Matt George, Locked on Kings – Thoughts From Sacramento Kings First Preseason Game

Matt George, Locked on Kings – Thoughts From Sacramento Kings First Preseason Game

There he is. Matthew. Hello. What’s up, my friend? Jesse would never do that to me. That’s my fault, man. It’s my fault. Um, Matt’s getting his uh tattoo worked on at three. That’s why he’s That’s why he’s I mean, it’s shady like getting it finished. So, I have all of that done on the outside. And so, they just got to do the inside now. The inside’s all blank canvas still. So, all the outside is done, but just the inside. I’ve heard that’s I guess sketching. Well, we’ll see. Couldn’t be worse than the elbow. The elbow sucked. The The elbow was not fun. I thought about getting a sleeve recently. I don’t know what I want for a whole arm though. Not a single tattoo. Figure at this point there’s no reason for me to ever have one. You want to do a You want to get a friendship tattoo, D? Nope. No. Come on. Your friendship is enough for me. I don’t I don’t think so. Just Just for us. Put little rings on our finger. You put my initials on your finger. No, I just something something prince related to honor the good times. Oh, there you go. Friends forever. Yes, we will. Y’ don’t know about that. Y’all don’t know about that. Stop it. What you know about friends forever? Talking about Zack attack. Who you talking to? Who you talking to? Stop. What you know about friends forever? Stop. Hang on, man. Uh Matt George is with us. Matt, did you not watch Save by the Bell? You looked confused during that interaction during the commercial break. You didn’t. You need to start. No clue any of that what you guys are talking about at all. Really? He’s a little young. Kelly Kapowski means nothing to you. Is that is that like the the lady that everybody like thought was hot back when they were kids? We didn’t think she was. Yeah, she’s I think she’s beautiful today. I’m I’m sure. I mean, I’ve seen references to that show, but who? Stacy Krosi. He definitely doesn’t know Stacy Krosi. I will admit I have not followed Save by the Bell. If you admit you don’t watch The Office, Casey. Oh, I do watch The Office. Well, then I watch Save by the Bell. Matt is a little young though, like when it comes to that, I think. I I don’t How old are you again, Matt? I was born in 1994. I’m 31. Okay. Yeah. No, he wouldn’t watch though cuz he would have to be home at like eight, eight years old watching TBS. Well, he was home. Yeah, he was reading the Bible though. That’s all. That’s what Matt was doing. He was reading the Bible when he was home. A Nickelodeon kid. I was a Spongebob and yeah, Fairly Odd Parents and Rugrats. Um, Jimmy Neutron was good, too. Side question. How how much uh how many cartoons are on in your house now that that things have changed for you? Are you just getting used to cartoons again? Um, yeah. I mean, it’s just all sorts of Oh, it’s Bluey. That’s right. You were talking about Bluey. It’s Bluey. I think there’s something called Gabby. Um, they watch like the same couple of movies like over and over and over again. Like there was a two week stretch where we were putting the Smurfs on like every, you know, couple days. So, yeah, it’s definitely Yeah, it’s definitely different than it used to be, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like I’ve I I never thought I would see a single episode of Blueie, much less a thousand of them. Proud of you. Proud of you. Welcome. I’m sure you are. There’s a thousand more, too, that you you haven’t seen. You watch more. And it wouldn’t matter if they did because they’ll just watch it again. They would just watch the same episode over and over and over again. Doesn’t bother them a bit. Yep. Doesn’t bother them a bit. Uh hopefully we’re not watching the same Kings basketball game over and over and over again because that would bother a lot of people. Uh, Matt, your immediate reaction uh to last night’s game from the Sacramento Kings. I I think it was I mean just disappointing cuz I I I went into the Golden One Center just hoping to give me a like an aha moment or it’s like there it is. There it is. That they’ve been talking about it. There’s Doug Christie on the floor. And there were like the the biggest glimpse of that we got was the young guys at the end. But this is not it’s not a new thing to see guys that are hungry and fighting for a playoff spot playing hard and making the most of their opportunity at the end of the game where like important note here they’re also playing against the other guys on the Raptors who are doing the same exact thing right it’s not like Dylan Cardwell was dunking on Brandon Ingram so it just important not to undermine anything that that group did because they gave us something to to be excited about towards the end of that game but that was really the only extended stretch where I saw that new identity and and like to me I like to break each season down into like what is the bar, what is the ultimate goal and I tend to use that to hold the team to that standard and Scott Perry and Doug Christie made it very very clear from the beginning that the standard this year the the purpose of this year is to