Sacramento might not have a representative selected for the NBA All-Star Game, but the Kings head into Chicago for their matchup with the Bulls on Saturday riding plenty of positive momentum.
Sacramento improved to 4-1 on its current seven-game road swing with a 133-122 defeat of Indiana on Friday. The win avenged a home loss to the Pacers two weeks prior.
Domantas Sabonis surpassed Oscar Robertson for a franchise record with his 30th consecutive double-double on Friday, scoring 26 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Sabonis leads the NBA in double-doubles (43) and rebounds per game (13.0).
“It’s clear to anyone who watches the NBA and Kings basketball that De’Aaron (Fox) and Domantas should have been selected for this year’s All-Star game,” Sacramento coach Mike Brown said before the Friday game. “Every year, there are deserving players left off the team, but to me, this is truly a glaring wrongdoing.”
Fox, who came into the first half of the weekend back-to-back set averaging 27.2 points per game, scored 25 points and had a season-high six steals on Friday.
“A lot of people be sleeping on Sac,” Malik Monk, who scored 23 points off the Kings’ bench, said in his postgame interview on NBC Sports Bay Area. “We’ve just got to keep waking them up. We keep waking them up, it won’t be like this for long.”
Sacramento will try to keep it rolling against a Chicago team coming off its own road win.
Coby White scored a game-high 35 points in the Bulls’ 117-110 victory at Charlotte on Wednesday. White, who is averaging 19 points per game, recorded at least 25 points in three of the Bulls’ past five contests.
“The work will always show. I knew I had to get a lot better at a lot of different things,” White said to NBC Sports Chicago about refocusing his regimen. “I tried to work as hard as I can, push my body to the limit every single day, suffer every day so I could have these moments like this.”
His 35 points on Wednesday were just one shy of his career high, which White registered at Sacramento on Jan. 6, 2021.
White is providing scoring pop alongside Chicago’s leading scorer, veteran DeMar DeRozan, who is putting up 22 points per game. White is also helping to address some of the void with Zach LaVine out due to a foot injury.
LaVine, who is putting up 19.5 points per contest this season, has missed 23 games since Nov. 30, including the past six straight.
The Saturday game will be just the Bulls’ third at home over the past 10 games. Chicago split its two most recent home games, beating Memphis 125-96 on Jan. 20 and losing a 118-107 decision to Toronto on Tuesday.
The Bulls rank 10th in the NBA’s scoring defense at 112.4 points per game. The Kings come in averaging 118.4 points per game, ninth in the league, after their Friday win.
–Field Level Media