Brooklyn Nets vs Sacramento Kings preview: Monday night basketball

A special night for an all time great. On Saturday night, the Brooklyn Nets retired Vince Carter’s jersey as his #15 ascended to the Barclays Center rafters. It was the perfect end to a perfect week celebrating one of the franchise’s greatest players. The team itself played and lost against the Miami Heat, but they got the main thing right.

The opponent tonight is, somehow, still in the playoff chase. It’s been a long year for the Sacramento Kings, but coming into this game they are in the tenth and final spot for the postseason. They didn’t help the cause on Saturday night as they got knocked around by the New York Knicks at MSG.

Where to follow the game

YES Network on TV. WFAN on radio. Tip after 7:30 p.m. ET.

The Brooklyn Nets will commemorate the Chinese New Year — the Year of the Snake — tonight as well. The Chinese New Year game is part of the Nets Unite platform and will include unique food, fashion and culture. The festivities also include a red envelope giveaway for every fan in attendance, a Chinese tradition wishing good fortune for the new year.

Injuries

No Cam Thomas, Cam Johnson, Bojan Bogdanovic, Trendon Watford, Maxwell Lewis, and DeAnthony Melton. Ben Simmons is questionable.

All clear on the report for Sacto.

The game

Brooklyn won the first game in November, Jordi Fernandez’s homecoming. This is the last meeting between the two teams this season.

Since the last time we saw Sacramento, they underwent a big change. After a disastrous loss to the Detroit Pistons, the team fired Mike Brown the next day. Being fired is one thing, but being fired after running practice, doing media availability, and traveling on the way to Los Angeles for a game against the Lakers is what pissed everyone off. Former Kings coach Michael Malone didn’t hold back when he talked about the firing:

“So I’m not surprised that Mike Brown got fired, because I got fired by the same person. And what really pissed me off about it was the fact that [the Kings] lost last night, fifth game in a row, I believe. Tough loss, fouling a jump shooter,” said Malone, the Nuggets coach. “They had practiced this morning. He does his media, and he’s in his car going to the airport to fly to L.A. and they call him on the phone [and tell him he’s fired]. No class. No balls. That’s what I’ll say about that.”

Jesus. The reputation of Kings’ management is in the dirt, but something funny happened along the way. The team got good again! Under first year head coach and former King fan favorite Doug Christie, Sacramento has gotten their groove back. Since the firing, the Kings have gone 10-4, fourth best record in the NBA during that time span. It appears Christie is pushing all the right buttons, and according to Keon Ellis, he’s been a major breath of fresh air:

“I think it just has been easier because there are not a lot of rules, honestly. The only real staple is going out there and playing hard, playing for each other. The offense, the defense is just playing aggressive and playing our game.

“He’s preached a lot of communication. On the defensive end, if we’re blitzing someone just talk about whatever we are doing. We run a bunch of different things, but it doesn’t matter as long as we’re communicating and getting through it, that’s all that matters. And then on the offensive end, you have the best players in the game so you’re giving them the ball.

“I think that was the first message he told us is it’s going to get real simple. Late game or whatever throughout the stretch, [De’Aaron] Fox you get it, we’re running this play, Deebo [DeRozan] you get it, whoever has it you guys are pros, you guys are the players out there. I’m going to give you the ball and you are going to go out there and make it happen. So, I think he just puts it all on us and I think he just wants us to go out there and play hard and play for each other.”

There’s still a lot of season to go, and if the Kings are able to make something shake in the postseason, maybe the messy ass breakup would have been worth it.

In the meantime, the Nets will have their hands full with Domantas Sabonis. Sabonis leads the NBA in rebounding at 14 a night and grabs almost four offensive boards a night. If you don’t put a body on him and match his physicality, he’s bound to do something like this

Hope the guys have been hitting the weights extra hard. We’ll see how Nic Claxton is able to handle the former All Star on the inside. Clax tends to look more like himself when he’s set up in great position to score and fed close to the rim. He and Noah Clowney will have to work incredibly hard to keep Sabonis off the glass and limit those second and third chance opportunities. If they don’t, Sabonis is a good bet to earn his seventh triple double of the season.

If the game gets close, the Kings will hand the reins over to the midrange maestro. DeMar DeRozan has been pretty solid in his first year with the Kings, and when the game is close late, Christie can put the rock in his hands and trust him to get to his spots. For all great teams, you need at least two players who can get their own shot, especially in crunch time. Sacramento has that. Now can they do everything else needed to be a great team? We shall see.

Player to watch: De’Aaron Fox

Recently, New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart was on Candace Parker’s the Trophy Room show. Stewie was discussing the pressure of being the best player on a team and taking responsibility when things don’t go according to plan, and she said something pretty fascinating:

“Taking ownership came from coach [Geno] Auriemma, from UCONN. I just remember having a conversation with him at one point throughout my career and he was like “No matter what happens on the court, it’s your fault…

“But as you get older, you understand why things are said that way. No matter what was happening in that game, I can take it on me because I can take it…”

That’s the rule when you’re the best player. When things go right, you get the credit and acknowledgement as the star you are. When you lose, you’re the first person we turn to when things go wrong. And when people suspect you of being the person that helped get the coach fired, well… we’re gonna ask you all kinds of questions

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘guilt.’ That’s the nature of the job that we have. Obviously, him signing his extension this summer, we thought we would be together a whole lot longer.

But that’s the decision that they made. But at the end of the day, too, he’s still getting paid. A great part of being an NBA player, being an NBA coach is those things can happen, but contracts are guaranteed.”

I mean he’s right, but yeesh. But when you talk like that, you better ball. Fox has held up his end of the bargain for the most part. Since the firing, he’s averaging around 22/5/6 on 42/28/87 shooting splits. Fox has been dealing with finger injuries on his left hand since training camp and is now dealing with a sprained right thumb. He’s gonna keep toughing it out, and considering how deep in the hole the Kings put themselves in, he’s gotta give them as much as he can.

D’Angelo Russell is back after a brief injury absence, and when he’s able to draw the defense’s attention, good things happen

The partnership between he and Claxton will be something to watch closely as we go through the rest of this season. For Brooklyn tonight, they’ll do their best to try and find their way into the paint. In January, the Kings are only allowing teams to shoot 63.6 percent in the restricted area. It’s a marked improvement from earlier in the season when they allowed teams to shoot close to 70 percent in that part of the court. Russell’s ability to probe defenses and find his way to the cup will help keep the Nets in it.

From the Vault

On Saturday, D’Angelo’s “Voodoo” turned 25 years old. It was lauded immediately upon release and has grown in stature over the years. With that in mind, let’s pull up two tracks before we hit the road

More reading: The Kings Herald and SB Nation NBA