After losing two competitive games against the Blazers and Spurs, the Kings returned to cloud-nine as they played a flawless performance against a helpless Knicks team in a 124-86 rout at Madison Square Garden.
There’s not much to discuss about this game, the Kings were efficient and the Knick were just pathetic.
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From the start, the Kings energy was at it’s highest level as they started the game off fast and never looked back. The Kings played well, but lets be honest, the Knicks had a lot to do with the Kings success. With the help of a defenseless Knicks team, Sacramento was able to play George Karl’s system almost perfectly.
Everyone wearing a purple jersey on the court tonight was efficient; even Nik Stauskas, who ended up with 13 points tonight, played a memorable game. Notable performances tonight were DeMarcus Cousins with 22 points and 10 rebounds, Rudy Gay with 25 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists, and Ben McLemore who ripped of 20 points.
Sacramento finished the game shooting almost 50% from the floow, and did even better from the 3-point stripe, hitting 55% of their shots fro Midtown Manhattan.
The Kings also finished with 26 assists versus only 9 turnovers, which translate to a 3:1 assist-turnover ratio.
One big factor to add is that the Kings never gave the Knicks a chance. Because the game was already over after the first half, it gave the Kings starters a lot more rest time than they would normally receive. This is huge because the Kings will be playing again tomorrow against the mighty Spurs.
Final Thoughts: When watching Kings games in the past, the theme was pretty routine. The starters would play solid most of the time, while the bench would get run over by their opposition. With newly acquired Andre Miller as part of Sacramento’s rotation, life has returned to the Kings bench.
Throughout recent games the Kings bench has not only held its own against their opponents, but have also been part of potential comebacks in previous games, and a lot of the credit has to go to Miller.
Andre’s stats aren’t the reason for the success from the bench, but rather the way he is able to set up his teammates to score easy baskets. With Andre’s high basketball IQ, it has resulted in making his teammates more efficient.
I wrote an article recently making an argument why the Kings shouldn’t make a trade when the trade deadline was about to pass. Obviously I was wrong.
One more positive for the Kings is that Derrick Williams has been playing solid. Although it has only been six games, Williams has been playing quite well under Coach Karl’s system, and it seemed inevitable that when the offseason came, it would be the end of Williams’s tenure with Sacramento.
But if he continues to show consistent production as the season progresses, the Kings might consider Derrick to continue his career in Sacramento.