Sacramento Kings switch things up with 2-3 zone defense in win over New Orleans Pelicans
The Kings came out of Saturday’s loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves frustrated about their poor play defensively, continuing a theme from their otherwise sterling season. Their struggles on that end have been grinding on head coach Mike Brown, who throughout the year has called his team’s top-ranked offense “fool’s gold” as long as the defense remains sporadic.
A schematic defensive change came again on Monday, spurring a 123-108 victory over the struggling New Orleans Pelicans, who were missing Zion Williamson. Assistant coach Luke Loucks called for Brown to try a matchup zone defense in the second half, with three Kings on the perimeter and two down low, after the Pelicans got off to a hot-shooting start in the first.
“It worked for a number of reasons,” Brown said. “I thought our guys communicated. I thought they tried to keep finding bodies when shots went up. ... And they were able to find ways to get stops while playing the zone.”
Moving to a zone worked wonders after halftime, continuing a trend Sacramento has seen in recent games.
The Pelicans shot 60.5% in the first half, but they made just seven of their 20 shots in the third quarter (35%) as Sacramento outscored them 38-20 and essentially put the game out of reach. The Kings also played strong offensively in the first half and pulled away because they continued playing efficiently at that end combined with getting stops.
“We were just able to disrupt them a little bit,” Kings forward Trey Lyles said. “I don’t think they were ready for that. We were talking and communicating, and we were rebounding, which was a big thing for us in the zone.”
The zone was installed by Brown and his staff in training camp. But as often as the Kings practice, it’s not something that’s gotten much work during the regular season.
“Never, honestly,” guard Kevin Huerter said when asked how much the team practices zone.
“I think (the difficulty) goes both ways. A lot of teams don’t practice against a zone either. I didn’t do it on my previous team (the Atlanta Hawks) much. We don’t really do it much here. ... I think we’re just using it to switch things up, just throw off their rhythm offensively, just show them something different. And, obviously, it was effective tonight.”
The Kings were without All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox, who was ruled out before the game with a hamstring injury. It meant another start for Davion Mitchell, his second since last week in Oklahoma City against the Thunder. Mitchell on Monday had 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting with six assists. Huerter scored a game-high 25 points with eight assists while making six of his 10 3-point attempts. Huerter is 15 of 23 (65%) on 3s over three games in March.
The Kings came out of Monday ranked 25th in the NBA in defensive efficiency, allowing 115.9 points per 100 possessions, worst among any team in the top six seeds in either conference. Perhaps they’ll go to a zone defense more often down the stretch with 18 games remaining before the start of the playoffs.
“Sometimes you do it to try to break an opponents’ rhythm,” Brown said. “Sometimes you do it because you’re not exactly excited about the matchups out there. Sometimes you do it because they’re getting into the paint a little too much and (you) say, ‘OK, let’s see in the next couple of minutes if they can at least take jumpers and we can contest the jumpers and see what happens.’”
Closing out on defenders while playing zone seemed to work in the pivotal third quarter. The Pelicans shot just 1 of 7 from 3-point range after hitting 9 of 16 in the first half.
Sacramento’s next test will likely be more difficult. They host the red-hot New York Knicks on Thursday, who have won nine straight heading into Tuesday’s game against the Charlotte Hornets. New York is averaging 124 points per game during their winning streak.
