Sixers Seek to Usurp the Kings

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

As a notorious stick-up man once said (just about), “Come at the Kings, you best not miss.” Well, that’s hasn’t really been the case in Sacramento in recent times, as the Kings are one of the few franchises that could claim to be more dysfunctional than the 76ers.

Between point guard Rajon Rondo (seemingly knowingly) throwing homophobic slurs at gay referee Bill Kennedy, the friction between DeMarcus Cousins and head coach George Karl, and the shuffling of chairs and general inexperience in the front office, the Kings can add yet another ejection from Cousins to the list of concerns. Kings GM Vlade Divac fears it is a possibility that Cousins is suspended after getting ejected from Monday’s game against the Warriors. Cousins flipped out on a referee for calling a foul on him, in a situation where he had clearly committed the foul.

Ignoring the fact that Cousins is easily the Kings best player, if he is ruled suspended for tonight’s game, it would be a huge blow to Sacramento as they are very thin in the frontcourt at the moment. Kosta Koufos has a case of gastroenteritis, which is a fancy way of saying infectious diarrhea (sounds unpleasant), and rookie Willie Cauley-Stein is still out with a finger injury.

Whether or not Cousins plays, the Sixers will still have to contend with the 6th-best three-point shooting team in the league. The Kings are at 36.2%, largely thanks to a career year from Omri Casspi, who is shooting an outstanding 48.7% from three on the season on 4 attempts per game. Interestingly (to me), Casspi is shooting just 55.4% from the foul line; I always wonder how there are guys out there who can shoot almost better from 25 feet with people running at them than 15 feet when they can take their time. Casspi enters tonight’s game red hot after scoring 31 points in the first half against the Warriors, finishing that contest with 36 and 9 made threes.

However, despite some solid perimeter shooting, the Kings sport the 4th-worst turnover ratio in the NBA. Although Rondo leads the league in assists at 11.1 per game, he also commits 3.8 turnovers per contest. More frustratingly, Cousins turns it over 3.3 per game as a big man. Sacramento is also a bottom-5 team defensively with a 105.4 defensive rating, a mark even worse than that of the Sixers (moving on up).

For the 76ers, Jahlil Okafor is a game-time decision with his minor knee sprain. I’m curious to see how he looks out there with Ish Smith and whether the new-old Sixers point guard can help elevate the rookie’s game like he has that of Nerlens Noel. We’ll see if Okafor gets the green light to hit the court tonight in Northern California; if not, expect enough big game from Noel.

Thanks to owning swap rights on the Sacramento first-round pick, tonight is one of the few times this season it could actually help the Sixers draft prospects to win a game. Sacramento is currently 12-19, with four other teams within one game of them in either direction in the Western Conference standings. Currently, there’s no Vegas line on the game, presumably due to the uncertain participation from Cousins. Obviously their chances would greatly increase with Cousins out, but either way, this is a contest the Sixers could definitely take to improve to 2-1 on the West Coast trip.