Under the bright Memphis lights, the Sacramento Kings hoped for a reset, maybe even a breakthrough. The Kings arrived in Memphis searching for something, any spark that said their season was turning, but nothing good seems to be happening to them anymore. They unraveled again. The Memphis Grizzlies shredded them 137-96 in a loss that exposed everything the Kings has failed to fix for weeks. The effort dipped. The rotations broke. The Kings players never found their rhythm, and fans braced for another fiery postgame message from Doug Christie, their coach who delivered the searing line “Shameful compete level, that’s it” after the Hawks loss.
This time, though, he didn’t fire off blame. He didn’t scorch the room. He shifted.
“There’s a frustration,” Christie said. “These are bad feelings. We don’t like them. But we know that there’s a process that we are going through to get where we want to go.” The tone was measured. Almost protective. It felt like a coach choosing patience over anger because he knows the Kings locker room is already on edge.
Doug Christie’s shift and what it means for the Kings
The contrast from that recent Hawks meltdown was impossible to miss. After the Hawks loss, Christie spoke for nearly 13 minutes and delivered the harshest challenge of the season: “We’re going to find people that want to compete, period.” Kings players felt the weight of that message. But after the Grizzlies disaster, he pointed to flashes, like Wednesday’s strong first quarter against the Thunder, and used them as proof that the foundation hasn’t crumbled.
When asked why he changed his tone, the Kings coach didn’t dodge it. “It’s not where you just continue to go down that hole,” he said. “They know the message. What I’m saying to you isn’t necessarily what I said to them, but you’re not in the locker room.”
He acknowledged the Kings' missing pieces. “It’s not an excuse,” he said. “It’s just a reality of what it is.”
Now comes the real test: can the Kings players stop this freefall before it becomes the defining story of their season?