establish this new identity. So that’s the bar that I can hold each individual game to. And then Doug Christie added on to it after the game. I love what Doug said. News flash, Doug is a phenomenal communicator. He said there’s two games. There’s the basketball game which they lost 130 to 122. Then there’s the fight and he said this is the last time that we’re going to lose the fight. Like we are going to win the fight every single game. So now I have two bars, Kings fans. We have two things, two standards to hold this team to every time the take they take the floor. Their new identity and did they win the fight. They didn’t do either of those really last night. So, I was disappointed by that. I’m now nowhere near uh now where I was like at the end of of last season. I there are things that were certainly concerning especially from the top guys at the beginning, but as it’s one preseason game, they’ve got three more. I trust Doug Christie to be able to and his staff to who are rigorously taking notes. I was watching the King’s Bench a lot last night and just the amount of times Doug is turning and communicating with everybody and they’re like they’re they’re they’ve got all the advanced everything on the planet. They’re they’re going to be studying this. They’re going to be working this. They’re already workshopping it in practice right now or today. Like I don’t expect things to change overnight necessarily, but they’re going to address some things. They’re going to tweak some things and we need to give them the chance to to show improvement. But I don’t blame any Kings fan who goes that looked exactly like last year, especially defensively, and that’s sending off alarm bells. So, I understand kind of both sides of that coin. Matt, do you feel like um some of the ways that maybe you and others felt about last night and the performance last night from the Kings u is a little bit because of what you hoped to see, what you have been hearing in training camp, and then what you didn’t see. I only say that because I was telling the fellas earlier, I didn’t get a chance to watch the game live, but I was following along on Twitter. I was looking at the box score, all this other stuff, and I thought it was a disaster from that premise, right? And then I actually got a chance to watch the game, and it wasn’t good. I’m not making that argument at all, but it wasn’t as bad as it was sounding from everybody else. Did you do you think kind of like the what you hoped for affected maybe how you uh took in that game yesterday? Oh, for sure. Um, definitely. I think like this fan base as as you guys have gauged it, I’ve gauged it, I know we’ve talked about it, like there’s there’s just an apprehension it feels like with at least the vocal majority of the the fan base that doesn’t represent everybody, but those that we interact with, those that we see on social media, they’re just they’re going into this season with a it’s almost like a guarded heart, like I I’m not going to let myself like get hurt again. I don’t trust it. I don’t believe it. And I think last night validated those feelings or validated those fears for a lot of people. So it kind of just sent them right back to game 80 uh three or 84, whatever it was when game 83 when they got destroyed on their home floor by Dallas. Like it it took them back to that place. And I don’t blame people for that necessarily, but there I mean there were elements Casey of like what I mean Deont Sabona said after the game he’s like that’s not how we’ve been playing in training camp. Okay, good. But can you show us show us how you’ve been playing? And that’s what we’ve got three more preseason games to hopefully they will they they will show us a little bit more. There were things that I can be like nitpicky concerned about. I thought the starting unit as a unit was not inspiring to me. Like I didn’t I don’t know if Dennis Shruder was tired or what. I just didn’t see much from Dennis Shruder and he’s supposed to be they’re talking about him as like the extension of Doug Christie on the floor. I didn’t get that sense from watching him. The thing I think that concerned me the most, and I know you you guys were talking with James and Kyle earlier about breaking the habits of last year and unlearning last year, and and that’s a a valid point, although we have to be careful not to take that too far into like excuse territory, but like I thought there was time where it looked like the guys who have been together over the last year were miscommunicating more than the new guys. I I felt there were a number of times that Domas and Keegan and Dear were not on the same page and breakdowns happened because they were look confused and they were looking at each other and communicating with each other and I saw that more between guys who have been here for the last year than like Dennis Shruder and some of the new rookies and guys like that. So, those little things concern me because like these are the guys that you have to lean on like to to to really iron this home. And the way they’ve talked and and shown over the last week and a half of training camp is that they’re getting it and they’re buying into it. It just I just