Defense Key For Sacramento Kings Against The Knicks. Again.
By Rafe Wong
The Sacramento Kings will continue their road trip this afternoon playing against the New York Knicks.
Sacramento has struggled the last couple of weeks by only winning 2 of their last 13 contests, but tonight could be a good opportunity for the purple and white to get a victory.
The Knicks are currently in a semi-rebuilding mode for their franchise as they have young players like Kristaps Porzingis and Langston Galloway that the team hopes can help out their star player Carmelo Anthony going forward.
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So far the process hasn’t gone too smooth for the Knicks as the team currently has a record of 28-42 and are 8 games back from the 8th seed in Eastern Conference.
With that being said, Sacramento definitely has a competitive chance to win this game, but it is going to depend on how well they play defense this afternoon. What else is new?
The Kings are currently dead last in the league in average points allowed per game (109.6) and will not foresee much success going forward until they fix this colossal deficiency that they have.
The Knicks only average 98.8 points per contest, but Sacramento has shown throughout this season that any team can have a field day with them at any given moment.
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Players like Anthony, Porzingis, and Arron Afflalo all have the capability of torching the Kings if Sacramento gets caught slipping again defensively.
The Kings have to make sure that they are sticking with their opponents, communicating properly, and most importantly showing the effort on the court. Again, the Knicks are not an offensive powerhouse so if the Kings can execute fundamentally on defense they should be fine.
Other keys to keep in mind for tonight’s game is making sure to limit turnovers and to feed DeMarcus Cousins the ball on offense. The last time these two teams met Cousins had a monster game scoring 27 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.
Today’s game will be played in New York so for the people in Sacramento the game will be an early start at 4:30 PM Pacific Time.