Kings-Warriors: Mike Brown expects series to ‘get harder’ after encouraging Game 1 victory
READ MORE
Sacramento Kings in the Playoffs
Kings playoffs have arrived! Here’s everything you need to know.
Expand All
With Outkast playing over the in-house speakers, the Kings were back at their Golden 1 Center practice facility Sunday hours after beating the Golden State Warriors to open the NBA playoffs.
Indeed, Kings fans loved the way their team moved in Game 1.
But head coach Mike Brown is expecting things to get more difficult against the defending champions in Game 2 on Monday. He knows Golden State has a habit of coming from behind to win playoff series with their experienced and battle-tested group.
“We just want the guys to understand it’s just one game and we got a long way to,” Brown said. “And it’s only going to get harder from here. We’re going to keep reiterating that message to our guys.”
The Warriors most recently came back from a 2-1 deficit to beat the Boston Celtics in last year’s NBA Finals. And since their first of four championship runs in 2015, Golden State has come back to win five series after trailing by at least one game.
“Everything they do is going to be magnified by 10,” Brown said. “They’re going to make some adjustments. We’re going to have to counter their adjustments without overreacting and still continue to play the way we play because I don’t know if we’re good enough to go away from that right now.
“We play fast, and we want to by physical on both sides of the ball. That’s no secret and that’s how we’re going to continue to try to play.”
The Kings on Saturday came back from a 10-point deficit in the third quarter to win 126-123. De’Aaron Fox scored a game-high 38 points while Malik Monk added 32. The former Kentucky teammates, of course, were making their playoff debuts.
“Getting the first one is obviously huge,” guard Kevin Huerter said. “Especially at home. That’s something that we’re supposed to do with homecourt (advantage). We’re supposed to get the first one. That environment, obviously the fans being there was big for us moving forward, but we know it’s gonna be a long series.”
Warriors coach Steve Kerr indicated Sunday his team’s mistakes were correctable — and there didn’t appear to be much worry after dropping Game 1. Sacramento had advantages in second-chance points (21-17) and fastbreak points (12-9), which were crucial in a game that was decided by three.
“It started with transition (defense),” Kerr said. “We made a lot of mistakes there and that led to some early buckets. I thought we did some great things defensively during the game. Guys played their butts off, but we let our guard down when the shot went up.”
The Kings outrebounded the Warriors on the offensive glass 17-9, and on top of Golden State’s 15 turnovers, Sacramento managed to get eight more shot attempts on the night, 98-90.
“If you look at our defense just in terms of forcing misses and getting into our coverages and initial defense, we did a really good job,” Kerr said. “But when you get 17 extra chances, it’s really tough.”
To Kerr’s point, the Kings shot 44.9% from the floor. Sacramento won just three of 17 games when shooting below 45% during the regular season. They made up for it by getting extra possessions and shot attempts.
The Kings are optimistic about their chances as the series goes on because of the production they didn’t get from a handful of their key players while still getting the victory. They won Saturday despite All-Star center Domantas Sabonis, Huerter and rookie Keegan Murray combining to score 20 points on 9-of-35 (.260) shooting.
Fox and Monk’s scoring made up for it, as did forward Trey Lyles having 16 points off the bench while hitting 4 of 6 3-point attempts.
“Guys have struggled throughout the course of the year,” Brown said. “And when they’ve done so, it always feels like somebody else different steps up and that was the case.
“We have guys that we’ll go to if somebody else isn’t quite getting it done at the end of the day. But we have confidence in everybody and want them to be able to continue to shoot the ball, play with aggression throughout the course of our postseason run.”
Kerr indicated Monday’s game could have a different feel, which is often the nature of the postseason.
“These games and these series, for everybody, it’s Whac-a-Mole,” Kerr said. “You take away one thing and something else pops up. All these guys are great players on both teams. You do not stop and think, alright, we solved that problem. So (Monday) could be totally different, and it probably will be for both teams, so you just have to try to take care of the stuff you can take care of and clean up the things you can (do better at).”
This story was originally published April 17, 2023 at 4:00 AM.