didn’t get what I wanted to see that I was feeling and trying to express to you guys last week when I was saying they’re starting to kind of win me over and I’m I’m I’m it’s changing how I feel about this team a little bit. How what they’re showing and saying in training camp. I just didn’t get any real example of that or inclination of that la in last night’s game and that was that was tough. Did you have any positive takeaway from last night’s game at all? Oh yeah. Um a number of things. Um I I mean I thought Keegan answered the call of being like aggressive. That’s the main thing we’ve heard with Keegan. Be aggressive. Be aggressive. Be aggressive. And in the first quarter, four blocks, one steal. I think it was like one for five. and his his bucket was a dunk that he got in transition u or a strong take to the rim um that that he that finished in a dunk. Like I saw the aggression um which was really positive to see. I do know that he wasn’t perfect defensively either. That entire starting unit wasn’t the amount of wide openen threes that that starting unit gave up was part of the miscommunication thing that I was talking about earlier that that concerns me that hopefully will get better. We should expect will get better. Um, like I don’t know why Brandon Ingram was wide open from three so many times in that first quarter. Um, like I I mean I even I jotted down a note here like the with the exception of Damont Sabonis checking out and Drew Eubanks checking in at the uh or because Dom got in foul trouble early like Doug didn’t go to his bench unit until the 353 mark of the first quarter. That’s a big difference from Mike Brown cuz Mike would go to his bench and bring Malik Monk in and have Fox come out like four or five minutes into the game. Like that was part of his rotation. Doug seemed like he was his I’m going to stick with my starters longer. And at that 353 mark when Malik Monk, Keon Ellis, and Isaac Jones came into the game. The Raptors were up 20 to 18, but they had already had five three-pointers. The majority of them were wide open. So that concerned me a little bit. But going back to your question, DLO, like I thought Keegan’s aggressiveness was good. I thought Dom was in attack mode offensively, which was encouraging. Like he he recognized, okay, I I can kind of bully my way around this Raptors team. So, he looked in attack mode. Zack Lavine shot the ball exactly like he shot last season, and he had some good defensive moments as well. I thought Drew Eubanks came in and made a noticeable impact in those backup center minutes. And then the the young guys at the end of the game showing some good fight, too. So, there were definitely positives from last night, for sure. Yeah, I I I saw some of the same things you saw as well. Um, from just the defensive lapses, like I said, I I I think Keegan Keegan had an up and down game. Um, there were a lot of weak side helpside blocks. That was good to see. But you talk about the wide open, why Brandon Ingram kept being wide open. Keegan was just kind of lost in the rotations and uh and we talked about earlier the overhelping and I want to see him get better at that. And then when you talk about the aggression with him shooting sometimes I watched him last night and I thought he was being aggressive for the sake of being aggressive which is why he wasn’t making shots. Like they weren’t good shots. They weren’t good attempts, but it was like people told me to be aggressive, so I’m going to be aggressive. And I hope he either figures out a way to make those tough shots or, you know, on a consistent basis or he’s not aggressive just to be aggressive. Like be calculated with the way that you’re aggressive on the offensive end and how you want to do that. So, he had good moments and he had he had some down moments for me yesterday. But isn’t right now the time for him to do that? like now is the time for you to be aggressive for the sake of being because if if Keegan didn’t like he he wanted to make the right play and not force some things. We would have talked about he’s still being safe. Like I I I wanted to see Keegan force some things and it’s the quote that Doug gave us earlier in training camp like be brave. Don’t don’t be a perfectionist. Like try things, experiment a little bit. And I thought Keegan was doing that. And and Casey, I know you’re you’ve I mean, I’m always been labeled like that kind of the captain of the uh the Keegan fan club. I know you’re you’re very much on the side of Demard Rosen gets a lot of unnecessary um blame from from this fan base. And I I I see that too. But I I thought Demard Rosen looked completely lost on defense, too. And I think again it just speaks to we can focus on each individual. I see people going, “Well, the Kings were breaking down and giving up perimeter shots because they still don’t have a rim protector and Damonte Sabonis.” So, we could take any one of those starting five or any one of these top guys, hyperfocus on them individually and say why they didn’t play well enough. Like when the Kings picked up 94 feet, I thought more often than not that actually resulted in an open look for the Raptors because typically the on ball