How are the Sacramento Kings suddenly winning? New coach and players explain energy shift
Interim Kings coach Doug Christie showed a philosophical side following a win over the Philadelphia 76ers when he dropped a line that begged for a follow-up question.
“There has to be the ability to take a negative situation and find that pithy bit of positivity because you see it, and once you see it, you build upon it,” Christie said.
A pithy bit of positivity?
“It comes from a book, ‘The Way of the Wizard,’ if you know the book by Deepak Chopra,” said Christie, who was named interim coach after Mike Brown was fired Dec. 27. “In the ashes of disaster, can you find that pithy bit of positivity?”
Christie is preaching joy, positivity and togetherness, and the players seem to be responding.
“I think we are just going out there, leaving it all out there, playing with joy, freedom, for one another,” Kings forward DeMar DeRozan said. “I would say it’s that more than anything.”
The Kings are riding a season-long five-game winning streak as they prepare to open a three-game road trip against the Boston Celtics on Friday at TD Garden. They kept the streak alive when they overcame a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Miami Heat in a double-overtime thriller Monday at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
Kings forward Keegan Murray was summoned to midcourt when it was time to light the beam. During his courtside interview with public address announcer Scott Moak, Murray said: “Give all the credit to Doug. His belief in us is fantastic. It’s just a complete energy change.”
Kings center Domantas Sabonis agreed.
“Like Keegan said, the belief, the energy, the vibes are at an all-time high,” Sabonis said. “We’re just going out there and fighting for each other. We believe in what we’re doing.”
Winning and losing streaks
That sense of belief was not there in the final days under Brown. The Kings (18-19) lost six in a row to fall six games under .500 in late December. Pressure was building by the day.
The situation boiled over Dec. 26 when the Kings blew a 19-point lead against the Detroit Pistons to punctuate a winless five-game homestand. When it was over, Brown called out star point guard De’Aaron Fox for a defensive lapse that allowed the Pistons to win the game on a four-point play by Jaden Ivey.
Brown was dismissed the next day, just five months after signing a three-year contract extension. Kings owner Vivek Ranadive, general manager Monte McNair and assistant general manager Wes Wilcox have yet to speak publicly on the decision to fire Brown, but it became increasingly clear that something wasn’t working.
A season that began with high hopes seemed to be spiraling out of control, but the Kings have quickly gotten back into the Western Conference playoff race after winning five of their first six games under Christie. They are now tied with the San Antonio Spurs for the final play-in spot, just 2 ½ games behind the Los Angeles Lakers for the No. 6 seed with 45 games to go.
“We all want to win,” DeRozan said. “We’re all competitors. We all hate when we were in the slump we were in. The only way out of that was to stick together. It was going to turn. We had a tough week and a half ago with so much changing. A lot of stuff was going on, and the only way to get out of stuff like that is to pull together and pull through it. I think that’s where we’re at right now.”
The renewed energy is undeniable, but the Kings’ winning streak requires some context. Their wins came against: The Dallas Mavericks, who were missing Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson; the 76ers, who were missing Joel Embiid; the Memphis Grizzlies, who were missing Ja Morant; the Golden State Warriors, who were missing Jonathan Kuminga; and the Heat, which was missing Jimmy Butler.
Still, Sacramento’s play has been impressive despite the recent absence of Fox, who missed the past two games with a right glute contusion.
Over the past six games, the Kings are tied for second in the NBA in scoring at 122.5 points per game. They are sixth in offensive rating (118.4), eighth in defensive rating (110.4) and sixth in net rating (7.9). Over that stretch, the Kings are No. 2 in free-throw percentage (.865) and offensive rebounding (13.8), tied for third in steals (9.7), fifth in assists (30.0), sixth in plus/minus (+7.7), seventh in rebounding (47.0), 11th in field-goal percentage (.472) and 13th in 3-point percentage (.359).
Christie, who played for the Kings from 2000-05 at the height of their success under Rick Adelman, still espouses the principles that defined Sacramento’s style at that time.
“More than anything, it’s just simplification — trying to simplify the offensive end, and defensively we’re trying to do that a little bit as well,” Christie said. “One thing I used to say, and I’ve said this to the players, is I would rather teach you how to play than run a play, and that’s ultimately what I want to do. I don’t really want to run plays. I want to teach them how to play and let them go out there. They’re the most magnificent athletes in the world. Be everything you can be and everything that you can represent for our city, and do that. That’s really what I want to do.”
Joy and energy
The Kings seem to be playing with a level of joy and energy they lacked just two weeks ago. Does that mean they couldn’t play with joy under Brown?
“I wouldn’t say that,” DeRozan said. “Just whenever you’re going through any type of ups and downs, when the downs come, everything just feels extremely bad. Everything is just heightened to another level. I think with so much going on, it kind of hit the fan with having a coaching change in the middle of the season. So much was going on that we could just sit there and kind of sob in our sorrows and let things get worse. I think we just pulled together and pulled ourselves out of that more so than anything.”
Time will tell if the Kings can build on this momentum. They still have an imbalanced roster that needs more size, length and defense.
Brown, a two-time NBA Coach of the Year who has been a part of four championship teams with a career record of 454-304 (.599), was honest and unapologetic in breaking down the Kings’ biggest flaws.
Christie, in contrast, is lifting them up.
“I think in many ways your team takes on the personality of your coach, and I just want them to fight,” Christie said. “When they step inside those lines, it’s always us versus them, and it’s always us. When we leave, if we’re friends with them, great. If not, that’s fine, too. We come here to win the ballgame, and we lock arms and do it together. I like to have fun, so I want them to have joy and play with joy at the same time, but understand, when it’s business, we’re getting after it. That’s what I want our fans to feel, too.”
Christie has a sense of unfinished business after being part of a Kings team that lost to the Lakers in Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference finals. His love for the Kings, their fans and the city of Sacramento could light a fire in his players as they try to turn their season around.
Christie found an opportunity to inspire his players following the win over Philadelphia. He took them to the roof of the arena — where the base of the team’s purple victory beam is located — to deliver a stirring message.
“Y’all are the light of this city, man,” Christie said. “And when you light that motherf---er, it means something to people. You understand what I’m saying? And when you come and rock the way you guys are rocking, you’re going to continue to lift them and that’s what we’re here to do, so continue to be that light.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
