Lowly Kings stun Clippers anew
LOS ANGELES — The Sacramento Kings realize they might have started playing their best basketball of the season too late to contend for a playoff spot.
Beating the powerhouse Los Angeles Clippers on the road twice in less than a month still feels awfully good, even if the Clips are far from the best version of themselves these days.
Kent Bazemore scored a season-high 23 points, Bogdan Bogdanovic added 20 and the Kings made a decisive fourth-quarter surge to beat the Clippers 112-103 on Saturday (Sunday, PHL time).
De’Aaron Fox had 20 points and eight assists for the surging Kings, who have won two straight out of the All-Star break and eight of 12 overall. Sacramento is still just 23-33, but the progress is encouraging for the franchise with its NBA-worst playoff drought at 13 seasons.
“We’re feeling a lot better about ourselves now,” Fox said. “Obviously we need to keep this going, but we came out of the All-Star break and we were prepared.
We’re in a good place right now. We can only control ourselves as far as the rest of the season goes, but we’re feeling good.”
Sacramento blew a 14-point lead in the second half to a Clippers lineup missing injured stars Paul George and Patrick Beverley. But the Kings then shut out Kawhi Leonard and the Clips for more than five straight minutes down the stretch, making a decisive 10-0 run capped by Harry Giles’ percussive dunk off an alleyoop from Bogdanovic with 58 seconds left.
“That was a good moment to finish the game out strong on,” said Giles, who had 14 points and 12 rebounds in his first career double-double. “We’re on a better path now. We’re in a groove, but let’s just keep it going.”
Leonard scored 31 points in his first game back from his MVP performance in Chicago, but the Clippers returned from the All-Star break with their first threegame losing streak of the season.
Lou Williams added 24 points for LA, and Montrezl Harrell had 16 points and 10 rebounds.
Sacramento had a big lead late in the third quarter, but the Clippers took their first lead of the day on Harrell’s leap-and-lean bucket with 8:30 to play. Shortly after that, the Clippers went through their decisive drought.
“We had a lot of different people helping out, and it felt good,” Sacramento coach Luke Walton said. “We were solid for most of the game. We had a couple of drop-offs where we got a little sloppy, but it was one of our more consistent games.”