The Los Angeles Clippers jumped out early and never looked back, cruising past the Sacramento Kings 138\u2013109 on Sunday night to strengthen their playoff positioning.<\/p>\n
Kawhi Leonard led the way with 26 points, scoring 13 in the opening quarter as the Clippers built a quick double-digit lead and controlled the game from the outset. John Collins added 25 points, while Darius Garland and Kobe Sanders each chipped in 17 in a balanced offensive effort.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles snapped a two-game skid and moved into a tie for eighth place in the Western Conference, keeping itself in position for the play-in tournament with multiple chances to secure a postseason berth.<\/p>\n
Sacramento, meanwhile, couldn\u2019t keep pace as its difficult season continued. Devin Carter scored 21 points and Nique Clifford added 18, while Maxime Raynaud recorded his 18th double-double of the season with 11 points and 16 rebounds \u2014 leading all rookies in that category.<\/p>\n
A milestone moment came for DeMar DeRozan, who scored nine points in the first half to reach 26,711 career points, passing Oscar Robertson for 16th on the NBA\u2019s all-time scoring list. DeRozan did not return in the second half.<\/p>\n
The Clippers\u2019 fast start set the tone, and they steadily extended their lead throughout the night against a Kings team nearing the end of a disappointing campaign.<\/p>\n
Up next: Los Angeles returns home to face Dallas, while Sacramento hits the road to take on Golden State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Clippers jumped out early and never looked back, cruising past the Sacramento Kings 138\u2013109 on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792],"tags":[7,4056,6,986,477,4055],"class_list":{"0":"post-701587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento-kings","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kings","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sacramento","12":"tag-sacramento-kings","13":"tag-sacramentokings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116358643131372637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701587","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=701587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}