End of road trip delicate for Kings, currently on a series of three defeats in a row. Beyond the accounting aspect, it is the way in which these setbacks occurred which is enough to frustrate and anger because, after having lost to the Sixers deprived of Joel Embiid and to Milwaukee on a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Damian Lillard, here they are beaten at the Suns by squandering a lead of… 22 points in the fourth quarter.
A comeback madness from Phoenix, which left Kevin Durant speechless himselfand which necessarily left only bitterness in the mouth, in the ranks of Sacramento…
“ It's hard to lose like this » admitted Mike Brown, this time more peaceful in his speech, after his $50,000 fine. “ You have to give credit to Frank Vogel and the entire Suns team. The reality is that they played small-ball and we couldn't score, punish them inside. […] We kept losing the ball, we made some unfortunate turnovers. I found that we were careless with the ball, instead of making sure we passed the ball on time and accurately… In the last five or six minutes of a match, when a team is coming back and the crowd is in it you can't afford to be careless with the ball. »
Failing against the “small ball” of the Suns
As pointed out by the Kings coach, the latter notably foiled when the Suns started to play small ball, using Kevin Durant as the pivot rather than Jusuf Nurkic. Without Domantas Sabonis taking advantage of his physical advantage to punish his opponents…
“ We failed to score » Mike Brown always regretted. “ We went to the station several times in a row and it didn't work, so I tried to find something else, and that was also complicated. I used the small ball, we lost two balls, and I put [Domantas Sabonis] stake…”
Eager to rectify the situation, “ because this has already happened in the past » (and no later than with the Bucks…), Mike Brown in any case does not want to use the excuse of the busy schedule (five trips in one week) to justify his team's bad luck.
Lessons to learn tactically
In the Sacramento camp, however, he was not the only one frustrated by this new defeat, which was difficult to swallow, to say the least.
“ When you lead by 22 points, you have to find a way to win these games » indicated Sasha Vezenkov, valuable coming off the bench (14 points). “ This is the second game in a row where we lead and lose in a bad way…”
“ I don't like losing, especially when I lose the ball with 50 seconds to go…” added Malik Monk, another replacement for the California franchise (13 points, 8 assists). “ It didn't cost us the game, but it very well could have, so that's how I feel sometimes. I'm just hard on myself. »
The final word for Mike Brown, ready to learn lessons from this setback on a tactical level: “ The Suns were able to make 3-pointers at the end, because they had five shooters, five creators on the court and we didn't want a guy like Domantas Sabonis to end up switching to Devin Booker or Kevin Durant, we couldn't switch… Defensively, we have to find a different game plan, in case [les adversaires] play with five shooters. »
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| De'aaron Fox | 33 | 35.5 | 46.9 | 38.9 | 72.6 | 0.9 | 3.3 | 4.2 | 5.8 | 2.7 | 1.6 | 0.4 | 2.6 | 27.8 |
| Domantas Sabonis | 39 | 35.1 | 60.9 | 40.9 | 67.3 | 3.4 | 9.3 | 12.7 | 7.8 | 3.3 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 3.2 | 20.1 |
| Keegan Murray | 35 | 32.6 | 46.1 | 37.1 | 81.0 | 1.3 | 4.1 | 5.5 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 2.5 | 15.8 |
| Malik Monk | 38 | 26.0 | 44.0 | 39.7 | 84.9 | 0.4 | 2.3 | 2.6 | 5.4 | 2.1 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 1.9 | 15.3 |
| Harrison Barnes | 39 | 29.1 | 47.8 | 39.9 | 80.5 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 2.8 | 1.2 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 1.3 | 10.8 |
| Kevin Huerter | 37 | 23.4 | 42.9 | 34.5 | 80.6 | 0.5 | 3.2 | 3.7 | 2.5 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 2.1 | 9.9 |
| Trey Lyles | 25 | 20.8 | 45.7 | 40.2 | 62.5 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 1.4 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 7.5 |
| Sasha Vezenkov | 30 | 12.8 | 43.0 | 34.5 | 75.0 | 0.9 | 1.7 | 2.6 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.9 | 5.3 |
| Javale McGee | 32 | 8.1 | 63.2 | 0.0 | 63.2 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 1.1 | 4.5 |
| Keon Ellis | 27 | 12.6 | 43.4 | 38.2 | 64.7 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 1.4 | 4.0 |
| Chris Duarte | 34 | 13.5 | 36.0 | 31.3 | 75.0 | 0.4 | 1.5 | 1.9 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.8 | 3.8 |
| Davion Mitchell | 31 | 12.1 | 36.6 | 24.6 | 73.3 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.7 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 1.1 | 3.5 |
| Alex Len | 15 | 9.1 | 64.3 | 0.0 | 40.0 | 1.5 | 2.2 | 3.7 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 2.7 |
| Colby Jones | 15 | 7.4 | 38.1 | 7.7 | 66.7 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 1.4 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 2.3 |
| 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 |
| Kessler Edwards | 28 | 4.9 | 41.5 | 36.0 | 75.0 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.6 |
| 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 | 11 | 4.8 | 25.0 | 25.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.9 | 1.3 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 0.6 |
