Just last week, things looked unsalvageable for the horrid Sacramento Kings. Nothing in their roster made sense, and to make matters worse, their star man Domantas Sabonis was going to be out for the next few weeks with a partially torn meniscus. However, the return of Keegan Murray seems to have helped the Kings stabilize, and on Monday night, they secured their second win in a row against tough Western Conference opposition in a 117-113 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves in overtime.
The Kings have looked very rejuvenated over the past two games, although it looked like they were going to lose by double digits yet again on Monday night. The Timberwolves had taken a 99-89 lead with a little over three minutes left in the game, after all. But then Malik Monk rescued the Kings from the dead, paving the way for DeMar DeRozan to get his team over the hump.
DeRozan, who finished with 33 points on the night, scored 14 of the Kings' final 21 points — with nine of those points coming in overtime. This helped him inch closer to LeBron James and Kobe Bryant's total points tally in extra periods.
According to Polymarket Hoops on X (formerly Twitter), DeRozan has the third-most points in overtime in recorded history, with 351, trailing only James (485) and Bryant (415) in that leaderboard.
DeRozan is a certified crunch-time assassin, and he showed that the Kings can still rely on him when it matters the most. Now, the problem for the Kings is getting themselves into situations where the game is actually close for DeRozan to do this much damage. But it seems like they are turning a corner, much to DeRozan's benefit.
There may be a pulse left in this Kings team
No one can dispute that the roster construction of this Kings team is all out of whack. Zach LaVine and Dennis Schroder had to sit out the final stretch of the game because DeRozan and Monk were cooking. Russell Westbrook was deemed too important for the team's defense, so he was out there during crunch time.
Perhaps a trade or two to at least help re-balance the roster could help the Kings salvage something out of this season, as unlikely as it seems in the stacked West.
