Game #12: Kings vs. Spurs Preview

Well, this feels familiar...

What: Kings (4-7) vs. San Antonio Spurs (8-3)

When: 7:30 P.M. PT

Where: Golden 1 Center

How to Watch: CSN California

Expectations aside, the Kings should have fresh legs for this one. The team is coming off a much needed four-day break after a wildly entertaining overtime loss in Portland (recap here). 11 games in the first 17 nights of the season will wear any NBA team down and the Kings looked like they were low on fuel by the beginning of last week. Hopefully the four days off allowed them to rest up and also get in more practice time to improve on the court. Tonight, the Kings take on the Spurs at home (again) to begin a difficult five-game homestand. So let's hop in the time machine and go back to three weeks ago for #WayBackWednesday!

Last Time Out

Seriously though, it literally still feels like it was yesterday. On October 27th, the Spurs came to Sacramento to play the Kings in the first regular season home game at the Golden 1 Center. It was a historic night for our city so of course the Spurs (8-3) ruined it! They won 102-94 to pour even more rain on our already rainy parade that night. DeMarcus Cousins dropped a season-high 37 points and 16 rebounds in a monster performance. But it wasn't enough for the Kings that night with Kawhi Leonard scoring 30 points and grabbing 5 steals for San Antonio. LaMarcus Aldridge had a relatively quiet night by his standards but came alive in the 4th quarter, scoring 9 of his 16 points to help seal the win for the Spurs.

Leave Us Alone, Kawhi

Get this guy away from Sacramento, please. After the first matchup, I was excited to not have to see Kawhi Leonard in our city again for a long time (maybe even forever!). But thanks to the folks at the league office, the NBA has decided that they want to torture us again. Sure, he scored 30 points (on 11-21 shooting), dished out 5 assists and snagged 5 steals against the Kings three weeks ago but the box score doesn't do him justice when it comes to his overall impact in that game. The Spurs were struggling at halftime before Leonard completely blew up the Kings' offense in the second half. The key sequence of the entire game was when he ripped the ball from a hapless Ben McLemore on back-to-back possessions and converted it into an easy 5 points at the other end. This guy is good. If the Kings were smart, they'd just take whoever he was guarding and have him walk out of the arena. Kawhi would no doubt follow him because he's that great of a defender. That gives the Kings their best chance to win tonight.

Hiatus Hangover?

A four-day break can feel like an eternity for us NBA fans but how does it affect the players? The Kings had played so many games throughout the first three weeks of this season that they might have gotten used to the hectic travel schedule and gotten restless during their mini-bye week. So maybe there's a chance that they're itching to get themselves out there to play another game. But conversely, we've seen teams come out flat and lackadaisical after a long layoff. That fact gets more complicated when the Kings are still struggling to find a consistent identity as a team. There will be no room for a slow start tonight against a title contender. The rest they've gotten over the past four days will have them fresh, but the Kings also need to show up for this one.