Heated tempers and missed baskets aren’t a good pair, and the Sacramento Kings (13-19) saw that as they were blown out by the Boston Celtics (11-18), 106-84.
DeMarcus Cousins had 11 points and 11 rebounds before exiting due to two technicals, one for arguing a call and one for literally tossing down a Celtics player.
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Darren Collison and Carl Landry led the Kings with 14 points each as Rudy Gay and Cousins struggled. Gay shot 4 for 19 and Cousins shot 5 for 17; a 9 for 36 performance from the Kings Big Two. The Kings finished with 12 assists and 16 turnovers and 18 for 28 FT shooting to go along with 35% shooting.
The Kings may have been awake and on the court, but it was obvious that their games weren’t awake in Boston as the Kings quickly found themselves in a 9-0 hole. A pair of Ben McLemore free-throws put the Kings on the board with under nine minutes to play in the first. The Kings were able to cut the lead to two, but Kelly Olynyk scored a basket to end the quarter, leaving the Kings with a four-point deficit.
Two quick fouls saw McLemore head to the bench quickly in the first and Cousins also picked up his second technical of the game for arguing what seemed to be an obvious foul on a jump-shot from the top of the key.
In the second quarter the Kings and Celtics played lose for the first six minutes, until the C’s pulled out to a 10-point lead. The Kings just couldn’t find the bottom of the net in the first half as they had countless opportunities that just wouldn’t fall.
The Kings looked to close the second quarter on a good note, cutting the lead to six, but in 40 seconds the Celtics stretched in back to 10 to end the half up 49-39.
The Kings finished the half shooting an ugly 35% and ended with a terrible 6/10 assist/turnover ratio. Cousins didn’t attempt a free throw in the first half as he shot 3-12 to give the Kings six points and nine rebounds. The Kings as a team only went to the line 12 times, making eight of the attempts.
The Celtics pushed their lead to 15 with eight minutes left to play. The Kings answered with an 8-2 run to trim the lead to single digits, but the Celtics just kept adding on, responding to the Kings efforts.
Missed free-throws from the Kings and the Celtics finding their stroke from long-range would be the downfall of the third period. The Kings headed to the fourth down 77-61. The Kings did get to the line in the third, but shot only 7 of 12 from the stripe.
From there, the route was on. And just when you thought it was the low-point, Cousins was ejected for getting into it with Marcus Smart. Cousins was undercut on a box-out and he took exception, tossing Smart to the floor as his anger had boiled over. Cousins hasn’t looked too happy during the losing streak, as is expected, and you could see his emotions were creeping back into play. And his 5 of 17 shooting didn’t much help.
The Kings head to Minnesota for a game tomorrow night. Happy New Year to all you Kings fans!