De'Aaron Fox had no idea, when he converted his first 3-point shot after a minute of play, that he had just started an evening from hell. The Kings leader would miss his next nine shots and not score again in the game. His disaster evening (3 points at 1/10 on shots) is symptomatic of the level displayed by his team.
Trailing by 25 points at the break (47-72), the Californians continued to collapse in a third quarter largely dominated by CJ McCollum & Co. (31-14). So much so that after a winning shot from Trey Murphy III at the start of the fourth, NOLA, although deprived of Zion Williamson, found itself with… 50 points in advance (62-112).
“ There's not much to say », begins by letting go Mike Brown at press conference. “ They totally kicked our asses. What I can say is that I feel sorry for the fans who spent their money to come see the game today », continues the coach, addressing the nearly 18,000 people present at the Golden 1 Center, who did not hesitate to boo their team.
“ The lack of fight to come back or stay in the game, whatever you want to call it… It was non-existent. They came out here and just kicked our ass for four quarters. I'm sorry, Sacramento fans, that you came and spent your money today “, said the Kings coach again while taking a look at the stats sheet to combine the skill percentages of De'Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Keegan Murray: 17 points at 5/28 on shots between them…
So few rebounds captured
His team, which nevertheless had four victories in five matches, is starting to get used to this kind of heavy defeats. In December alone, his Kings took 20 points against the Clippers, 25 against the Celtics or even 17 against the Blazers. The Pelicans are also hell of executioners. By winning last night, they have four victories over the Kings this season, with an average gap of 21 points…
“ Diving on the floor to recover balls lying around, causing offensive fouls, moving the opponent… I haven't seen that and it's embarrassing », Annoys Mike Brown, about this last meeting, while his team took half as many rebounds as their opponents (25 to 51!).
The Californians also almost equaled a franchise record for the fewest rebounds in a half, almost 34 years after his eight rebounds in one period, one evening in 1989.
The boos from the fans? “ It sucks. We are a good team. We had two good home games (against the Magic and the Raptors) with a lot of energy and fight, and this evening we didn't show it, so that's normal. As players, it sucks (to be booed). You are on your ground, but you understand them. It wasn't our best performance “, euphemism Domantas Sabonisauthor of 17 points and 10 rebounds, with a terrible -32 score when he was in play.
Not the best context to go on a “road trip” which will start with very affordable opponents in the East (Pistons and Hornets), before ending with heavy ones (Sixers, Bucks and Suns).
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| De'aaron Fox | 29 | 35.4 | 46.9 | 38.7 | 72.1 | 1.0 | 3.4 | 4.4 | 6.0 | 2.6 | 1.6 | 0.4 | 2.7 | 28.3 |
| Domantas Sabonis | 35 | 35.0 | 59.4 | 37.5 | 65.4 | 3.4 | 9.5 | 12.8 | 7.6 | 3.3 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 3.2 | 19.7 |
| Keegan Murray | 31 | 32.9 | 44.7 | 36.2 | 82.1 | 1.5 | 4.1 | 5.5 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 2.6 | 15.4 |
| Malik Monk | 34 | 25.5 | 44.0 | 41.4 | 86.7 | 0.4 | 2.1 | 2.5 | 5.4 | 2.1 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 1.9 | 14.7 |
| Harrison Barnes | 35 | 29.9 | 47.9 | 41.0 | 81.7 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 3.0 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 1.4 | 11.4 |
| Kevin Huerter | 34 | 23.4 | 42.4 | 34.1 | 80.6 | 0.6 | 3.1 | 3.6 | 2.5 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 2.1 | 9.9 |
| Trey Lyles | 21 | 19.6 | 48.2 | 41.0 | 62.5 | 0.9 | 4.0 | 4.9 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.7 | 7.6 |
| Sasha Vezenkov | 28 | 13.2 | 43.6 | 35.7 | 75.0 | 0.8 | 1.8 | 2.6 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 5.4 |
| Javale McGee | 30 | 8.3 | 66.7 | 0.0 | 56.3 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 2.8 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 1.2 | 4.5 |
| Keon Ellis | 24 | 13.2 | 44.2 | 38.1 | 64.7 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 4.3 |
| Chris Duarte | 32 | 13.6 | 37.2 | 31.8 | 77.3 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 1.8 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 1.8 | 4.0 |
| Davion Mitchell | 28 | 13.0 | 36.1 | 24.6 | 73.3 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 1.2 | 3.7 |
| Colby Jones | 13 | 6.7 | 44.4 | 10.0 | 66.7 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 2.7 |
| Jordan Ford | 6 | 3.6 | 57.1 | 66.7 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.0 |
| Alex Len | 11 | 8.3 | 57.1 | 0.0 | 44.4 | 1.2 | 1.9 | 3.1 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 1.8 |
| Kessler Edwards | 26 | 5.0 | 42.1 | 37.5 | 75.0 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.7 |
| Philip Petrusev | 2 | 3.3 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 1.5 |
| Jalen Slawson | 5 | 3.7 | 66.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 0.8 |
| Juan Toscano-anderson | 8 | 2.4 | 33.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
