‘Little battles’ help Sacramento Kings stay alive with convincing win over Golden State Warriors
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Malik Monk of the Sacramento Kings goes up for a shot on Kevon Looney of the Golden State Warriors during Game 6 of their NBA Western Conference play-offs.
PHOTO: AFP
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SAN FRANCISCO – The Sacramento Kings believe that to beat the Golden State Warriors in their National Basketball Association (NBA) Western Conference play-offs, the “little battles” in the game will play a big part.
On Friday night in San Francisco, the Kings bounced back from three straight defeats with an impressive 118-99 victory over the NBA champions to force a decisive Game 7 in their first-round series.
Sacramento had 99 shot attempts to Golden State’s 86, they won 53-42 on rebounds and grabbed 18 offensive rebounds while limiting Warriors to just 11.
They also had 18 second-chance points, 10 more than their illustrious opponents.
“That’s the difference in this series,” Kings guard Kevin Huerter said after scoring 12 points and hitting three treys, including two in the fourth quarter.
“You look at the games that we’ve won and the games that they’ve won, those little battles within the game – offensive rebounds, hustle plays, turnovers, points off turnovers. Those things are what each winning team has done in all the wins.”
Facing elimination, the inexperienced Kings were undaunted at Chase Centre – where the Warriors were 33-8 in the regular season.
They seized a quick 8-0 lead to set an early tone and after a string of lead changes, they pushed the advantage to double digits in the second quarter.
Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and the rest of the star-studded Warriors could not get the deficit below five points the rest of the way as the Kings tied the best-of-seven series at 3-3.
Malik Monk scored 28 off the bench and point guard De’Aaron Fox added 26 for Sacramento, who are back in the play-offs for the first time since 2006 and have a chance to take the series in front of their home fans on Sunday.
“I feel like we basically played a perfect game,” said Fox, who again excelled despite playing with a broken left index finger.
“We wanted to hit first, hit second, and hit last, and we did a good job of that tonight. You can’t turn the ball over.
“If you turn the ball over, you’re going to get punched in the mouth again. So, for us, it was really just trying to keep control of the game.”
Rookie Keegan Murray added 15 points and pulled down 12 rebounds for the Kings, as centre Domantas Sabonis finished with seven points and 11 rebounds before fouling out with five minutes remaining – sporting a black eye from taking an elbow on a jump ball in the second period.
Curry led the Warriors with 29 points and five assists, and Thompson added 22, but they got little support.
Andrew Wiggins chipped in 13 for Golden State, but Kevon Looney and Jordan Poole had just seven apiece as the Kings’ bench outscored Golden State’s reserves 52-21.
“I thought the Kings were the aggressor from the start, putting a lot of pressure on us defensively,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
“We just never got into our game, but I give Sacramento credit for that. They came out with more force and more energy. The right team won tonight, that’s for sure.
“It was a poor night for all of us, including me. The Kings outplayed us, outcoached us and deserved to win. Now we’ve got to regroup and get ready for Game 7.”
Like Huerter, Looney felt that the game was won and lost because of the little battles.
“I thought we played hard, but we didn’t play smart. We didn’t execute our game plan,” he said.
“We know what we needed to do to win. All the small things, getting back in transition, the box-outs, the turnovers, different things like that, we didn’t execute.”
The winners of the series will face the Los Angeles Lakers, who wrapped up their series 4-2 against the Memphis Grizzlies,
