Screen capture courtesy of the NBA/YouTube.
The Sacramento Kings (7-11) headed into Washington to take on the also-lowly Wizards (6-10) with high hopes coming off of a big win in Brooklyn a night earlier. But on the tail end of a back-to-back on the other side of the country the Kings knew they would be heavily tested. What they didn’t expect was to end up testing themselves and failing in the process of a 101-95 overtime loss.
The Kings couldn’t take care of the ball, finished with 20 turnovers. On the season, Sacramento is giving up 17.4 points off of turnovers, ranking as the ninth worst in the league. A lot of those turnovers are leading to easy fast break points; they are allowing 15.6 per game, the fourth most in the league.
Sacramento also struggled to put the ball into the basket, shooting a putrid 3-21 from beyond the arc and 16-26 from the free throw line. Their 40 percent shooting from the field looks spectacular compared to those numbers.
Despite DeMarcus Cousins‘ 36-point, 20-rebound, and four-assist outing, the Kings simply couldn’t put together enough consecutive stretches of offense through any of the five periods to come away with the road win.
Rudy Gay finished with 18 points for Sacramento but turned the ball over six times, finishing with a plus/minus of -9. He struggled to get into any rhythm whatsoever.
As for the Wizards, Bradley Beal picked up his backcourt mate John Wall by scoring 31 points including a career-high seven threes. Wall struggled mightily, shooting just 6-16 from the field and turning the ball over an incomprehensible 11 times by himself. If you’re keeping score at home, Wall did in fact finish with a triple double of 19 points, 11 assists and 11 turnovers.
Neither team played great, Bradley Beal just happened to get a little more help than DeMarcus Cousins and the Wizards were able to connect on more triples (10-25) than the Kings. Sacramento continues to struggle finding scoring depth as they finished with just three players in double figures.
Teams are able to collapse on Cousins down the stretch of ball games, forcing the ball out of his hands. If Rudy Gay isn’t hitting his shots then they have little else to depend on. The Kings managed to score just three points in overtime as a direct result of this after Cousins carried them in the final minutes of regulation.
Cousins has scored at least 30 points in four straight games, the longest streak by a Kings player since Chris Webber in January of 2001. He is averaging 28.3 points and 9.9 rebounds on the season with a PER of 28.85 – sixth in the NBA.
The Kings continue their six game East Coast swing on Wednesday night in Philadelphia where they will take on the 4-14 76ers.
Follow Rich Peters on Twitter and Instagram.
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