Winning the Fight is More Important for the Sacramento Kings Than Winning the Game | Locked On Kings

Winning the Fight is More Important for the Sacramento Kings Than Winning the Game | Locked On Kings

Believe it or not, winning basketball games is not the most important thing to the Sacramento Kings this season. There’s something far more essential if Doug Christie and Scott Perry want to change the culture here in Sacramento. I’ll explain what that is right here on Locked on Kings. You are Locked on Kings, your daily Sacramento Kings podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is that time. Time for another episode of Locked On Kings. Hello and welcome into Locked on Kings, your podcast hub for Sacramento Kings coverage all preseason and of course soon to be all regular season long. My name is Matt George. I have the privilege of being your host here. I’m a Sacramento sports anchor and reporter for ABC 10 News. Last night, after the Kings disappointing preseason debut loss inside the Golden One Center to the Toronto Raptors, Doug Christie said something in his postgame press conference that has been on my mind all day long. And the more I think about it, the more it makes perfect sense. Here’s what Doug said, and I’m going to unpack it even more here on the show today. There’s two games every night. There’s the game and there’s the fight. So we got 164 games. Okay. Every night we going to win one of them. If we win both, we doing something. Tonight we lost them both. And I said, “Let that be the last time that we we always going to win a fight.” And unfortunately and and most people go, “Well, the last team came in.” No, cuz we do it together. It’s all of us. They came back and threw some punches, but it is a group effort from one to the end of the bench and all the coaches and everybody on the staff and in the it’s everybody. So, unfortunately, we lost both of the games tonight. Unacceptable and that will be hopefully the last time that that happens. That was my So, again, this has been on my mind all day long and we talked a little bit about this after last night’s game. I played that clip for you after last night’s game and on the surface level, the message is is clear. We’re trying to win the fight and win the game every single night. But the more I started thinking about it, there’s a reason why Doug Christie is prioritizing the fight. Now, understand this. Doug Christie wants to win every single basketball game that that he plays. He’s very competitive. even he he jokes or really actually doesn’t joke. He he’s very honest about the fact that he is not he’s a sore loser. He hates to lose. So winning is of course extremely important to this group. And this does not mean that the Sacramento Kings are not trying to win as many games as possible and make it back to the playoffs and and and all that jazz. But winning the fight, that being the expectation every single night is because that is what the Sacramento Kings can always control. And the fight is more internal than it is external. Make no mistake about it, the Toronto Raptors or tomorrow night, the Portland Trailblazers or any of the other 29 teams in the NBA, they are the opponent. They are the adversary. But winning the fight is more internal for the Sacramento Kings. It’s more about the Kings fighting themselves than it is an actual external fight with the opposing team, right? Because the fight is the culture. The win, winning the game is the result. Let me say that again. The fight is the culture. Winning the game is the result. And yes, while Doug Christie and all these players and this entire organization will be judged on wins and losses. That is the most important stat. What Doug Christie is talking about. The fight is what doesn’t show up in the box score, but is obvious to every single one of us who watches this Sacramento Kings uh team on a nightly basis. We could tell watching the Kings against the Toronto Raptors last night that the Sacramento Kings lost the fight. And yet, when they fought hard, the end of bench unit fought hard towards the end of that game, they gave the Sacramento Kings a chance to actually win the game. Let me remind you, per the words of new general manager Scott Perry and head coach Doug Christie, this season first and foremost is about changing the culture and establishing a identity here in Sacramento that last year’s team did not have that the Sacramento Kings really haven’t had since being team one. That is the number one goal this year. Would the Kings love to win basketball games on top of that? Yes. And neither has to be mutually excuse exclusive. But I would argue that if you win the fight, you have the ability to take the game and take the win. But if you lose the fight, the game and the win can be taken from you. The Sacramento Kings are talented enough to score 125 points a night. And there are times last season that we saw it. There are going to be times this year that we see it. And yet the game can still be taken from them because defensively they are also giving up 125 or more points. And towards the end of the game when it’s winning time, the team that wins the fight is going to be the one that that kind of dictates how that game ends. And more often than not, that team ends up on top. Again, the team who wins the fight can take the game. But if you lose the fight, the game can be taken from you. And Doug Christie is not about having anybody take anything from him. That’s the mindset that he wants this team to establish. And let’s be clear, we can debate how like what the ceiling is win rise win-wise for this team, right? Vegas has them at like what like 36 and a half or something like that. And a lot of us kind of feel that that’s going to be the area that they’re in. Some are more optimistic, want to put them around 500 in the 40s range. But if the Kings, if this roster from the top to