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Sacramento Kings

Kings at Heat Preview – By the Numbers

Kings travel to Miami to take on the Heat for the 2nd time in 3 games.

By espn1320 Nov 02, 2022

Today the Kings travel to Miami to take on the Heat for the 2nd time in 3 games. The Heat will be looking for revenge, while the Kings look to make it 3 wins in a row. The Kings used a great shooting performance from Huerter, a strong inside game from Sabonis, and Fox’s lockdown defense on Herro on Saturday to take down the Heat. With Fox out for the rematch, here’s a look at what the Kings will have to do to bring their winning streak to 3 games.

Davion Mitchell had a coming out party for the season against the Hornets, going 9 of 11 (81.8%) from the field and 5 of 6 (83.3%) from 3 en route to a season high 23 Points. He’s shooting an impressive 54.5% on his Catch and Shoot 3’s on the season, which will be a key stat to keep an eye on going forward in the season. Mitchell has shown in the past that when he gets a groove going, he can be a key cog on offense in addition to his defensive prowess. The Kings will need some extra scoring to come from somewhere with Fox out.

Sabonis has been great in the time he’s been able to play, including his 23 minutes on Saturday against the Heat, where he scored 18 Points on 9 Field Goals. His problem has been staying on the floor, as he’s averaging an NBA high 4.7 Fouls per game.

There have been many questionable calls against the Kings big, including one that Mike Brown successfully overturned with a challenge against the Hornets, but Sabonis will have to make adjustments to get more time on the court. The good news is that when Sabonis isn’t getting fouls called on him, he’s actually doing a very good job contesting shots at the rim. Opponents are shooting 61.6% on Field Goals in the Restricted Area, which is the third best mark on the Kings, behind only Trey Lyles and Mathew Dellavedova, who are both dealing with smaller sample sizes. On the other end, Sabonis has been the offensive hub, averaging a team high 5.8 Assists. He is also once again among the league leaders in Screen Assists, with 4.8 a night, ranking 9th in the NBA.

Last season, Miami went 5-9 on the second night of their back-to-backs, and are coming into tonight after a hard-fought win against the Warriors in which Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, and Kyle Lowry all played around 37 minutes. With Tyler Herro still questionable for tonight, the minutes and fatigue will be something to monitor.

The Heat are limiting opponents to only 41.5 Points in the Paint per game, but scoring only 44 a night themselves. For a Kings team that has struggled defending inside, the paint battle will be one to keep an eye on and may be the swing stat of the night. The other stat to keep an eye on is the turnover battle. The Kings are giving up 21.7 Points of Turnovers per contest, which ranks last in the NBA. The Heat are averaging 19.4 Points of Turnovers themselves, 9th in the league, so it will be vital for the Kings to hold on to the ball more after committing 19 Turnovers against the Hornets.

The Kings have shown improvement almost every game, but still have yet to play what seems like a perfect all-around game. The fact that they’ve been able to pick up wins while continuing to show growth is encouraging, and shows how much better this team can be down the line. Hopefully we’ll see that level of play today against the Heat.

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