The Kings were without major pieces in DeMarcus Cousins (sore right foot) and Rudy Gay (concussion) in Wednesday’s 103-91 loss to the Jazz at EnergySolutions Arena.
“I thought for about 35, 40 minutes we did a good job,” Kings coach George Karl told reporters in Salt Lake City. “But when the wall caved in on us, it caved in too heavy. I mean, [they] made a couple threes, we fouled a three [-point shot] and our offense just fell apart with some turnovers. In the situation you’re in, you don’t have a thick line to make mistakes, combined with when they started playing well.
“We started playing poorly and it kind of rolled the wrong way on us. But I was kind of proud of how we fought. It’s a tough place to win basketball games. Utah’s played very well this year on this court and I thought we fought really well until about the 10-minute mark of the fourth quarter.”
With the game tied at 78, the Kings were doomed by a 15-0 Jazz run as well as Utah’s barrage of 10 3-pointers after intermission.
Sacramento (27-51) was also outrebounded by the Jazz to the tune of 47-31 in the second loss this week to Utah (36-42) after falling 101-95 to the visitors on Sunday at Sleep Train Arena.
Rodney Hood followed up his career-high 25 points on Sunday with 20 points on Wednesday to lead a balanced Jazz attack which featured six players in double figures.
“Utah is a good team,” Ray McCallum told the media at EnergySolutions Arena. “They are playing hard. They have a lot of size so they made it tough for us to pinch on the paint. I thought as a whole, the guys came out and tried to compete.
“It was really different not having Cuz [DeMarcus Cousins] and Rudy [Gay] out there but it is something we will learn from. We have four games left. We will see what happens on Friday and if Rudy can’t go then it will be the same group of guys as tonight, and we will learn from our mistakes.”
The Kings were led by Omri Casspi, Carl Landry and Ben McLemore, who each scored 16 points while Jason Thompson secured his sixth double-double of the season adding 12 points and 11 rebounds.
“The personality that you’re trying to define in the game is… you don’t know what it is,” Karl said on being undermanned. “You’re trying to post up Carl Landry, you’re trying to get him to be an offensive responsible player. Most of the time he doesn’t even play consistent minutes.
“You’re trying to get some guys some shots that normally don’t get many shots. In the same sense, it’s basketball. It’s not complicated. It can be done and I think if we would have rebounded the ball a little better and didn’t turn the ball over I think it would’ve been a last three, or four minute game.”
Despite being short handed, the Kings still felt like they could’ve gotten the job done.
“We want to compete, especially without DeMarcus [Cousins] and Rudy [Gay] - obviously our other two horses that we need on the court,” Derrick Williams said after adding 14 points in the loss. “We have enough fire power on this team to win the game. I think there were about five or six minutes where they went on a 10 to 14-2 run, so that was really the game right there.
“Those lapses can’t be that long. Maybe a minute or two, but in this league, you can’t win when you have lapses like that, six to eight minutes long.”
THE GOOD
Sacramento played with fight and also poise on the road committing just 10 turnovers.
Sim Bhullar provided an historic moment becoming the first NBA player of Indian descent to score after his fourth quarter bucket.
THE BAD
The Kings endured a 15-0 fourth quarter Jazz run and couldn’t recover.
THE TAKE
The Kings played hard and competed but suffered at crunch time without both of their go to players in Cousins and Gay.
