Analysis: Kings need to solve defensive problems to pull out of their slump

There isn’t much to take away from the Sacramento Kings’ 123-101 loss to the Utah Jazz on Saturday night. Or at least, nothing positive for the Kings.

The Jazz put on a dominant offensive performance. They had 56 points in the paint, 42 points on 3-pointers and 23 free throws. Add it all up: All but two of the Jazz’s points came from deep or in the paint. While that’s a common goal for teams to pull off, it was an exceptional offensive performance.

Granted, the Jazz are something of an anomaly, running a pick and roll offense with dangerous 3-point gunners hanging out on the wings. But defensive breakdowns are not new to the Kings this year.

“It’s been like our record, it’s been up and down,” coach Luke Walton said. “I think we’ve made a lot of progress. It’s one of those things that it doesn’t happen overnight. You have to drill it to where rotations are just instincts, you just know where you’re going.

“At this level, if you’re a second late to anything, it’s too late. You’re gonna give up a three or you get blown by on the closeout. I like where it’s headed but we have a lot of work to do still and we’re a long way from where it needs to be.”

Walton is right. When the Kings got hot and won four of five games in mid-December, the defense did most of the lifting. Even their 119-118 win over the Rockets is an example, as the Kings held Houston two points under its season average at the time.

While Sacramento is allowing 5.5 points fewer per game than last season, their opponents also have the ball less often, as the Kings’ offense has slowed down and is holding the ball longer before getting off shots.

Individual defensive ratings are a better way of gauging where improvement is needed. The metric analyzes how many points the opposition will score in 100 possessions against a specific player. The lower the rating, the better.

Among players who have played at least 20 games, Justin James is the only Kings defender who ranks in the top 50 players in the league with a very solid 100.5 rating. That puts him in the neighborhood of players like Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid. Dewayne Dedmon is 65th out of 485 players at 103.1.

The problem is most of the Kings’ starters rank near the bottom of the league.

Nemanja Bjelica and Buddy Hield both have 112.2 ratings, 395th and 396th, respectively. De’Aaron Fox is 420th at 113.3. And Marvin Bagley III is 435th, with a 114.5 rating.

When Walton preaches defense — which he invariably does — he’s talking about little things. Players can’t leave their feet on pump fakes because they’ll get blown past for a wide-open look. He talks about rebounding positioning. And, sometimes with a little sneer, Walton talks about toughness. Kings players are often simply outworked by offensive players.

“It’s more of an effort thing,” Fox said after the loss to the Jazz. “All five guys on the court have to be intertwined. ... There are stretches where our defense is great and there are stretches where it hasn’t been great. You just have to be as good as possible for as long as possible.”

To be sure, the Kings weren’t good Saturday night. They know that.

“They got easy shots, easy layups, easy dunks,” Fox said. “Throughout the game, it was just too easy.”

The answer might seem simple: Stay in front of your man and get a hand in his face when he shoots. That can be difficult to do against lightning-quick guards, skyscrapers with mobility like Utah’s Rudy Gobert, or when teams run an unusual offense like the Jazz.

The way to combat that is playing cohesive team defense. Walton says defense should be instinctive. Players know where to go and when to go there. The Kings aren’t there yet, but Bagley offered up a first step in that direction after the loss to the Jazz.

“We gotta talk more. We gotta communicate more,” Bagley said. “Sometimes it happens so fast we just don’t communicate. If we keep allowing that to happen, we’ll get beat all game, like we did tonight.”

The Kings have plenty of time to work on it as they continue their longest road trip of the season. Sacramento has games in Miami, Detroit, Chicago and Minnesota before returning home next week. None of their opponents rank higher than 15th in scoring. It seems like a good time to figure out their defensive issues and pull out of a slump where the Kings have lost 13 of their last 16 games.