Two common themes emerged from the Sacramento Kings’ blowout victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night.
For one, the Kings liked how they responded while playing with “a sense of urgency.” For another, they couldn’t help but be wowed by the performance of recent acquisition Zach LaVine, who exploded for 42 points in the 130-88 win.
As it continues its push to keep playing beyond the regular season, Sacramento will try to replicate those themes as much as possible in Wednesday’s matchup with the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City.
“We came out with a sense of urgency right from the start,” Kings center Jonas Valanciunas said. “We wanted to take care of business, and Zach got hot. It was a good night for us.”
Hot might be an understatement considering LaVine hit 16 of 19 shots overall and 8 of 9 3-point attempts. It marked the second time in three games LaVine scored more than 30 points. Both the scoring output and the 3-pointers were season highs for LaVine.
“Zach was incredible (Monday) night,” Kings forward DeMar DeRozan said. “When he’s going like that, it opens everything up for us. We shared the ball well, played with urgency, and that’s the Kings basketball we want to see every night.”
The Kings snapped out of a two-game funk against Charlotte and have won four of their last six overall. They find themselves one game above .500 and two games ahead of the Phoenix Suns for the Western Conference’s final play-in spot.
On the other hand, Sacramento is only two games behind the Los Angeles Clippers for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot.
“It’s definitely good to have a bounce-back game like that,” LaVine said. “We’ve got to have a sense of urgency every single night. We know where we’re at in the season and what we need to do to get to where we want to go. (Monday) was a good step.”
The Jazz faced the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night without Lauri Markkanen, Jordan Clarkson, Walker Kessler, John Collins and Collin Sexton but still erased a 13-point deficit in an eventual 114-112 loss.
Despite shooting just under 39 percent, Utah had a chance to beat the Blazers in the final seconds until Keyonte George’s buzzer-beating 3-point attempt went awry. To be fair, George made two threes in the final 11 seconds to make that wild ending possible.
But Utah hampered its chances with a rough second quarter against Portland, as it was outscored 29-18 to fall behind by 10 at halftime. The Jazz didn’t score during a six-minute stretch — a drought that ended on Isaiah Collier’s buzzer-beating half-court heave going into the break.
“We didn’t handle the pressure as well as we did for the remainder of the game, and then that bled into our defense where our shifts weren’t as tight, our communication wasn’t as good,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “And as much as coaches wish it wasn’t the case, sometimes the offense getting a little bit off-kilter does impact some of the fire on defense.”
Hardy was pleased, for the most part, with Utah’s efforts down the stretch.
“That’s what those moments require,” he said. “So there’s a lot to learn from this game. It’ll be a good opportunity (Tuesday) to get back on the practice court, watch a bunch of film, clean up some of those things, and on we go.”
