Kings Falter Late Against Miami, Lose In OT
Jan 20, 2020, 5:25 PM | Updated: 5:30 pm
(Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
(Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Sacramento drops fifth-straight game as struggles continue
With under 40 games remaining in the NBA regular season, the Sacramento Kings are running out of time to turn things around.
After Heat center Bam Adebayo tied things up with an alley-oop lay in with 0.8 seconds remaining, Miami would go on to force overtime and hold off the Kings to win by a final of 118-113 on Monday night at American Airlines Arena in Miami.
Trailing 103-97 with under two minutes remaining, the Heat would battle back to tie things up at 103-103 with 29.2 seconds left in regulation.
Nemanja Bjelica followed up his own miss with a tip-in to give the Kings a 105-103 lead with 1.9 seconds remaining. Out of the timeout, Miami answered with an inbound lob to Adebeyo to send the game into overtime.
Tomorrow’s NBA official Two-Minute report will likely show that Adebeyo got away with a push off on Kings guard Corey Joseph, a play that could have ultimately cost Sacramento the win. While that play might upset Kings fans, the harsh reality is that Sacramento had multiple chances to put Miami away on Monday night.
Buddy Hield started overtime off with back-to-back triples to give the Kings a 111-109 lead with 2:35 remaining. After De’Aaron Fox sunk a floater to retake the lead at 113-111, Miami would hold Sacramento scoreless over the final two minutes to win their 19th home game of the season.
The Heat are a league-best 19-1 on their home floor, and are now 27-5 against Sacramento when playing in Miami.
The loss sends Sacramento to their fifth-straight loss, their second five-game losing streak of the season. Now 15-28 on the year, the Kings are 14th in the Western Conference Standings.
Nemanja Bjelica would lead the Kings in scoring on Monday, finishing with 22 points and six rebounds. Buddy Hield scored 20 points to go along with seven rebounds and seven assists, and Bogdan Bogdanovic added 14 points off of the bench.
Bogdanovic was quiet in the second half, only scoring two points after a strong first half that saw him score 12 points over the first 24 minutes of action.
De’Aaron Fox has been on an absolute tear as of late, but couldn’t get it going against Miami. The speedster guard was seven-of-22 from the field, including missing all seven of his three-point attempts. Fox would finish with 14 points, eight assists, three steals and five turnovers.
Overshadowed by the loss, tonight’s MVP for Sacramento was Marvin Bagley III.
Bagley grabbed a season-high 15 rebounds to go along with 15 points and a steal over 38 minutes of action. The second-year forward was seven-of-13 from the field, doing most of his damage around the rim. After leaving Saturday night’s game against Utah with foot soreness, Bagley showed no signs of discomfort while contributing his strongest showing of the season.
Coming Up
Sacramento will continue their five-game road trip on Wednesday when they travel to Detroit to face the Pistons.
The Kings swept last season’s two-game series against Detroit, including Buddy Hield’s buzzer-beating game-winner on January 19th of last year. The all-time series between Sacramento and Detroit is tied at 171-171 heading into Wednesday night’s contest.
Catch all of the action right here on Sports 1140 KHTK, starting with pregame coverage at 3:30pm followed by tip-off at 4:00pm.
