Sacramento Kings play near ‘perfect’ game to force Game 7 against Golden State Warriors
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The Kings came into Friday night knowing it would take one of their best games of the season to keep the series alive against the defending champion Golden State Warriors on their home floor in San Francisco.
There was a quiet confidence among the group they would bounce back after losing to Golden State in Game 5 and falling behind in the series, 3-2. They needed a season-defining performance, and they may have gotten it.
“I feel like we basically played a perfect game,” All-Star point guard De’Aaron Fox said after his team tied the series at three games apiece, forcing a Game 7 with a 118-99 victory.
Fox included caveats that were mostly inconsequential. He mentioned his five turnovers and the Warriors’ shooting 35 free throws. But otherwise, the Kings did all the little things to extend their season in arguably their best performance of this historic campaign. It gave them a chance at a winner-take-all matinee at Golden 1 Center on Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
The Kings won the possession game, as head coach Mike Brown calls it, getting 99 shot attempts to Golden State’s 85. They won the rebounding battle 53-42 and grabbed 18 offensive rebounds while allowing just 11 to the Warriors. They had 18 second-chance points, 10 more than their opponent.
“That’s the difference in this series,” Kings guard Kevin Huerter said after scoring 12 points and hitting three 3-pointers, including two in the fourth quarter that served as back breakers. “You look at the games that we’ve won and the games that they’ve won, those little battles within the game — offensive rebounds, hustle plays, turnovers, points off turnovers. Those little things are what each winning team has done in all the wins.”
The Kings are 3-1 in the series when they get more shot attempts than the Warriors. The only exception was Game 4, which was there for the taking and came down to Harrison Barnes’ open 3-pointer at the buzzer that hit off the back rim. The team that had the most second-chance points in each game has won five of the six.
And after allowing Kevon Looney to control the glass with 20, 14 and 22 rebounds the last three games, all Warriors’ wins, he managed 13 on Friday while the Kings had 11 more rebounds overall.
“Looney’s been killing us this whole series,” Kings guard Malik Monk said after scoring 28 points in 32 minutes off the bench, coming close to matching his series-best 32 points in Game 1. “That was just the emphasis. Trey (Lyles) said he was going to hit him, and we just had to come back and get the rebounds.”
Center Domantas Sabonis finished as the NBA’s leading rebounder for the regular season, but his 11 didn’t lead the team Friday. That was rookie forward Keegan Murray, who played a season-high 45 minutes while posting 15 points and 12 rebounds.
The Warriors’ 33-8 record at Chase Center was the third-best home record in the NBA during the regular season. The Kings hadn’t won in Golden State’s new arena since Feb. 25, 2020, just before the start of the pandemic. Friday’s game snapped a six-game losing streak in San Francisco.
The Warriors came into Game 6 as winners of three straight games. They appeared to seize control of the series with their Game 5 victory Wednesday. But now the Kings have taken back that momentum.
“When I said that was the best win of the season, on Game 5, this is probably the worst loss of the season,” Warriors guard Klay Thompson said. “I mean, there’s no time to hang our heads. ... Luckily for us, we still have another crack at it, and I still have absolute belief in this team that we can go get it done on the road. It will be a tall task, but we are up for it, and I know we will respond.”
The Kings survived by responding to Warriors’ haymakers in the fourth quarter.
Stephen Curry scored 11 of his 29 points in the frame, including a 3 that got the crowd going at the 11:12 mark, which was immediately followed by a 3 from Trey Lyles. Curry then hit a layup, which was followed by a Monk layup. Curry two minutes later hit another 3, and Fox hit a 3 from the top of the key 15 seconds later. Curry didn’t score again while Sacramento pushed its lead from 10 to open the quarter to 19 at the end.
Withstanding Curry’s made shots, and counter punching, was equally as important as anything else that happened Friday.
“With those type of runs, you just have to give yourself a chance,” Fox said. “You can’t go down and turn the ball over. If you turn the ball over, you’re going to get punched in the mouth again. So for us, it was really just trying to keep control of the game. With that, I was open. That’s all it was. I was open, you have to take the shot.”
Fox finished with 26 points and scored seven in the fourth quarter after failing to score in the fourth in Game 5, marking just the fifth game all season he didn’t score in the final frame.
But now the Kings get a chance to play in front of their electric home crowd that hasn’t seen a Game 7 since the Western Conference finals loss against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2002. The Kings are using their doubters, who were fueled by their 16-season playoff drought, as motivation.
“People didn’t think we’d be here,” Monk said. “Ain’t nobody think we’d be here but us, so that’s all the confidence we need.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2023 at 10:46 PM.
