Do Sacramento Kings have problems with 3-point shooting and defense going into NBA season?
Preseason performances can easily be dismissed as preseason performances with no real bearing on what’s to come in the regular season.
That might be true for the Kings as they embark on a new journey behind coach Mike Brown and a star-studded roster featuring De’Aaron Fox, DeMar DeRozan, Domantas Sabonis, Keegan Murray and Malik Monk.
General manager Monte McNair has assembled a roster with enough firepower to contend for an automatic playoff berth in the Western Conference despite some imperfections. This is the most talented Kings team since they became a global phenomenon in the early 2000s, but there are legitimate questions going into Thursday’s season opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
Some pundits wondered how the addition of DeRozan would affect the team’s 3-point shooting, floor spacing and defense. Those appear to be legitimate concerns going into the regular season.
Offensively, the Kings ranked 28th in field-goal percentage (.420) and 32nd in 3-point shooting (.254) while going 0-5 during preseason play. Defensively, they ranked 30th in opponent field-goal percentage (.503) and 31st in opponent 3-point percentage (.421).
The Kings struggled with 3-point shooting while dramatically improving their defense over the course of the 2023-24 season, but Brown is still more concerned with defense than shooting.
“I truly believe that our shooting will be better this year and consistently at a pretty high level,” Brown said. “Defensively, I have some concerns, and we just have to go out there and do what we’re supposed to do at that end of the floor to give ourselves a chance. If we do, I think we can be a pretty good defensive team.”
Shooting
The Kings’ 3-point efficiency could come down to their ability to space the floor with two low-volume 3-point shooters, DeRozan and Sabonis, in the starting lineup.
DeRozan actually led all starters during the preseason, shooting 42.9% on just 1.4 3-point attempts per game, but he is a master of the midrange game who will collapse the defense much more than he spreads the floor.
Fox shot 31.8% on 5.5 attempts during the preseason. Keon Ellis shot 29.4% on 3.4 attempts. Jordan McLaughlin shot 27.3% on 3.7 attempts. Murray converted 25.9% on 5.4 attempts and Monk hit just 14.3% on 4.7 attempts.
Sabonis isn’t concerned, saying the Kings got “a lot of wide-open looks” during the preseason.
“We feel like we’re playing at a higher pace, so our legs aren’t there yet,” Sabonis said. “That kind of happened last year, too, so hopefully Thursday (the shots) start falling.”
Assistant coach Jay Triano offered a similar assessment.
“We have had open looks and we want to keep shooting them,” Triano said. “I think there’s something to be said for how much we run and the pace with which we play. It’s going to take a little bit of time for our legs to catch up with that as far as our shooting goes, but we like the shots we’re getting, and we obviously have a couple guys who can really shoot it who are out of the lineup right now, so we think that’s only going to improve when we get them back.”
The Kings should benefit from the return of Kevin Huerter (shoulder) and Trey Lyles (groin), who were full participants in practice Tuesday after missing the preseason due to injuries.
Murray said the Kings are adjusting to new wrinkles in the offense, some of which have been implemented to optimize DeRozan’s fit.
“There’s a lot of new stuff that we’re incorporating, but I feel like we got a lot of open looks,” Murray said. “We obviously didn’t shoot the ball well. ... I feel like with our offense, we kind of have different looks, so just getting used to those looks in practice. Eventually we’re going to knock them down, so I’m not worried about that.”
Defense
Defense might be a different story.
The Kings made tremendous strides last season, going from 18th in defensive rating before the All-Star break to ninth after the break. They were No. 7 in March and No. 2 in April with the defensive-minded Ellis joining the starting lineup after Huerter suffered a season-ending injury.
It remains to be seen if the Kings can carry the same physicality and tenaciousness into a new season with the addition of DeRozan and Huerter’s pending return to the starting lineup. Sacramento ranked third in steals (12.2), seventh in points off turnovers (24.8) and 11th in fastbreak points (18.6) during the preseason, but they were among the worst teams in terms of defensive field-goal and 3-point percentages.
Brown hopes the Kings will play with physicality — without fouling — while picking up the finer points of the team’s defensive scheme.
“Something new that we introduced to our guys this year, or that we’re emphasizing more this year than in the past, is our shifts,” Brown said. “We weren’t great keeping the ball out of the paint. Trying to keep that basketball out of the paint is going to be a big emphasis of ours. Making sure our shifts are correct, and while we’re shifting, we’re impacting the ball the correct way, making sure while we’re in a shift we’re active and alert so we can close out and get to shooters and contest shots the right way.
“If we do get beaten on a dribble-drive, or if a guy is playing the pick-and-roll game and he rolls and he gets behind our big, that our low man is really active. He’s active and he’s getting to a body earlier than later and with some level of physicality, or he’s coming across and going vertical or taking a charge, and then we’re rotating out of that help on the backside. Those are areas that we have to make sure we’re pretty efficient at from jump street.”