defender would either get beat or screened off and then the guard who’s taking the ball up the floor would attack the rim, draw the defense in. It’s a wide open corner or wide open wing three. It happened like three or four different times when the Kings tried to pick up 94 ft. So, to me, it just it all falls back to we could hyperfocus on one individual and make it their fault if we want to, but it’s just a team thing, which is always going to be the problem with Doug is how can Doug take this roster of individuals, some who are talented on defense, some who are not known for their defense, and turn them into a team defense that is good enough to accomplish what the Kings want to accomplish this year and good enough to fit that identity that they’re trying to establish. That’s what this is all about. And we shouldn’t be surprised at all to see growing pains from from that last night. 23s from the Raptors is really concerning, but you know, like he wasn’t going to change everything overnight. I was just hoping to see see more of Doug Christie on the court and I just didn’t see it. You you mentioned this u a few minutes ago, Matt, about how you you feel like that game may have taken people back to game 83 uh against Dallas. And I think one thing that has Kings fans a little unnerved and completely understand is that number you just mentioned, that 20 made threes, 20 made threes to 10. That was a consistent thing. Not necessarily those specific numbers, but a team absolutely destroying you from behind the three-point line. Teams that don’t regularly shoot and make threes, beating you behind the three-point line. And we saw the Raptors, it was pointed out on the broadcast, uh, last game. It was in all the game notes. The last time they played, they made like 10. Yeah. They doubled up on that against Sacramento. And it’s like Doug said it after the game. Doug, of course, they made all their shots today. And and he said it he actually that actually bothered me. Doug said that in such a passive way. He said it in a way like and I don’t know if I felt like Doug was saying it as if like they made their shots tonight. Like I don’t know what to do versus yeah, we’ve got to do better in keeping. I don’t know what he meant when he said that because it probably depends on the mood that you’re in how you take the remark. It’s like Twitter. You can’t hear someone’s tone, but if you’re in a bad mood, hey, how are you? Oh, oh, what? What? Oh, whatever, man. Like, if you’re in a bad mood, everything could be. And I don’t know that there was a Kings fan in a good mood last night. And so, I was certainly watching it now. I watched it this morning with no, you know, I wasn’t angry about the game, frustrated about the game. I had some notes, some thoughts, and all of that. But hearing Doug say that, I was like, I can’t tell what Doug was saying right there. Like, oh, no, we did pretty well. they just hit their shots or they hit their shots and we have to do a lot better. I couldn’t tell which one it was. My interpretation of it when I was in the room was very similar to how kind of a lot of us feel. It’s like, of course, of course they did. Like the the Orlando Magic have come into Sacramento over the last two years being one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the league and shot really well against you. Of course. But but at some point it’s not a coincidence anymore, right? And I think that’s that’s the element where Doug immediately kind of switched and said it’s not an excuse. Like we got to address that. And and this is this is where you talk about the players breaking the bad habits or breaking what they learned last year and incorporating the new stuff this year. In the same way the Kings have to break the reputation because you’ll hear shooters tell you it’s all about confidence. like you come into a game and how your your jump shot is affected by your confidence level and your comfort level. And every single NBA team, all 29 teams, especially come into the Golden One center or come into a match up against the Sacramento Kings with confidence that they can shoot the ball well because they’re going to break down the King. Like, it’s just and it’s been that way for years. It’s not a Doug Christie thing. It’s not even a Mike Brown thing. Like, it’s been that way for years. It was just we hyperfocused on it last season and to this first game of preseason because it just felt so egregious over the last 12 months or so. But by I think by implementing what Doug wants to implement, the physicality, making sure they they feel you, making them know that you’re there, I think Doug’s trying to change that, like get into their head a little bit, make them make them feel you a little bit. And that’s where I felt like there were moments of good individual physicality, which fits that identity that they’re trying to establish. There were moments of good physicality, but I don’t feel the the Raptors ever felt the Kings in that game the same way like the most recent example, the same way the Houston Rockets made you feel them last season. Like the Rockets would make you uncomfortable. They would quite literally knock you out of your rhythm or your