Warriors’ 3-point frenzy exposes early concern for Kings originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SACRAMENTO – If this were the regular season, the Kings would have been on the wrong side of history Wednesday night.
The Golden State Warriors scored 28 three-pointers in their Preseason victory 122-112 against Sacramento at the Golden 1 Center, surpassing their franchise record of 27 in the regular season.
A good sign for the new Warriors hoping to get back to their shooting style without franchise icon Klay Thompson in the mix. A bad one for the Kings who are still looking for their defensive charm.
“Thank God this is preseason because I think we’d be in the record books for 3-pointers made,” Kings coach Mike Brown said after the game. “Obviously, that’s where it all started for us. We didn’t do a great job communicating, we didn’t do a great job with our ball pressure, we didn’t do a great job with our physicality, so they got open looks from the 3-point line because we were mean to everyone. of those things.
“When you’re not guarding your man and you’re looking at the ball, if he doesn’t have the ball, if he moves, he’ll beat you because he knows that when he’s moving, you’re reacting to him. And then our physicality has to be better. Our communication and control situations, whether with or without the ball, have to be better.”
Former Kings guard Buddy Hield was 6-for-7 from deep off the bench. De’Anthony Melton and Jonathan Kuminga each added four 3-pointers. Steph Curry and Lindy Waters III added three.
Golden State, a known high-speed 3-point shooting team, shot 28 of 52 (53.8 percent) from deep. But the Kings didn’t do much to challenge those efforts.
Brown estimated that of the 52 3-pointers the Warriors attempted, about 30 of them were “open,” leaving them no choice but to punish Kings defenders and put the rock up and in.
Below are some examples:
“They attacked us too many times,” Brown said, “and then we wouldn’t talk, and two guys would go with the guy who was driving to the rim and leave another guy open or vice versa.”
Kings third-year forward Keegan Murray, a true student of the game who has embraced Brown’s defensive dreams for the past two years, spoke to reporters after the game before his coach, but nearly replicated Brown’s defensive concerns exactly. Brown.
“Yeah, I mean, a lot of the guys are making shots. Just watching it and remembering it, I think it was a lot of miscommunication and not being physical enough off the ball that led to a lot of his open, uncontested threes,” Murray said. “I guess that’s why we played in the preseason, so we could clean up that kind of stuff.”
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And that’s exactly what they will do. The Kings will practice Thursday before traveling 80 miles southwest to San Francisco to take on this same team Friday night at the Chase Center.
Wild guess? They will focus on their 3-point defense before the preseason rematch.
As Murray attested, the preseason is a time to tighten up loose ends. While it’s a small sample size and a quick turnaround to face the Warriors again, it could be a good way to gauge the progress made in that area before the real fun begins in the regular season.
Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox, who continues to make defensive strides with each passing season, didn’t mince words about the team’s defensive effort in Wednesday’s loss, but pointed out some positives.
“We definitely need to defend the 3-point line better,” Fox said after the game. “I think they almost made 30, yes, 28 three-pointers. We have to be a lot better than that. And I mean, we only gave up 13 free throws, which is a big number. Obviously, they only made six, but even if they made 13, send the team to the line only 13 times in the game is great, but more than half of the shots they made were threes, so we have to be better at that.
“And then just allowing four offensive rebounds helps us too. But, I mean, they shot almost 55 percent (from the field), so there’s not a lot of opportunities for them. So we have to be better in that regard, especially defending the 3″. -dotted line.”
With the addition of DeMar DeRozan this offseason, there’s no telling how far this team can go offensively with six-time NBA All-Star Fox and Domantas Sabonis leading the way.
Defensively, however, there are some question marks over how effective that starting lineup could be with the three mentioned above, plus Murry and Keon Ellis.
Brown knows there are things to work on, but he shared an overall assessment of that first unit’s defensive performance.
“Good in spurts,” Brown said of his starters’ defense. “I thought those guys did some good things on the defensive side of the ball in spurts, but the biggest thing is the physicality has to increase with that group, and the communication.” It has to increase with that group.
“We’re going to find ways to score. And, you know, we still have Kevin (Huerter) out, we have Trey (Lyles). So we’re going to find ways to score. We’re going to have the combinations on the court to do it. But “That comes back to us being great defensively, something we weren’t consistent with for a long period of time, and that includes our first unit.”