the bottom, if it can become second nature for this team to be physical, to not be pushed around, and to actually do the pushing themselves, to impact the game, affect the game, muddy the game up, whatever they have to do to impose themselves on the game and on their opponent. If that can become second nature, if that can become the identity of this team, what we know them for, what we expect from them on a nightly basis, what we don’t have to talk about anymore because it’s just that good or just that much of a standard, then that raises the ceiling of how many games this team can win and how far this team can go higher than any realistic ceiling that that we could put on this team right now, truthfully. As of now, this con this roster has a clear strength. It’s offense. We know this. They have a clear weakness. It’s defense. We’ve known this. But if you can get this team to buy into what they can control every single night, which is being that imposing mentally and physically tough presence that will not be pushed around, will do the pushing themselves, will win the fight on a nightly basis. that raises the ceiling of this team higher than anything else realistically can raise the ceiling of this team outside of trading for Nicola Joic or one of the greatest players on the planet right now. That’s why Doug Christie is prioritizing it. And I talked last night about the bar that Kings fans that I, as a both fan and media member, will hold this team to every single time they step on the floor this season. The bar is, do we see the new identity? And it’s even more specific than that. Did the Kings win the fight tonight? Yes or no. Ask yourself that question after every single Kings game, win or loss. ask the question, did the Kings win the fight? If it’s not, yes every single night, and it’s not gonna be, as much as Doug Christie wants to say, that’s hopefully the last time it happens. It’s not going to be. We know this. But we can, it can be perfectly clear to us through the words of the head coach. There’s no debate. If the Kings do not win the fight, they failed that night. That is the bar. That is the standard set for the Sacramento Kings this season. And I believe if they can say the vast majority of the time that they have won the fight, they will win the vast majority of those basketball games. Maybe one or two will be taken from them by a buzzer beater or a unforeseen circumstance. But if the Kings as a team win the fight, I promise you more often than not, they are going to win the basketball game. So how do you win the fight? Four things. You set the tone. You come into the game and impose yourself on the game and force the other team to match you. Maybe not X’s and O’s wise, but you let the team know. You let your opponent know what you’re in, what they’re in for. You set the tone right away. You defend 94 feet. It’s if that’s the mo of the Sacramento Kings, if that’s what Doug Christie wants to be about, Doug says he wants opponents to know that they’re going to be defended and picked up 94 feet almost every single time they touch the basketball and bring the ball up the floor. Extra efforts from everybody. as close to a 100% as you can get effort on every single play from everybody including the veterans like Demar and Zack and Domas. I would honestly say especially those guys. And finally, this is a big thing with Doug Christie. Make them feel you. Make them feel you. Everything they do, you should be right there. Do not let them just get past you without them physically paying for it or feeling you or bumping them or knocking them off kilter a little bit. And if it results in fouls, so be it. Make them feel you. Those are four ways right there that the Kings can win the fight every single night. And all four of those things have to do with the Kings, not their opponents. That is the most important thing for the Kings this season. This episode of the Locked on Kings podcast is brought to you by Quo. One of the tools that helps make a huge difference for business owners is Quo, formerly Open Phone. It’s the same great business phone system that you’ve heard me talk about over the years here on Lockdown Kings before. It just has a new name. And here’s why it matters. Every missed call is money left on the table. When every customer conversation counts, you need a phone system that keeps you connected 247. Quo is the number one business phone system that streamlines customer communications. It works right through an app on your phone or on your computer. So, no more carrying two phones or relying on a landline. Quo is great. Uh, it helps you collaborate with your team on calls and texts. 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This is something funny enough that if anybody is a golfer out there and if anybody’s ever taken a lesson uh with with golf, I have a golf coach at at Hagen Oaks Golf Course here in in the Sacramento area. And when I I have a terrible slice, I just slice the ball. It’s like coming across it is just always been my problem. And I fight with it to this day years later. And when we work on that slice and try and fix it, you’re told to overcorrect, right? Okay, you’re swinging so hard over the top. I want you to intentionally try and hit the ball the other way. Like you’re you’re swinging over the top because you’re trying to hit it left and the ball’s going right. So I want you to try and hit the ball as far right as you can and for some reason either straights the straightens the ball out or goes left. Golf is one of those circumstances where an overre correction, while it doesn’t change and fix everything, it it can be helpful. And I’m kind of looking at game two of the preeason the same way. I want to see the Sacramento Kings overcorrect with their help defense in a way that probably will hurt them in a way that will result in easy baskets for the Portland Trailblazers