Sacramento Rallies Late To Steal Last Tune-up Scrimmage From Clippers
Jul 27, 2020, 3:49 PM | Updated: Jul 28, 2020, 8:39 am
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
The Kings will begin their push for the postseason this Friday when they face the San Antonio Spurs
Don’t tell Nemanja Bjelica that these scrimmages don’t count.
Trailing 100-99 with 27 seconds remaining, the sharpshooting forward drained a clutch three-pointer to give the Kings a two-point lead and eventual win 106-102 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
Sacramento, who at one point trailed by 21 points, outscored the Clippers 33-19 in the fourth-quarter to steal a victory in the last scrimmage of the NBA season restart.
Bjelica’s three-pointer was his only basket on Monday, but an immensely important one to give the Kings a morale boost as they prepare for a postseason push.
Bogdan Bogdanovic finished with 21 points to lead Sacramento in scoring, draining four of his 10 three-point attempts.
For the third game in a row, Buddy Hield put forth a strong effort as he finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and four assists over 27 minutes of action.
Harrison Barnes and Richaun Holmes made their first appearances of the NBA Restart on Monday, with both players getting some needed run in to prepare for the season opener.
Barnes scored 12 points and grabbed six rebounds over 21 minutes while Holmes added six points and five rebounds over 18 minutes.
“It felt great. Just to have the opportunity to be out there, to play basketball out there with my teammates, it felt great to compete,” Holmes said on how he felt in his to return to action.
De’Aaron Fox scored 12 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished six assists over 27 minutes.
The star guard mentioned to reporters over the weekend that he feels ‘100 percent’ and that he’s ready for the season opener on Friday.
The DaQuan Jeffries show continued on Monday, with the incredibly athletic forward scoring 11 points on four-of-six shots from the field. Jeffries has shown that he deserves minutes with this team, whether that be in the restart games this summer of next season when head coach Luke Walton reassesses the rotation.
Coming Up
The next time we see the Sacramento Kings take the floor, it will be in a real regular season contest.
Sacramento will face the San Antonio Spurs on Friday afternoon in the first game of the NBA Season Restart. The Kings will have eight games to solidify themselves as one of the two teams to qualify for a play-in scenario.
In order to qualify, Sacramento must finish the season within four games of the eighth-seed position in the Western Conference standings and have sole ownership of the ninth-seed position.
Once the eight regular season games have been played by all 22 teams, the ‘play-in’ scenarios will unfold, with the eighth-seed team facing the ninth-seed teams to determine who moves on.
If the eighth-seed team wins once, the ninth-seed team is eliminated. If the ninth-seed team wins the first game, they must win a second game to eliminate the eighth-seed team.
Sacramento is hoping to make the postseason for the first time since the 2005-06 season.
The playoff push is here, and you can catch all of the action right here on Sports 1140 KHTK with pre-game coverage beginning at 4:30pm PST and tip-off following at 5:00pm PST.
