3 Burning questions following Kings win over Cavs

Kings Burning Question: Will the defensive effort continue?

Defense won this game for the Sacramento Kings. The 19-0 run is flashy and a very fun statistic but it is something that gets done because of top-notch effort on the defensive end.

Increased effort on that end of the court seems like it could be becoming somewhat of a trend for the Kings. In three of their last four games, they have produced a defensive rating below the 100 mark.

Those are the three best numbers they’ve had this season and the only three times they’ve had their defensive rating stay below 100 for a full game. There are reasons to be optimistic regarding the Kings defense but there are also some legitimate reasons to not quite buy into the turnaround on that end of the court just yet.

The reasons for excitement include doing it in three out of four games. Is it a small sample size? Sure. Does it still remain true that they’ve played stellar defense in three out of four games? Absolutely.

The big caution sign on buying into this defense can be summed up by the one game over the last four that the Kings did not play stellar defense in. Against the Bucks in Milwaukee, the Kings had what was their worst defensive rating in a game all season. That number came in at 131.3.

Milwaukee is a great team, obviously, so some letdown on defense could be explained away by the opponent. The problem is there is really no excuse or explanation for a season-worst defensive effort in the midst of the team’s best defensive run all season.

Hopefully, the game against Milwaukee was just an outlier. We will get a glimpse of whether or not the Kings defense will continue its turnaround on Sunday against the Knicks.