The Sacramento Kings showed signs of defensive improvement during their recent four-game winning streak, but they couldn\u2019t stop the scoring barrage from the Miami Heat.<\/p>\n
Bam Adebayo had 25 points, seven rebounds and five assists to lead the Heat to a 130-117 victory over the Kings before a crowd of 11,381 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.<\/p>\n
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Norman Powell scored 22 points for the Heat (23-21), which is fifth in the NBA in scoring at 119.3 points per game. Andrew Wiggins scored 19 points, Pelle Larsson had 15 and Simone Fontecchio added 15.<\/p>\n
DeMar DeRozan scored 23 points to lead the Kings (12-33). Russell Westbrook scored 22 points. Zach LaVine and Malik Monk scored 18 points apiece.<\/p>\n
The Kings were sixth in the NBA with a 112.0 defensive rating over the previous five games, but in this contest they looked more like the team that ranks 27th on the season at 119.0. The Heat shot 48% from the field and went 21 of 42 (.500) from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey made shots tonight,\u201d Kings rookie Nique Clifford said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to give them credit, and I don\u2019t feel like we guarded very well, myself included, just getting driven by and not making it tough enough for them. They were just getting whatever they wanted. That was the story of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Kings got off to a slow start, missing six of their first seven shots. Westbrook committed three of hs six turnovers in the first six minutes of the game.<\/p>\n
Sacramento trailed by 10 in the first quarter and 14 in the second. The Heat led 77-64 at the halftime break and 100-89 at the end of the third quarter. The Kings cut the deficit to 11 early in the fourth quarter but never got any closer.<\/p>\n
Sacramento Kings coach Doug Christie pointed to defense when asked why LaVine only played five minutes in the third quarter and two minutes in the fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was 7 for 10, so obviously he shot the ball well, but we\u2019re trying to find rhythm and find a group that is stopping people at the same time,\u201d Christie said. \u201cZach will come tomorrow and he\u2019ll probably have 40. That\u2019s part of the business. Some nights you\u2019ll have it offensively. We didn\u2019t have a problem scoring tonight. We had 117 points, but guess what, they had 130, so we need to stop people from scoring.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Playing time<\/p>\n
Domantas Sabonis has come off the bench in all three games since returning from a knee injury that caused him to miss 27 games. He logged 21 minutes against the Washington Wizards, 20 minutes against the Portland Trail Blazers and 17 minutes against Miami, well below his season average of 31.2 minutes per game.<\/p>\n
During his pregame press conference, Christie was asked if Sabonis\u2019 playing time is being determined by rotation decisions or a minute restriction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s just decision based,\u201d Christie said. \u201cWatching the game, some guys went in and they brought a really high energy and played well. … Depth is a good thing to have, and when someone is in front of you and they\u2019re playing well, the object and what we\u2019re here to do is win, and it\u2019s a team game. Be happy for that person. Root them on because they should do the same thing for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
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3-point shooting<\/p>\n
The Kings were No. 1 in the NBA in 3-piont shooting at 46.7% during their four-game winning streak, but they have cooled off considerably over the past two games.<\/p>\n
The Kings went 11 of 31 (.350) from beyond the arc in Sunday\u2019s loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. They went 11 of 30 (.367) against the Heat.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The Kings will conclude a season-long seven-game homestand when they face the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. The Kings are 2-5 this season when playing on the second night of a back-to-back.<\/p>\n
The Raptors (25-19) will also be on the second night of a back-to-back after visiting the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday. They are led by Brandon Ingram, who averages 21.7 points and 6.0 rebounds; RJ Barrett, who averages 19.6 points and 5.0 rebounds; and Scottie Barnes, who averages 19.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sacramento Kings showed signs of defensive improvement during their recent four-game winning streak, but they couldn\u2019t stop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[2574,500,7,4441,3213,4672,3215,164,144,1267,295,189,3881,6,854,558,2248,471,1041,254,477,1261,3303,1176,3207,476,468,3212],"class_list":["post-552767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami-heat","tag-adebayo","tag-andrew-wiggins","tag-basketball","tag-brandon-ingram","tag-demar-derozan","tag-domantas-sabonis","tag-doug-christie","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-heat","tag-malik-monk","tag-miami","tag-miami-heat","tag-miamiheat","tag-nba","tag-nique-clifford","tag-norman-powell","tag-pelle-larsson","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-rj-barrett","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-scottie-barnes","tag-simone-fontecchio","tag-the-heat","tag-the-kings","tag-toronto-raptors","tag-washington-wizards","tag-zach-lavine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115937728671843221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}