On This Date: Richmond Leads Kings To First Playoff Win In Sacramento Era

24 years ago today, Mitch Richmond scored 37 points to lead the Kings over the heavily-favored Seattle SuperSonics in Game 2 of the NBA First Round

All athletic events will be on pause for the foreseeable future, which is a tough pill to swallow for sports fans around the world.

While this may be a rough time for Sacramento Kings fans, we can look back on some good times while we wait for basketball to make its return.

April 28, 1996 – NBA Western Conference First Round

Kings 90, SuperSonics 81

The Seattle SuperSonics (64-18) looked poised to easily sweep the eighth-seeded Sacramento Kings (39-43) in the best-of-five first-round series of the NBA Playoffs.

After winning Game 1 without their star forward Shawn Kemp, Seattle’s confidence was at an all-time high as they welcomed their All-Star back for Game 2.

While Seattle would get the services of Kemp back, they could not slow down Sacramento’s All-Star guard Mitch Richmond, who poured in 37 points to upset the top-seeded Sonics 90-81.

It was the first playoff win in the Sacramento era–and the first playoff win for the franchise since the 1981 Western Conference Finals.

Richmond scored 37 points on 13-of-22 from the field while hitting eight-of-nine from the free-throw stripe. Billy Owens, Olden Polynice and Šarūnas Marčiulionis finished with 12 points each in the win.

Polynice grabbed a game-high 16 rebounds, doubling Kemp’s rebound total of eight.

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