Garrett Temple Leads The Sacramento Kings Past The Magic
By Rafe Wong
Garrett Temple’s 23 points led the way for the Sacramento Kings as they defeated the Orlando Magic by a score of 94-88.
Tonight, the Sacramento Kings faced off against the Orlando Magic.
Despite both teams entering the contest with just 20 wins under their belts, a positive to this game was the potential of seeing young and rising talent compete against one another. But recently the Magic ruled out Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier, two of their leading scorers, due to injuries while the Kings sidelined De’Aaron Fox and Willie Cauley-Stein.
With both squads going into tonight’s game without two of their main rotation players, the “hype” for this match suddenly decreased. Let the tanking begin!
Game Summary
The Kings started the game strong as they climbed up early to an 11-2 lead in the first. Overall, the Kings’ offense was decent as Garrett Temple and Skal Labissiere carried most of the load as they combined for 13 points in the quarter. The defense, however, for Sacramento was solid as they limited the Magic to 14 points as they shot 33% from the floor. The Kings got on top early 22-14 after one.
The next 12 minutes of play was not pretty from both teams. Both offenses were horrid as the Kings scored 19 points on 35% shooting while the Magic scored 22 points on 41% shooting. Despite a sloppy half of basketball, the Kings still controlled a 41-36 lead going into the half.
Sacramento started to wake up once the second half started. Behind the play of Temple and Kosta Koufos, the Kings were able to score 33 points for the quarter, giving the purple and black a 74-62 lead to end the third. For the Magic, it was Jonathan Simmons leading the way as they collectively scored 26 points in the period.
Once the final quarter was in session, the Kings started to pull away. It started with an array of Jack Cooley (second appearance of the season) scores as he recorded six points for the period. Then the Kings turned to their regulars to close the game. Players like Vince Carter and Bogdan Bogdanovic helped guide the Kings in the right direction offensively which inevitably led to their 94-88 victory in the end.
Final Thoughts/Takeaways
With tonight’s win, the Kings now improve to a record of 21-45 for the season. Although some may consider this a loss for the Kings, due to where they will be ranked in the draft lottery, the bottom line is that this contest will help the current players on the team going forth. In my opinion, in order for the Kings to get back to being competitive, they need to develop a winning mindset game in and game out. And that is what they did tonight.
Tonight’s win was a collective team effort. Players like Frank Mason III and Bogdan Bogdanovic played well despite struggling to score the ball. And the veterans showed up as they contributed to the majority of the Kings’ scoring, especially Garrett Temple who scored 23 points total for the game.
Next time the Kings will hit the hardwood will be this Sunday when they face off against the Denver Nuggets.