Kings vs. Pelicans: Las Vegas Summer League Preview
- Jrue Hoang
- Jul 11, 2016
- 2 min read
Willie Cauley-Stein in action vs. the Rockets (credit: Sacramento Kings)
What: Kings vs. New Orleans Pelicans
When: 7 P.M. PT
Where: Cox Pavillion, Las Vegas, NV
How to Watch: ESPN2
Things of Note
- Well, that was...better? The Kings lost 85-73 to the Rockets on Sunday, allowing Houston to open up the game and nearly take a 20-point lead early in the 4th quarter. The game was tight through the first three frames, but turnovers allowed the Rockets uptempo attack to leak out and get easy fastbreak buckets. The Kings shot a blistering 36% from the field, a massive improvement over their 28% field goal shooting in their first game vs. Toronto. The Rockets jacked up 30 three pointers and only hit seven, but many of those looks were wide open ones. The Kings' inability to run their opponents off the three-point line is a concern that needs to be rectified tonight if they want to beat the Pelicans.
- Kings head coach Dave Joerger will not be coaching the team tonight after manning the helm for the first two games of the summer. Instead, assistant coach Bryan Gates will lead the team against New Orleans. Joerger has only coached two summer league games and he's already fed up with coaching the Kings. It's gonna be a PR dumpster fire when the Kings fire him next week
- Georgios Papagiannis made his Kings summer league debut on Sunday and mostly struggled while he was on the court. The 13th overall pick in last month's draft logged 8 points and 6 rebounds in 18 minutes of action against Houston. He looked winded at times and fell asleep on defense on numerous occasions, one in which he was whistled for defensive three seconds while camping in the key. There was also an instance where he used 18 seconds of a Kings possession while posting up a defender that resulted in a missed hook shot. Big Papa's got a long way to go but I'm certain we were all well aware of that. Hopefully he shows some improvement tonight.
Player to Watch
One huge positive that Kings fans can take away from yesterday's loss to the Rockets was rookie guard Malachi Richarson who logged 20 points and 7 boards on 6-12 shooting from the field. He knocked down 3 threes on 4 attempts as well. Richardson was aggressive in looking for his own shot and worked the two-man game well with fellow rookie Skal Labissiere, taking handoffs and driving to the rim looking for contact. Once he knocked down a couple of jumpers, Richardson began heating up and showed that he can be a deadly perimeter threat when in rhythm. One thing he does need to work on still, is his shot selection. Malachi shot 36% overall from the field last season at Syracuse and watching him force some contested jumpers on Sunday showed us why that number was so low. Hopefully Malachi displays more patience tonight when he's on the perimeter and elects to take higher percentage attempts, but overall his performance on Sunday was still exceptional.
Stay tuned to @SacThrone on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news, stats and analysis from the 2016 Las Vegas Summer League!
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