Bogi’s World: Bogdanovic’s Career-High Leads Kings To Win Over Pelicans
Aug 6, 2020, 1:16 PM | Updated: 1:23 pm
(Photo by Ashley Landis-Pool/Getty Images)
(Photo by Ashley Landis-Pool/Getty Images)
The third-year guard scored a career-high 35 points in a much needed win over New Orleans
Bogdan Bogdanovic had arguably the worst game of his career on Tuesday afternoon when the Sacramento Kings lost in overtime to the Dallas Mavericks.
The 27 year-old only hit one of his 15 field-goal attempts in a brutal loss for the Kings.
Thursday was a different story for Bogdanovic.
Behind a career performance their starting shooting-guard, the Sacramento Kings picked up a much needed win over the New Orleans Pelicans, winning by a final of 140-125 on Thursday afternoon.
Bogdanovic got off to a hot start, scoring 19 points in the first-quarter–hitting five three-pointer’s to lead the Kings to a 49-point first-period.
The 49-points scored by the Kings were the most allowed by the Pelicans in their team’s history.
Thursday’s 49-point first-quarter was the most points scored in a first-period in franchise history, per Sacramento Kings public relations. The previous high was 46 points, which has happened four times–the last being March, 20, 2001 against the Houston Rockets.
It was nearly a wire-to-wire affair for Sacramento, who did not trail again after taking a 6-4 lead with 11:02 remaining in the first-quarter.
De’Aaron Fox had a big first-half, scoring 16 points to go along with six assists to aid Bogdanovic’s 24-point first half. Sacramento took a 77-70 lead into the break after playing its best basketball of the season restart.
The Kings wouldn’t let up in the second half, scoring 40-points in the third-quarter to take a 117-103 lead into the fourth-quarter.
Sacramento would put the game away late, setting up a big game on Friday with the Brooklyn Nets.
Bogdanovic finished with a career-high 35 points on 13-of-20 from the field. The Kings looked to Bogdanovic early and often, and their starting two-guard delivered. The impending free-agent put forth the best showing of his career to keep Sacramento alive in the playoff race.
Per the Sacramento Kings public relations team, Bogdanovic is the fifth player in franchise history with 150 three-point field-goals in a season, joining Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic, Buddy Hield and Mitch Richmond.
De’Aaron Fox finished with 30 points (12-of-21 FG) and 10 assists in the win.
Over his last four games, Fox has played his best basketball of the season, holding averages of 27.5 points and 7.0 assists per game during the NBA season restart in Orlando, Florida.
Harrison Barnes found his rhythm on Thursday, scoring 22 points and grabbing six rebounds against the Pelicans.
Nemanja Bjelica scored 11 points, while Cory Joseph chipped in with 10 points off of the bench for Sacramento. Buddy Hield only saw 11-minutes of action during Thursday’s win, scoring three points on one-of-five field-goal attempts.
Coming Up
Sacramento will face the short-handed Brooklyn Nets on Friday in another must-win game.
After Thursday’s win against New Orleans, the Kings are 1.5 games behind the Portland Trail Blazers for the ninth-seed in the Western Conference playoff race (as of 2pm on Thursday afternoon).
The Blazers will face the Denver Nuggets on Thursday evening in a game that has massive implications on the playoff race.
Sacramento will face the Nets on Friday afternoon, with tip-off coming at 2:00pm PST. Be sure to tune-in at 1:30pm for pre-game coverage right here on Sports 1140 KHTK.