tomorrow night and maybe they lose the preseason behelping that they were doing in game one of preseason against the Toronto Raptors, resulting in far too many wideopen threes. The Raptors shot over 50% from three-point range. They made 20 threes in last night’s game. It is a carbon copy of what we saw far too many times from the Sacramento Kings last season. The Kings just overhelp and they leave far too many shooters wide open. So overcorrect this game. I want to see virtually no helping. If there’s a screen, okay, you switch on the screen, things of that nature. And and maybe like you help in obvious scenarios when when needed, but for the most part, put everybody on an island. Five games of one-on-one. Now, of course, that’s not how basketball works. Opposing teams are going to move the ball around. But if Demar Roen is guarding Shaden Sharp, I don’t think he will, but let’s just put it that way. Like, whoever Demard Roen’s guarding, that is your man. That is your responsibility. Take pride in not getting beat. Dennis Shruder, take pride in not getting beat by Scoot Henderson or whoever is playing. Take pride, Deont Sabonis. Take pride in not getting beat by Deh DeAndre Aiden. Every single one of these guys on the floor, you will have your man and your man is your responsibility. Now, this is an obvious overcorrection because this is not how team defense works. And the Sacramento Kings have little hope of being a team stacked with great individual defenders and more need to find a way to be a solid team defense if they want to make any kind of progress in that area this season. So then you might be saying, Matt, then why the heck are you pitching this? This sounds like a terrible idea. Because I want this on film. I want to see what this looks like so that we can find a happy medium because the Kings are overcorrecting. And and look, if you do this, and I don’t think they’re going to do this. I’m just saying what I would like to see. If you do this, guys are going to get exposed very quickly. And unfortunately, it might be the majority of your roster is getting exposed. It’s not just going to be Demar, as much as we like to focus on him. It’s not just going to be Zack, as much as we like to focus on him. know Shruder is going to get broken down. Keegan might get broken down. Sabonis is going to get broken down. Malik Monk is going to get broken down. Keon Ellis might even be broken down. This is the NBA. These are NBA players. These are the greatest scorers on the planet, they’re going to break you down at some point. But if you see an obvious turn style on the defensive end that’s clearly being targeted and you leave him on an island and and force him to kind of sink or swim and and adapt, well then we’ll all know, we’ll all get an idea of maybe where one of the leaks in the dam is coming from and you can address that better, right? Like I don’t want it to be a hypothetical, oh like there was a breakdown in this possession because did Demar help too much or did Keegan help too much? Was it this guy or this guy? like take the guesswork out of it. Overcorrect one-on-one. Defend your man. If you get beat, it’s probably going to result in a layup or an easy bucket and everybody saw it and everybody knows where it came from. Then you get that 48minute experiment. get it on film and take two games where you overcorrected and you or sorry where you overh helped and you didn’t help at all and find the happy medium between the two and maybe Doug Christie and his coaching staff are well I know they’re way smarter than me but maybe they don’t need to overcorrect in order to see the tweaks that they have to make to fix the obvious overhelping that the Kings did in game one. Maybe they don’t need this, but I personally would love to see it because I think a lot of guys individually would struggle and I think it would give us a better idea of specific instances whether it’s on the perimeter or like on the wing or wherever that the breakdowns are happening forcing the rotations and the overhelping and open buckets. I have a feeling genuinely I have a feeling that the Sacramento Kings would play significantly better three-point defense with this philosophy than with help defensive philosophies with where this team is at right now. That being said, their paint defense and interior interior defense would probably be really really bad and the the Portland Trailblazers would probably get a lot of buckets at the rim. But hey, you got torched from the three-point line. You’ve been torched from the three-point line for the better part of a year. If you get beat on the inside, but hold the team to 30% from three-point range, contest better on the perimeter. Hey, to me, in a in a meaningless basketball game where it’s now is the time to experiment, I’ll take that. Be a really intriguing experiment that I would love to see for uh more of a few things that uh a few other wish list items for me on this game versus the Braz Blazers. I want to see Dennis Shruder far more engaged and impactful than he was in that first game. I want to see the entire starting lineup be more impactful, right? It’s the what we talk about winning the fight. I want to see the starting five impose themselves on the game, assuming the starting five is playing. As of right now, there’s nobody on the injury report, so there’s no reason to believe the Kings won’t roll out the same exact starting five. Impose yourselves on this game. Make more of an impact than you did against the Toronto Raptors. And then like one show a little bit more of the identity that we really didn’t see at all or for more than a few flashes in game one. Show me more of the things that you’ve actually been working on and talking about in training camp. And I want to see a bounceback effort. A lot of people are talk have been talking about and they’re absolutely right. The Toronto Raptors beat