Kings Fans Chant, Christie Explains Ellis' Lack of Minutes

After the game, James Ham asked Coach Doug Christie about Ellis’s lack of playing time despite the team’s defensive struggles. His response does not exactly inspire confidence that Kings fans will get to see the changes they clearly want. 

Christie noted that “[t]here’s a logjam at that position. . . but I know in this league, things happen how they happen. The one thing we’re going to try to do is figure it out, so we’ll see.”

This does not sound like any sort of assurance that things will change, despite Christie going so far as to say “whoever plays defense, that’s going to be the rotation” just two days ago.  

Christie continued to harp on defense throughout his postgame media session tonight, as well. He led by noting that it is “really about the defense” less than one minute into his media session. He went so far as to say that “the one thing we are going to do here for Sacramento Kings basketball - we are going to play defense, and we’re going to win basketball games because of our defense.”

Yes, Christie did manage to keep a straight face while saying this. 

It might simply not be worth it to try to de-code the inconsistency between actions and words here. Declaring defense gets you on the floor, while keeping your best perimeter defender on the bench until garbage time, shows Christie is looking for certain players to defend at higher levels, and then deciding between those players. While discussing the logjam, Christie laid this out pretty clearly: “one guy’s going to play a lot of minutes one guy plays a few, and then there’s Keon.” 

So, to summarize, Christie has all but admitted Keon is falling victim to roster construction and the powers that be telling him to play certain players over Ellis. If only anyone could have seen this coming. 

The Kings’ coach did go on to say he has been a fan of Keon’s for a long time and that Keon “knows how [Doug] feel[s] about him. . . he’ll get his opportunity. It’s just how the game happens.” Christie said he understands the fan chants for Keon, but Christie explained that he is “here to win basketball games.” 

A bad defensive team playing their best defender would probably help with that whole “winning basketball games” thing. Let’s hope Ellis’s opportunity comes earlier than the fourth quarter when the game is within reach on Tuesday, when Sacramento plays the Denver Nuggets.