Two teams headed in vastly different directions go head-to-head on Wednesday night when the Golden State Warriors visit the Sacramento Kings as part of the NBA’s rivalry week.
The Northern California combatants will be colliding for the second time in 18 days, with little changing between the meetings.
The Kings made the short trip to San Francisco and walked off with an easy 129-99 victory on Jan. 5, burying the Warriors under a barrage of 3-pointers. Malik Monk (five), Kevin Huerter (four) and Keegan Murray (three) combined for 12 of them, helping Sacramento make 19 of 43 attempts from deep.
Monk (26 points, 12 assists) and Domantas Sabonis (22 points, 13 rebounds) recorded double-doubles in the win, which came on Doug Christie’s first visit to San Francisco as Kings interim coach.
Sacramento will be trying to complete a 3-0 homestand that began with wins over the Houston Rockets and the Washington Wizards. The Kings are unbeaten (6-0) in home games under Christie.
One thing that could surprise the Warriors is the 3-point shooting of Sabonis. He made just two in six attempts in the 2023-24 four-game season series against Golden State, then hit 1 of 2 in the win earlier this month.
But he has since gone 11-for-14 from beyond the arc (78.6 percent), helping propel him over 20 points in four of his past six games.
“It’s something I’ve been working on ever since I started playing basketball,” Sabonis said of his long-range shooting. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen overnight. You’ve got to keep doing it one summer, another offseason, another offseason. You just hope at one point you’re going to break through, and so far this year it’s been going in, so I’ve just got to keep sticking with it and shooting with confidence.”
The Warriors had no such confidence in a 125-85 shellacking at the hands of the Boston Celtics on Monday. Playing at home, Golden State shot just 34.8 percent overall and 26.4 percent on 3-pointers, missing 39 of their 53 attempts.
Golden State is two games into a stretch that many believe will be critical in determining the club’s direction at the trade deadline. Eight of the nine games are at home (the meeting with Sacramento is the lone road contest), but the early results — including a tougher-than-expected 122-114 win over the Wizards — have not been encouraging.
“Big part of our season has been when we can’t score, we lose spirit, we lose life, we lose competitiveness,” Warriors star Stephen Curry said. “You can get away with it against some teams. Against the defending champs (Boston), it’s not a good formula for success.”
The Warriors have been held to 101 points or fewer 14 times this season. They’ve gone 1-13 in those games.
Another contributing factor to each team’s recent results has been health.
The Kings had all their big weapons firing in Sunday’s 123-100 win over the Wizards. Meanwhile, the Warriors were without injured Draymond Green, Jonathan Kuminga, Kyle Anderson and Brandin Podziemski against the Celtics.