Kings lose to Pelicans, stumble through New Orleans like five guys in tuxedo T-shirts
We’ve all spent plenty of time talking about the important lessons these young Kings have learned over the past few months during this crazy slingshot ride from irrelevance to playoff contention.
All those things were true, but what happened in New Orleans Thursday night in a 121-118 loss to the Pelicans should bother their conscience as they go forward into a promising but uncertain future, because this might be the biggest lesson of all. This is exactly how you don’t make the playoffs.
Let the other guy get the loose ball. Give up that offensive rebound. Allow opposing big men to attack your rim again and again. Squander a game against a lesser team on a night when Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday, E’taun Moore and Frank Jackson didn’t even play.
Let’s reiterate that. The Pelicans aren’t very good right now. They had lost nine of their last 10 games. Anthony Davis DID NOT PLAY due to back spasms. And the Kings walked away in with a loss.
They won’t always lose games like this, but this time they did — again. Fortunately, the Pelicans don’t draw well, so there were only 118 people there to see it, and probably a few others I didn’t count because they stepped out to make a call in search of something else to do.
The situation was this: The Kings were teetering on the brink of elimination in the playoff race, Harry Giles III didn’t play due to a day-to-day thigh contusion and the Kings were playing their fourth game in six nights, and it shouldn’t have mattered.
“Being on the road is tough, but this game, we should’ve won,” Kings guard Buddy Hield said. “No excuses. No excuses. We should have got the win.”
To use a few of Buddy’s words: 1) No excuses.; 2) Facts; and 3) Respect.
Live this. Learn from it. Turn this weakness into a strength next season because that’s what it will take to end a 13-year playoff drought. Playoff teams win games like this.
Some of us tried to sound this alarm back in November when the Kings suffered a 117-116 loss to the Golden State Warriors and a 133-112 loss to the Utah Jazz. The Warriors played that game without Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and DeMarcus Cousins. The Jazz played without Donovan Mitchell. The Kings lost other games against shorthanded opponents, too.
They should have won. Then they went out there and lost. They played this one to like a medium-intensity pick-up game at the park with a few people pushing strollers and youth soccer practice over on the grass. Trade baskets, don’t hurt yourself and keep it close enough to just maybe win in the end.
“We were, I thought, awful in the first half,” Kings coach Dave Joerger said. “We just didn’t have a lot of energy and the effort wasn’t there defensively.”
The Kings looked a little like these five guys who walked out of Harrah’s late Thursday night, all of them wearing tuxedo T-shirts. One was sleeveless. Another was pink with a plastic cowboy hat to match. They came to the Big Easy to have some fun, play some slots, maybe score a little, and wake up the next day whenever and wherever.
The Kings kind of did the same thing. They stumbled out of the door. They thought it was going to be easy. They weren’t here on business.
As those five guys wandered down Canal Street on foot, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic at one point, you wondered where they were going and if they would get there. Maybe they scored somewhere along the way, but they probably woke up with a few regrets.
“Tough night for us,” Joerger said. “We did not make enough plays defensively and we struggled again to guard the basketball. They had 74 points in the paint and that is enough for two games. It was one of those tough nights where we did not play with enough energy, enough effort and focus at the defensive end of the floor.”
Did we mention that Anthony Davis didn’t play?
It didn’t matter. Every big man the Pelicans put out there had a decisive impact on the game.
Julie Randle had 34 points and 10 rebounds in 31 minutes. Jahlil Okafor made 6 of 8 from the field to finish with 12 points, nine rebounds and two blocked shots in 21 minutes. Some guy named Christian Wood came off the bench to post a career-high 25 points and nine rebounds in 28 minutes.
Have you heard of Christian Wood? He has a Wikipedia page.
He played at UNLV. Apparently, he went pro after earning second-team All Mountain West Conference honors. He seems to have spent most of his professional career with the Delaware 87ers and the Greensboro Swarm.
He was going to play for the Fujian Sturgeons of the Chinese Basketball Association in 20017, but the Sturgeons waived him in order to sign Mike Harris, a guy who last played for the Alaska Aces of the Philippine Basketball Association.
This other guy named Cheick Diallo made 3 of 4 field-goal attempts to finish with seven points and four rebounds in 16 minutes. Cheick Diallo isn’t even related to Hamidou Diallo.
“Julius Randle was a handful for us tonight and Christian Wood was really hard on us tonight, too,” Joerger said. “Tough night for us, but good win for them.”
Yeah, it was, but Randle and Wood shouldn’t matter. The better team should play better basketball. The Kings will do that when they’re ready to take this show to the playoff stage. And if they’re smart, they’ll look at what happened here, see the symbolism in this kind of loss and figure out what it means going forward.
“Julius had a big game,” Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox said. “They were just very forceful. We didn’t give them too much resistance and that’s why it was such a high-scoring game.”
Lesson learned.
Everybody shoots. Some guys score. Whatever happens happens. Then you stumble out the door onto Canal Street, wondering what happened, where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.
This story was originally published March 29, 2019 at 4:16 AM.