the Kings in the way that the Kings want to play last night. The Toronto Raptors did a significantly better job playing the way the Kings want to play than the Kings did. But that came after the Toronto Raptors got roughed up in their first preseason game or the preseason game before that. So they bounced back. They responded. I want to see the Sacramento Kings team respond against the Blazers. This episode of Locked on Kings is also brought to you by prize picks. My friends are back. Every day we make decisions, but on prize picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don’t miss the excitement of this football season with prize picks where it’s good to be right. Playing prize picks is such a fun and simple way to add more excitement to football. You just pick more or less on player projections like Josh Allen’s passing yards or Saquon Barkley rushing for a touchdown and you’re in the game. It’s super quick. It’s super easy. 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That’s code locked on NBA for $50 in lineups after your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It’s good to be right. Every year before the season starts, there is a NBA general manager anonymous survey that goes around the league and it gives you kind of an idea of what front offices are thinking about players and teams in the NBA going into this season. And the Sacramento Kings were barely, and I mean barely mentioned in this GM survey, meaning the Kings were not really answers for anything. And most of the questions of course have kind of positive implications. The Kings were mentioned twice. The first time was the question like who had the biggest draft steel or who was the biggest steel in the draft. Nate Clifford got some votes. Now, he didn’t get any like top three, top four votes or anything like that, but Nate Clifford was someone who was on the radar, who did receive some votes from general managers as the biggest steel in the draft for the Sacramento Kings. So, that’s a good sign. The other one was the most surprising move of the off season. Uh Damen Lillard going back to Portland was the one that won, but Dennis Shruder coming to the Sacramento Kings got a mention there. Other than that, there was no mention of the Kings. Zero. Like that. Like like at least every single year we could count on when De’Arren Fox was a king, De’ar would win the fastest player with the basketball. And he did again. But now he’s representing, of course, the San Antonio Spurs. The Kings were barely mentioned at all in this GM survey, which kind of just gives you an idea of where they’re at. They’re just meh. That’s There’s no better way to put it. That’s just the Kings. They’re just kind of meh. At least that is their reputation. That is what the belief is in this team around the league that the Kings are just kind of meh. They’re just there. Hopefully the Kings can find a way to change that. And by doing what we talked about in that first segment, by winning the fight on a nightly basis, that can change minds. it. In fact, it it will force teams to pay attention. Just like the Kings with the Beam team one year forced the league to pay attention to what they were doing. They did it with the power of offense and having one of the best offenses in NBA history. Doug Christie wants to do that with attitude. Doug Christie wants this team to be a force that every single team knows when they play the Kings, it’s going to be a fight. And the Kings are going to do everything they can to win that fight. That’s what this season is about. And every every night again, I’m going to be looking at it and judging the game based off that bar. And hopefully by the end of this season, regardless of who’s on the roster or how many wins and losses the Sacramento Kings have, hopefully I can say the majority of the time the Sacramento Kings won the fight. If I can, then it was, in my opinion, a successful season or it was a really, really big step towards being a successful season, especially if it becomes second nature for this team. If not, then Doug Christie and Scott Perry have some work to do with this roster, maybe a complete roster overhaul to get a group in here that will win that fight on a nightly basis. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. You could be like, Matt, you’re crazy. You actually, you always want to win the basketball game. Winning cures all. And doesn’t matter if you win because you won the fight or you win because you scored so many points or blah blah blah. If that’s how you feel, let’s talk about it. Matt George ssack on Twitter. Email me matte [email protected]. Leave your thoughts in the YouTube comment section down below. Appreciate your support. As always, I will have a postgame podcast after the Kings Blazers preseason game tomorrow. However, it will be delayed because I will be out shooting some high school football for uh ABC10 sports. It’s Friday night football. I’ll be out if you’re in the uh the Lincoln area. Not Lincoln in Stockton, but Lincoln up toward like off of Highway 65. I’ll be at Lincoln High School for the Fighting Zebras taking on the Oakmont Vikings. So, if you’re at that game, you’ll see me wandering the sidelines. Say hi, give me a wave. Uh, but after we’re done with all the Friday night football stuff, I’ll lock in. I’ll watch the game and I will have a podcast for you. Uh, so I’m looking forward to having you join me on that episode tomorrow night. Until then, my name is Matt George. You have been listening to the Locked On podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network.

Matt George discusses the importance of winning the fight over the game to the Sacramento Kings this season.

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Winning the Fight is More Important for the Sacramento Kings Than Winning the Game
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