comfort zone. I think that that’s what Doug wants to implement with this group and you didn’t see that enough last night. And shooters come in and go, “All right, I’m going to have good looks.” Brandon Ingram said, “This is this is like a warm-up for me.” and he had wide open looks. So, you got to break down that opponent confidence. You got to change that reputation that the Kings have of being a turn style on on three-point defense. Yeah, I think uh a lot of it starts with guarding the basketball and I thought at times last night they did a they did a pretty good job of that. One of the things that they’ve got to work on and we talked about it is is just the overhelping, the unnecessary helping. And I wonder if Doug and that coaching staff saw the same thing and want to get back to, hey, remember what we talked about. We’ve got to guard the ball. If we’re going to do the things that we want to do on the defensive end, it starts with keeping the man in front of you. He talked about that a little bit earlier in training camp with the closeouts. No, there ain’t no shading. There ain’t nothing else going on. you’re closing out, the guy puts the ball on the deck, you’re you’re keeping them in front of you. And I think that applies for the rest of the defensive uh opportunities as well. Like when somebody’s dribbling, somebody’s attacking the basket, you got to keep that guy in front of you. And the help has to trust that that guy has him covered and I can stay with my guy. And um we’ll, you know, we’ll see. We’ll see if it’s a characteristic of this team or if it’s something that they can work through and improve on. We’ll find out probably in a month or so to be honest with you because I don’t I don’t even think by game one we’re going to have this team to the point where we know exactly what they’re going to be as the season goes along. It’s probably a bad idea and I’m curious what you guys think on this, but I almost want to see the pendulum swing the complete other way on Friday. It’s make an effort not to help much and let individual defensive breakdowns happen and just and and like almost overcorrect to a point where what you want to find is a happy medium. But like for let Demar, let Keegan, let Sabonis, let all these guys get cooked one-on-one. And if it results in a in a wide open layup, okay, now we have the film of too much help. Now we have the film of no help. Where do we find the middle? Right? I almost want to see an overcorre correction in that sense at a time right now where the final score doesn’t really matter. I don’t think they’re going to do that, of course, but it’ be interesting to see if the Kings just went, “We’re not helping. Play one-on-one, figure it out, how good or bad it would look, if it would make their perimeter defense any better, or if they’d just become a layup line at the rim. You know who I think played pretty well yesterday? I thought Drew Eubanks played pretty well.” He did. He did. I I thought he had a ton of energy. Like I saw him. Yeah. You know, use your old your old line like I saw him, right? He did play I Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, he was his presence was felt out there. Yeah, definitely. Apologies to Drew Eubanks from from a lot of people. Everyone, pretty much pretty much everybody. Dario Saridge didn’t play. He did not. No, Doug Mcder either. I also I do feel like the the Raptors are weak at the center position. Like that’s just a an area of weakness for them. And I whether it was Doug’s game plan or just the the bigs recognized it. I thought Dom and Drew and at the end Dylan Cardwell like they really exploited that. So I I’m going to give the coaching staff credit and say that was part of the game plan too. But it just looked like the Kings knew we have the advantage in from the center position and they should feel like they have that advantage a lot of the time when Demontto Sabonis is on the floor and I felt they attacked it. So that that I thought was good. Uh well, you got a tattoo to go get done. So uh we appreciate you my friend. Thanks for always making time for us. No problem. Let’s see how it goes against the Clippers. Uh the plant a tree in in LA and we’ll see how see how that goes. Well, we got the Blazers next, right? Oh, he’s right. It’s the Blazers. Yeah, we got on Friday. We don’t have to wait all the way till next Wednesday. So, we’ll see. Uh, you know, I’m I’m sure Doug appreciates they practiced today. We’ll run some sound from Doug Christie here in a few minutes and they get right back on the floor tomorrow. Casey, don’t get too excited watching your boy Shaden Sharp. Okay. Well, you know, hey, he’s he’s a bucket. He’s got a boy. That’s your boy. That’s your boy. Uh, have fun today, Matt. We appreciate you, my friend. Thank you again. Good to talk to you guys as always. Thank you.

Thank you for watching. Please subscribe and hit the thumbs up.
The Insiders
LIVE Mon-Fri 10a-12pPST
ESPN 1320 Sacramento, CA

D-Lo & KC
LIVE Mon-Fri 12p-4pPST
ESPN 1320 Sacramento, CA

D-Lo & KC Merchandise
dloandkc.com
shopthedopeones.com

ESPN 1320:
https://www.audacy.com/espn1320

🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5657035977261056