The Kings Learn Why You Have to “Fear the Deer”

kings lose to bucks
Photo credit Credit: Ezra Shaw / Staff - Getty Images

By Charlie O. Mallonee @Charlieo1320

On Friday night in Sacramento, the fans saw a matchup between a Tier 1 team versus a Tier 3 team. The Milwaukee Bucks (34-6) are definitely a Tier 1 team who many prognosticators believe will be the Eastern Conference representatives in the NBA Finals. The Sacramento Kings (15-24) are a Tier 3 team that has not made the playoffs in so long that their fans don’t remember that they exist. Kings fans think the season ends and then you go immediately to the NBA Draft Lottery in June.

The Bucks beat the Kings 127-106 on Friday night. That isn’t really a surprise. The surprise of the game was Giannis “the Greek Freak” Antetokounmpo was not the dominate player in the contest. The Kings defense held Giannis to 13 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. He averages 30.2 points per game.

Kings Head Coach Luke Walton on defending Giannis and what it cost his team: “We see firsthand why that team has only six losses – that’s a really good basketball team. I thought what we take from tonight is, they’re just solid throughout and every time we make mistakes, they make us pay. I thought our guys gave great effort – they fought, they tried. We did a nice job on Giannis [Antetokounmpo>, but by doing that, you’re kind of committing three guys to him all the time, which allows other guys to either get closeouts where they can shoot or they can re-penetrate. And [Eric> Bledsoe, [Khris> Middleton and Dante [DiVincenzo>, they hurt us tonight.”

Rough First Quarter

The Kings took a quick 10-5 lead in the opening period, but then, the Bucks began to assert their will. Milwaukee shot 14-for-25 (56.0%) in the quarter to score 34 points. Eric Bledsoe – who has always been a Kings killer – put up 11 points in first 12 minutes.

Sacramento scored just 18 points and went 0-for-9 from behind the 3-point line. If you going to beat the Bucks, you have hit 3-point buckets to keep your team in the game.

The Kings actually outscored the Bucks 26-19 in the second quarter and trailed just 53-44 at the half.

Kings Third Quarter Run

The Kings came out after halftime and went on 17-7 run to take a 61-60 lead with 7:46 to go in the quarter. SAC would build a three-point lead before the Bucks began to reassert themselves. Khris Middleton scored 10 of Milwaukee’s 37 points in quarter. When the clock expired for the period, the Bucks were up 90-75.

One final run

The Kings tried to make one final run at the Bucks in the fourth quarter but could not cut the visitors lead to less than 12 points. Led by second-year player Donte DiVincenzo, who scored nine points in the quarter, Milwaukee outscored the Kings 37-31 in the fourth to propel them to the 127-106 win.

Up Next

The Kings are off until Monday night when they will host the Orlando Magic.

The Bucks headed to Portland for the second game of a back-to-back on the road on Saturday night and then will head home to host the Knicks on Tuesday night.