Kings get needed boost from Lyles, put away Thunder originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
The hype surrounding the Kings’ blockbuster moves at the trade deadline was losing its luster.
After beginning the Domantas Sabonis-De’Aaron Fox era in Sacramento with a pair of wins, the Kings suffered four straight losses to playoff-bound teams. For a while Monday night, it appeared Sacramento was headed for another defeat, but this time to the lowly Oklahoma City Thunder — one that would seemingly end the team’s hopes to crack the play-in tournament field.
Oklahoma City led by as many as nine points early in the second half before the Kings woke up.
Sparked by Trey Lyles — one of the Kings’ trade-deadline acquisitions — joining the starting five, Sacramento outscored the young Thunder 72-51 in the final two quarters and picked up a much-needed 131-110 victory.
Lyles scored 24 points on 10-of-14 shooting and added six rebounds.
“Trey was great tonight for us,” guard De’Aaron Fox said after posting a team-high 29 points in the win. “I’m familiar with his game because I watched him while he was at Kentucky. He’s a big that can play three [or] four. He’s mobile, he can shoot the ball, put it on the floor. He can do whatever we need him to do. Looking forward, that’s something that we can really expect out of him.”
“We thought that he had potential to really help us,” coach Alvin Gentry said of Lyles. “He can spread the floor a little bit. … We wanted to give him an opportunity to be in the game, start and see what happens. Obviously, he responded well.”
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Donte DiVincenzo was red-hot off the bench, nailing four 3-pointers on six attempts and finishing with 14 points. The “Big Ragu” found himself wide open on an attempt in the fourth quarter after an impressive pass from Fox.
“I thought Foxy did a really good job of creating shots for other people,” Gentry said.
With the victory, Sacramento improved to 23-40. The Kings are now three games behind the New Orleans Pelicans and Portland Trail Blazers, who are tied with a 25-36 record for the 10th seed in the Western Conference.
Sacramento takes on the Pelicans in a must-win game Wednesday night at Smoothie King Center. It’s a big opportunity to make up ground in the standings. But for now, the Kings’ coach is happy getting back in the win column against a team they should beat.
“I just thought we handled our business the way we should have,” Gentry said.
