"They played great defense tonight"- Charles Barkley is stunned by the Kings' effort as they take a massive 2-0 lead against the Warriors
The Sacramento Kings shocked the NBA world by taking a 2-0 first-round series lead over the defending champion Golden State Warriors on Monday night.
Sacramento's win had NBA legend-turned-TNT analyst Charles Barkley raving about the team. This comes as Barkley was impressed with the Kings’ defensive intensity, despite being a team that is known for their offensive firepower:
“Tonight’s game shocked me,” Barkley said.
“Like the first game was Sacramento, they just tried to outscore you. They played great defense tonight. (Davion) Mitchell, (Kevin) Huerter, they were really playing great. I mean, Steph (Curry) was only 3-for-13 from 3-point land.
“Game 1, that was the team that led the NBA in scoring, but today, this was about guts and playing hard. I was really impressed with Sacramento tonight.”
Barkley added that the Kings’ roster is a lot deeper than he realized before the series as they have a ton of quality bench players:
“They’re deeper than I thought they were. I said, ‘Man they got some good bench players.’ But I was like, ‘They keep coming.’
“Mike Brown has gotten them to play defense because they were not playing defense like this during the regular season. And they really didn’t play this good of defense in Game 1. But today, they didn’t shoot the ball well, they got off to a bad start … but they battled. This was a great win for the Kings.”
“They played great defense tonight… They battled.”
Chuck breaks down the @SacramentoKings Game 2 win over the Warriors. #NBAPlayoffs https://t.co/1Qs3zbNv4z
Kings take 2-0 playoff series lead for first time since 2004
With their Game 2 win on Monday night, the Sacramento Kings made franchise history by securing their first 2-0 playoff series lead since 2004.
This comes after the franchise previously hadn’t even made the playoffs since 2006. In addition, Sacramento became the first team to take a 2-0 series lead over the Golden State Warriors in the Steph Curry era.
BREAKING: Kings take 2-0 series lead over Golden State. 🍿🔥
First 2-0 series lead for the Kings in 19 years. https://t.co/dfAd98zg8J
Sacramento led by as many as 14 points in the third quarter before Golden State rallied to tie the game in the fourth quarter. The Kings then finished the game on a 21-13 run to pull out the eight-point victory.
The Kings were led by stars De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. Fox finished with 24 points, five rebounds, nine assists and four steals on 43.5% shooting. Meanwhile, Sabonis finished with 24 points, nine rebounds and four assists on 66.7% shooting.
The Warriors were led by superstar point guard Steph Curry. Curry finished with a game-high 28 points, three rebounds and six assists on 42.9% shooting. However, he shot just 3-for-13 (23.1%) from deep.
The series will now shift to Golden State, where the Warriors fared much better throughout the season. The Warriors finished with a 33-8 home record, in contrast to their 11-30 road record. So maybe a change of scenery will be enough to ignite the Warriors and help them get back in the series.
Game 3 will take place on Thursday.
Also read: "Feel the roarrrr light the beam"- NBA fans are stunned after the Kings take a 2-0 lead over Steph Curry and the Warriors