Player Ratings: Game 76 | Sacramento Kings
Wolves inch closer to the postseason with a big road win.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are more than just party-spoilers. They didn’t arrive in Sacramento as pesky upstarts purely there to dismantle the beam and demolish the confetti canon. This is a team who are playing their own game of high-stakes Russian roulette and, as they enter each night with the whole array of consequences in front of them and leave out the back door with a win in their pocket, the barrel keeps clicking over.
The game ends 119-115. It may not have been the case in the previous segments of this season, but this team means business. A raucous Sacramento crowd now knows it, the expect-to-clinch Kings now know it, and the whole fucking league now knows it. Four straight wins, four straight boosts to their playoff hopes, and four straight nights filled with every inch of heart and skill we’ve been wanting for since opening night.
But this win wasn’t a stroll in the park. Any team without a sturdy jaw is going to have a tough time against the haymaking Kings. Statistically, they’re the best offense in league history and they insulate their weapon-studded rotation with a cacophonous crowd and a mindset that they can win any game from any position against any team. So, this one was as big as it felt. It might even be bigger.
The Wolves exhibited their ability to take punches and throw them back twice as hard from the first tip. They jumped the Kings, leading by nine points at the first break and pumping that advantage up to a game-high 13 early in the second period. Not only were they alert and aggressive in trying to forbid Sacramento’s vaunted offense, they were manipulating their fragile defense and finding scoring pockets at the rim and beyond the arc.
However, as they have so many times this season, the Kings punched back. DeAaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, the usual suspects, slipped into their buttery blend of smashmouth and methodical, and Minnesota stumbled into one of their customary cold streaks. Quick as a cobra strike, The Good Guys lose their lead and go into half down by a point, seeking to snatch momentum back from a team who were ready to clinch a playoff spot for the first time in almost 17 years.
But, while the Wolves weren’t there just to be party-spoilers, they also weren’t there to watch the celebrations. This was a playoff mission, not a petty attempt to stop the league’s best story from memorializing their achievements.
Minnesota wrestled back the sway of the game in a back-and-forth third-quarter punchathon and then knocked the teeth out of their competitor with a fourth-quarter barrage of smooth offense, stifling defense, and gutsy hustle plays.
The Wolves have their own journey to worry about, but consider Sacramento’s party sufficiently spoiled.
Mike Conley: 9/10
Game-changer. Season-changer. Even at an NBA age that is nearing fossilization, he might be a fucking franchise-changer. This malnourished organization found their wizened owl at the trade deadline, and now the whole team is finding ways to hunt during those foggy nights.
He’s rarely a stat-sheet-stuffer and rarely an erupting volcano, but there is nary a substitute for consistency, shrewdness, and big-win experience. All of those desirable traits were on show once again in this one; the fourth-quarter floaters when the offense felt a bit bogged down, the ability to find clean air between the big trees and suck in a rebound, the willingness to get off the ball and play as a low-usage spacer, and the legitimate enjoyment he seems to get out of chasing dangerous shooters around the perimeter.
Without him, without those things he does, the Wolves would be a limp pound of flesh floating through the abyss.
Finished with 16 points (82% TS), 2 rebounds and 3 assists in 28 minutes — +19.6 net rating.
Anthony Edwards: 6/10
He’s still undercooked, but the willingness to grind his way into a night and provide value for the team was far more obvious in this game compared to the night before. His shot wasn’t there and his finishing around the rim was still more heavy metal than smooth jazz, but he found ways to stamp his authority onto the game regardless.
Because he clearly hasn’t recaptured that Greek God burst that he usually has, he was finagling Sacramento’s defense with controlled prods and then whipping skip passes to corner shooters and punishing the defense for collapsing in on him. His own defensive output improved from the lethargic mess we saw in Golden State to a moving crank in the well-oiled machine. And, as if basketball karma shone on his decision-making, he was allowed to have his moment late in proceedings.
He always has his moment. Closing minutes, corner pocket, moneymaker, power down the fucking beam.
Finished with 17 points (45.9% TS), 5 rebounds and 7 assists in 39 minutes — +7.8 net rating.
Jaden McDaniels: 10/10
Great players can have bad nights. They can have hauntingly brutal nights. This sport is one riddled with volatility and unpredictability and that’s an inescapable fact. McDaniels had one of those nights against the Warriors, a dirty stinking nightmare of a night. However, great players bounce back, great players don’t let those nights creep their sharp fingernails into their psyche and tear them to shreds.
He’s a great player.
Not the finished article, we know that, but great nonetheless. Coming off the back of that Bay Area horror show, he lights up the Kings in the biggest game of the season. A quickfire baker’s dozen to open the night without any of his first-quarter field goals even coming close to missing. He spends the night on the hip of DeAaron Fox and, for all the speedy guard’s scoring, McDaniels forces seven straight misses over the third and fourth periods to gain matchup ascendency. And, like a swooping eagle ready to jam a talon in the game and soar away with it, he fucking detonates on Sabonis to ice the cake.
He’s a great player.
Finished with 20 points (63.8% TS), 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in 39 minutes — +10.9 net rating.
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