Sports

It finally happened! The Sacramento Kings beat the Golden State Warriors! But that was the last game of the week, and I’m getting ahead of myself. The Kings went 4-2 on their six-game road trip, which is pretty good. They lost to the Pelicans again, and while it wasn’t by 36 like the first loss was, it was by five, it still hurts. The Kings went on to beat the Timberwolves in Minnesota 124-111.

But now, the part I’ve been waiting to tell you about. Tuesday, November 28th, the Kings came into the last day of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament first in their group. Not only that, they had a point differential of +29 compared to the Warriors’ +5. This is the number of points that the respective teams beat their opponents by, and it is the next tiebreaker after head to head matchup. Because the Timberwolves beat the Warriors, and the Kings beat the Timberwolves, if the Warriors beat the Kings, it would have come down to point differential, which meant for the Warriors to advance, they needed to beat the Kings by 12 or more. The kings would advance with a win or a loss by 11 or less. And while there is no way the Kings even thought about it being okay to lose by 11 — they want to win the game — it at least made the In-Season Tournament seem pretty easy, right? Wrong.

As you probably know, the Warriors have become a pretty big thorn in the side of the Kings, and they’ve lost to them twice already this year. The Warriors got off to an amazing start, and let me tell you, I was pretty worried in the first half; the Warriors just seemed like they wanted it more. In fact, the Warriors were leading by as much as 24 and by 17 at halftime. But the Kings do what they do best: dominate the fourth quarter. That’s why De’Aaron Fox was named last year’s Clutch Player of the Year. The Kings battled back and took the lead with 5:46 left in the fourth quarter. But of course, it wasn’t over yet; it’s still the Warriors we’re talking about here, and the Kings were losing 119-123 with 0:59 seconds left! But that last minute was a thing of beauty, and Malik Monk was the one who wrapped it up for the Kings. First, he stole the ball from Stephen Curry and made a quick three, then Draymond Green made a stupid turnover, giving the Kings the ball, and Monk made a contested jump shot from 13 feet that gave the Kings the lead with 7 seconds left. The Warriors had no timeouts left due to an unsuccessful challenge by Warriors Coach Kerr earlier in the game. The Kings win, 124-123! It was amazing, and that’s why you don’t go to bed when your team is losing by 24.

So, the Kings move on to the knockout round of the tournament, where they will face, dun dun dun… the Pelicans. But the Kings have home-court advantage, and with a healthy team, I believe they can win and move on to Las Vegas to face either the Los Angeles Lakers or the Phoenix Suns. The Kings play the Pelicans on Monday, December 4th. Before that, they will have played the Los Angeles Clippers at home on Wednesday, November 29th, and will play the Denver Nuggets at home on Saturday, December 2nd. Golden Kings! Let’s light the beam!