Kings showing defensive promise to fulfill Brown’s season-long plea originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SACRAMENTO – Sixty-six games into the 2023-24 NBA season, Kings coach Mike Brown finally got what he’s been asking for all season.
Well, 66-ish games.
It started Tuesday against the Milwaukee Bucks, a 129-94 win, and carried over into a 120-107 victory in the second half of their back-to-back against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday.
Saturday’s showing, though, might have opened Brown’s eyes more than any other game has, despite a physical 98-91 loss to the Eastern Conference’s No. 4 seed New York Knicks.
After the Kings displayed a historic offense last season which thrived off pace, screening and ball movement, Brown has shifted the team’s focus to the other side of the ball – an area he specializes in.
Sacramento’s defensive effort in its last three games was a promising start for Brown.
“One hundred percent. One hundred percent,” Brown said postgame Saturday when asked if the recent defensive showing is what he’d been asking for all season. “We’re more than capable. And, again, for people to say, ‘Hey, just concentrate on offense.’ But our guys are capable defenders, too, when they want to — and they’ve shown it the last three games.”
Entering Tuesday’s contest, the Bucks averaged 120.9 points per game and ranked fifth (118.7) in offensive rating. The Kings held them to just 94 points Tuesday night, which was just the second time Milwaukee scored fewer than 95 points this season.
The following night, the Lakers, high off momentum after two big wins against the Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, came into Golden 1 Center and dropped their fourth game of the season to the Kings. They averaged 117.3 points this season before suffering a 120-107 loss in Sacramento.
A large part of both wins was the presence of Kings guard Keon Ellis, whose lockdown defense limited Bucks star guard Damian Lillard and then matched that defensive intensity against Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell, who has been on a hot stretch since January.
Ellis held Lillard to just 10 points…
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