Luke Walton ejected as 28-point lead erased, but Kings climb higher in playoff race
Coach Luke Walton got ejected and his team nearly blew a 28-point lead, but in the end the Kings took another important step forward in the Western Conference playoff race on a wild night in Sacramento.
De’Aaron Fox scored 31 points to lead the Kings to a 133-126 victory over the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night at Golden 1 Center. Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 18 points for the Kings (27-34), who have won 12 of 17 to move into sole possession of ninth place in the Western Conference playoff race.
Buddy Hield had 17 points, five rebounds and four assists for the Kings, who trail the Memphis Grizzlies by three games. They are a half-game ahead of the Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs and one game ahead of the New Orleans Pelicans, who lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Bradley Beal scored 35 games for the Wizards (22-38). Rui Hachimura had 20 points and six rebounds.
The Kings led by as many as 28 points in the first half and carried a 76-49 advantage into the break. They shot 60.8 percent from the field, made 8 of 17 from 3-point range, recorded 15 assists with only three turnovers and came up with seven steals, but a stellar first half was followed by a total meltdown in the third quarter.
Beal, Thomas Bryant and Jerome Robinson made 3-pointers to fuel a 13-0 run as the Wizards battled back to get within 13 midway through the third. Walton called a timeout and removed four of his five starters, inserting Hield, Cory Joseph, Kent Bazemore and Alex Len, but the run didn’t stop.
The Wizards scored the next six points, extending their run to 19-0 while cutting the deficit to seven. Before long, the game was tied, but Walton wasn’t around to see it.
Walton was incensed, apparently because he felt officials missed a foul on Joseph. Walton was quickly hit with a technical foul when he stomped onto the floor to confront referee Derrick Collins, but Walton didn’t stop there. He received a second technical foul and an automatic ejection when he pushed past Harrison Barnes in an attempt to get to Collins.
Fans cheered Walton and a number of his players patted him on the back as he left the floor and headed back to the locker room. It was Walton’s first ejection as the Kings head coach.
Assistant coach Igor Kokoskov took over head-coaching duties. Walton was not made available to the media after the game.
“Luke Walton cares about his team and cares about winning, obviously, and his reaction is something that, I think at that moment, he tried to help his team and he reacted the way he reacted,” Kokoskov said.
DE-FENSE
Walton has emphasized the importance of defense since the moment he was introduced as the Kings head coach back in April. The team fell far short of his expectations early in the season, but the Kings have improved considerably on the defensive end since then.
Sacramento was 26th in the NBA in defensive rating in October, 13th in November, 21st in December, 17th in January and 12th in February, according to NBA.com/stats. The Kings were sixth in defensive rating over their past 10 games and third in their past five.
“I want our guys to feel very proud of those numbers,” Walton said. “We’ve preached it since Day 1 and on Day 1 we were a very poor defensive team, so we’ve come a long way and, where we’re at on our journey, we want to take a moment to recognize that that side of the ball is getting much better, applaud yourselves for giving that type of effort and continue to work to get better at it.”
Beal streak
Beal came in on a red-hot scoring streak after averaging 42.8 points in the previous five games.
Beal started the barrage with back-to-back 50-point games. He scored 43 against the Chicago Bulls on Feb. 23 and poured in 55 the next night against the Milwaukee Bucks. He followed that with 30 points against the Brooklyn Nets, 42 against the Utah Jazz and 34 against the Golden State Warriors.
“It’s like watching film on James Harden where every teams is trying crazy defenses, traps — the Nets were in the box-and-one against him — and he just keeps scoring,” Walton said. “With the tear he’s on and the talent he has, it’s one of those things that’s going to be a five-man job and it’s going to change throughout the game because, if you give him the same looks over and over, he’s going to burn you.”
The Kings held Beal to 12 points on 4-of-11 shooting in the first half, but he scored 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting in the second half.
Buddy Buckets
Less than three weeks after winning the 3-Point Contest at All-Star Weekend at Chicago, Hield continues to establish himself as one of the most prolific long-range shooters the NBA has ever seen. Hield now has more career 3-point goals (830) in his first four seasons than any player in NBA history, surpassing Blazers star Damian Lillard (828).
Injury report
Wizards: OUT — John Wall (Achilles).
Kings: OUT — Richaun Holmes (shoulder); Marvin Bagley III (foot).
Kings upcoming schedule
March 5 vs. Philadelphia, 7 p.m.
March 7 at Portland, 7 p.m.
March 8 vs. Toronto, 6 p.m.
March 11 vs. New Orleans, 7 p.m.
March 15 vs. Brooklyn, 6 p.m.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 10:31 PM.
