Takeaways from Kings' Loss to Lakers - Trends by Quarter

As you can see by Brenden Nunes’ tweet above, the Kings have the third lowest field goal attempts at the rim in the entire league and the highest rate in the midrange. This matches the eye test and likely has a lot to do with Sacramento’s iso heavy offense.

Even when DeMar DeRozan was able to get the Kings back in the game with his scoring at the end of the first quarter, it felt like it came at the expense of anyone else getting in rhythm. Time after time, Sac’s guards rejected Sabonis’ screens and elected to operate in isolation.

This left Sabonis in a bad position where he was just hurting the team’s spacing and a few quick fouls ensured that he wouldn’t be able to make an impact early. The Kings trailed 36-27 after the first. 

Second Quarter:

Russell Westbrook came in for the second quarter and played the four with Sabonis, Ellis, Malik Monk, and DeRozan. Westbrook's presence seemed to somewhat negate the mismatch that Rui Hachimura had for most of the game, and he even had a great offensive night. The Kings would get the game to 36-34, before Ellis picked up his second and third foul of the game in quick succession.

Any momentum was short-lived as some poor transition defense, Reaves, and a lot of the Kings’ patented “stand around” offense made it easy for the Lakers to recover. Reaves is a tall lead guard, but he isn’t the most physically imposing guy that Schröder will deal with this season, which makes you wonder if he’s just too small. Schröder and Monk would do their best to keep the game close, and a steal from Dennis ending in a lob to LaVine tied the game at the half, 62-62. 

Third Quarter:

The third started with LaVine and DeRozan missing two midrange shots before a Schröder triple got the Kings on the board. On the other end, even when the Kings were able to defend the Lakers pick and roll with Reaves and Hachimura or Deandre Ayton, their size gave the Lakers a mismatch to exploit.

This exact situation got Keon Ellis his fourth foul of the game while defending Hachimura on a switch, and he would exit. On offense, Sabonis got a little more involved, and a cross-screen from him freed up LaVine to attack the rim, where he was fouled. On the next possession, a Sabonis outlet got LaVine an easy basket in transition as the Kings would narrow the game 74-72.

Another good screen from Domas got Zach a free run at Ayton, and another bucket and more two-man action between the pair gave Zach an open jumper to give Sac a two-point lead. Sabonis would exit the game after picking up his 4th foul, and Reaves would start to attack again, which gave the Lakers a 95-90 lead going into the fourth. 

Fourth Quarter:

As Reaves sat, the Kings were able to get the lead up to 101-97 with some good defense from Ellis and buckets from Russ, Zach, and a rare triple from Domas. A missed three and a turnover from LaVine got Reaves back in the game, and that was pretty much it for Sacramento.

Austin would wait for anyone other than Ellis to switch onto him and simply take what the defense gave him after that. Reaves would hit two threes on DeRozan, and when the Kings started to blitz him on the high pick and roll, bad reads from Sabonis and the Kings’ lack of size gave the Lakers mismatch after mismatch to feast off of.

The Kings' offense defaulted back to spamming threes as the Lakers would keep them at bay for the rest of the game. Sabonis’ issues when put in action, combined with the Kings’ lack of size, doomed the Kings, and I’m not sure if there are any schemes that will fix that. Reaves and free throws were the main stories, but there were some other issues I noticed that could become endemic. 

Tracked trends:

• Lack of rim pressure. It’s fine to take a lot of threes, but someone needs to touch the paint first and that is becoming rare for the Kings. 

• Size. We know Sacramento is small, especially with Murray out. The issue is that they may not have enough size to stay afloat until Murray returns and will get taken advantage of by teams that they should have an opportunity to beat.

• Sabonis’ impact. So far, Domas has not looked comfortable around the many ball-dominant guards of Sacramento. He and Doug Christie need to figure out what his role will be with LaVine and DeRozan running so much of the offense.