Kings 123, Heat 119: De’Aaron Fox has ice in his veins

“If you don’t like that, you don’t like NBA basketball!”- Grant Napear, probably.

Just because I want to talk about the ending of the game already, here’s a quick quarter recap:

1st Quarter: Kings bad

2nd Quarter: Kings good?

3rd Quarter: Woah, maybe a double-digit win!

4th Quarter: Well these are the Kings after all...and then FOX!

OT: Kings come up big to take the victory!

Best Performers

Zach Randolph: If the Kings didn’t have a complete meltdown late in the fourth and were to win comfortably, then they would’ve done so primarily off the back of Zach. He finished with 22 points, four assists and nine rebounds in 33 minutes. Oh, and one smack to Justice Winslow’s face. He led the team in assists!

Buddy Hield: Buddy who? Buddy Buckets came to play today! He came off the bench and led the Kings in scoring with 24 and also had three assists and six rebounds. He shot 9/16 (same as Zach) and played 31 minutes! Not 14!

De’Aaron Fox: Save the best for last! Fox was playing well all game but then he did it again. A buzzer beating shot over the whole city of Miami to take the game to overtime happened. He scored 20 points with three assists on 9/14 shooting. All of your best performers made nine shots today.

Notable Performers

Bogdan Bogdanovic: A struggling shooting day for Bogi (5/14), but drilled a three from another city late in overtime to help extend the lead. He would finish with 14 points, three assists and three rebounds. (Peep Vlade’s face after that three)

Frank Mason III: The Kings got a nice performance off the bench from Mason, who scored 11 points in 17 minutes. He was also 5/6 from the line, showing his ability to draw fouls.

Willie Cauley-Stein: Back as a starter, Willie scored 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds. He would’ve scored more if he wasn’t shooting 30% from the field and if he wasn’t taking threes, either.

Notable Stats

Shooting: The Kings shot 51% today compared to Miami’s 41%. Even though Miami scored 18 threes compared to eight of Sacramento, they still lost! Both teams made 19 free throws, although the Kings missed more.

Rebounds: Miami out-rebounded Sacramento 53-43. Bam Adebayo had 16 for Miami.

Assists: Miami out-assisted Sacramento 26-23. James Johnson had seven for Miami.

Steals and Blocks: The Kings led both categories. They had six steals and seven blocks, compared to Miami’s five steals and two blocks.

The Nasty Stats: Miami had more turnovers and fouls than Sacramento.

Quick Takeaways

Kings swept Miami for the first time in forever, with Fox being the primary reason why.

Wayne Ellington really loves shooting threes doesn’t he? 17 of his attempted 19 shots were threes. Sacramento attempted 24 as a team!

Even though Miami was missing numerous players, that comeback in the fourth was something else. Impressive? Yes. Did it matter in the end? No.

Next Game

The Kings go to Oakland to take on those darn “Golden State” Warriors on Friday at 7:30 PM PST.

The Game in One Sentence

This was an early birthday gift!