Fox and Sabonis set Kings milestones in win over Blazers; Brown calls for All-NBA honors
De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis opened the final stretch after the All-Star break Thursday with a pair of Kings milestones against the downtrodden Portland Trailblazers.
Fox scored 31 points, becoming the team’s first player in the Sacramento era to score 30 in five consecutive games. Sabonis recorded his seventh triple-double of the season with 18 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists — with three steals — giving him more triple-doubles in a season than any player since the team moved to Northern California in 1985.
The Kings beat Portland, 133-116, to open the 25-game finish of the regular season as the team tries to end its 16-year playoff drought. They finished the night remaining in the No. 3 seed in the crowded Western Conference, just 3 ½ games ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who sit in the No. 7 seed, which would put them in the play-in tournament.
For head coach Mike Brown, the milestones for his team’s two All-Stars are emblematic of Sacramento’s turnaround campaign.
“They’re huge from the standpoint that we’re sitting in third place in a really tough Western Conference,” Brown said. “And for those guys to break franchise records like they’re breaking, just proves that much more that they deserved to be All-Stars, deserve to be mentioned with the upper echelon players of the league. Whether it’s first-, second-, or third-team All-NBA.
“They have to continue getting recognition because of where we are as a team.”
Brown campaigning for his players to be recognized is not new. He pushed for Fox and Sabonis to be All-Stars long before last weekend’s festivities in Salt Lake City. Sabonis was elected as a reserve and Fox was an injury replacement, giving the team its first All-Star pairing since Peja Stojakovic and Brad Miller in 2003-04.
The Kings fell behind by 16 in the first period before outscoring the Blazers 104-79 over the final three quarters. Sabonis got his triple-double with an assist to Malik Monk, who hit a 17-foot jumper with 4:08 left in the game. Sabonis’ seventh triple-double broke Rajon Rondo’s mark of six during the 2015-16 season.
“It’s awesome, to get these little things, it just shows how hard we’re working as a team,” Sabonis said. “That has nothing to do with me. My teammates have to make shots. I get open for them, they get open for me. It’s a team game and I just appreciate all of them and the hard work they do.”
Fox scored 31, 33, 36 and 35 in his previous four games before getting 31 in just under 26 minutes Thursday. He was the first Kings player to score at least 30 in five straight games since Tiny Archibald’s nine-game streak in March 1975, back when the team played in Kansas City.
The Blazers were facing unusual circumstances ahead of the game. They landed at Sacramento around 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon after weather prevented them from departing Portland on Wednesday night. Sitting in the No. 12 seed, half a game out of the play-in, Portland decided to rest star guard Damian Lillard and forward Jerami Grant, joining injured starters Anfernee Simons and Jusuf Nurkic along with Justise Winslow on the bench.
The Blazers sat on the team plane for seven hours Wednesday due to a rare blizzard caused by the storm hitting much of the West Coast. They eventually canceled the flight, decided to fly out Thursday, and rested Lillard and Grant while two other starters, Simons and Nurkic, were out with preexisting injuries.
“It’s definitely a challenge,” Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said beforehand. “Long day yesterday, long night, early morning, but it is what it is. It’s just kind of how it goes sometimes. It rarely goes this way, but it is what it is and you just have to try to focus in on the moment.”
The Blazers got 26 points from Nassir Little and 24 points from Cam Reddish. But they couldn’t slow the Kings defensively, allowing 133 points despite Sacramento’s slow start. The Kings scored just six points over the first five and a half minutes. The home team shot 54% from the floor and made 14 of 34 from 3-point range (41%).
The Kings are 33-25, needing just two wins over their last 24 games to exceed the 34.5-game win total predicted by oddsmakers before the start of the season.
Reserve guard Terence Davis scored 20 points while making four of his five 3s. It was just the fourth time this season he reached at least 20 points, while his role in the rotation has appeared to solidify since late January. Davis has averaged roughly 18 minutes in 10 games since Jan. 30, while scoring 10.7 points per game.
Davis after the game was asked about Brown’s recent comments when he said the Kings would have to adjust to becoming “the hunted” given where they sit in the standings, and the importance of playing well over the final 24 games of the regular season, which includes 19 games against Western Conference foes.
Davis mentioned a conversation he was having before the game with teammates and members of the front office.
“Sacramento hasn’t been in this position in almost two decades,” Davis said. “And the importance of these last 25 games, you can’t really put it into words. Walking on the court and knowing that you’re in a position to do something that hasn’t been done in almost two decades, that should light a fire.
“For me, honestly, I was on the All-Star break just thinking about it. I was trying to put into perspective how important these last few games are. ... It’s important. This is everything.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2023 at 12:25 AM.
