Kings Fall Short To Warriors

The two-time defending champs sure do have a tough time with the Sacramento Kings.

Buddy Hield’s game-tying attempt fell short at the buzzer as the Kings dropped a heartbreaker to the Golden State Warriors on Thursday night by a final of 125-123 at ORACLE Arena.

A Yogi to Marvin alley-oop?

Where have we seen that before… pic.twitter.com/Ljt5wUNLoI

— Sacramento Kings (@SacramentoKings) February 22, 2019

Sacramento gave the Warriors all that they could handle, holding a lead for most of the game until back-to-back three-pointers by Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant gave the Dubs a 114-108 lead with 2:34 remaining. Golden State used a big night from their two-time MVP in Curry, who scored 36 points on 10-of-16 from beyond the three-point line. Durant had 28 points of his own, including a career-high 7 blocks.

Down 123-117 with 23 seconds left, Sacramento battled back thanks to back-to-back three’s by Buddy Hield. After two missed freethrows by Andre Iguodala, the Kings had a chance to tie or win the game with 6.5 seconds remaining.  Hield caught the inbound pass, looked as if he was going to take an open shot from 30-plus feet before droving into the key and putting up a spinning fadeaway shot that fell short.

Hield gave Sacramento a chance at a miracle comeback, but could not get his last attempt to fall as the Kings now hold a 30-28 record, sitting 1.5 games back of the eighth seed playoff spot.

Marvin Bagley III had a huge game off of the bench with 28 points and 14 rebounds. Bagley was the Kings go-to scorer throughout the game, and looked comfortable in that role as he continues to take postive strides towards the end of his rookie campaign.

Bagley scored over 20 points for the sixth time this season, something De’Aaron Fox did five times last season.

Fox had a solid game, scoring 18 points to go along with his 8 assists and 3 steals. Hield finished with 19 points but struggled from the field, finishing 8-of-19. Sacramento had seven players in double figures, including Corey Brewer in his first game for the Kings. Brewer was a nice spark off of the bench, finishing with 11 points over 13 minutes while shooting 3-of-5 from downtown.

The starting lineup was shaken up by head coach Dave Joerger, who opted to slide Bogdan Bogdanovic into the starting lineup over Nemanja Bjelica. Bjelica, who has started 55 of 58 games for the Kings this season, did not play on Thursday night. After the game, Joerger stated that he is going to move on with Bogdanovic in the lineup, telling reporters that “That’s what we are going to do going forward”.

Bogdanovic finished with 14 points in his 10th start of the season.

Coming Up

Sacramento will look to win the season series against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday in OKC.

The Kings, who lead the season series two games to one, have not claimed a series win over the Thunder since 2008… when they were the Seattle Supersonics. The Kings will need to contain Paul George, who is averaging 33 points over his last five games.

Catch all the action right here on Sports 1140 KHTK, starting with pregame coverage at 4:30pm and tipoff at 5:00pm.

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