over Memphis was critical for a team that is trying to stay in the playoff race after losing three of its previous four games.
“We definitely needed this win to stay in the playoff hunt, especially in the west,” Fox said. “Now we’ve just got to try to build off this.”