Warriors’ 3-point frenzy exposes early concern for Kings

Warriors’ 3-point frenzy exposes early concern for Kings originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SACRAMENTO – If this was the regular season, the Kings would have been on the wrong side of history Wednesday night.

The Golden State Warriors made 28 3-pointers in their 122-112 preseason win against Sacramento at Golden 1 Center, surpassing their franchise record of 27 in the regular season.

A good sign for the new-look Warriors hoping to get back to their sharpshooting ways without franchise icon Klay Thompson in the mix. A bad one for the Kings still searching for their defensive mojo.

“Thank goodness this is preseason because I think we’d be in the record books for 3s made,” Kings coach Mike Brown said postgame. “Obviously, that’s where it started for us. We did not do a great job communicating, we did not do a great job with our ball pressure, we did not do a great job with our physicality, and so they got open looks from the 3-point line because we were bad with all of those things.

“When you’re not up guarding your man and you’re watching the ball, if he doesn’t have the ball, if he moves, he’s going to beat you because he knows when he’s moving, you’re reacting to him. And so our physicality has to be better. Our communication and screening situations, whether it’s on the ball or off the ball, has to be better.”

Former Kings guard Buddy Hield was 6 of 7 from deep off the bench. De’Anthony Melton and Jonathan Kuminga each added four 3s. Steph Curry and Lindy Waters III added three.

Golden State, a known high-velocity 3-point team, shot 28 of 52 (53.8 percent) from deep. But the Kings didn’t do much to challenge those efforts.

Brown estimated of the 52 3s the Warriors attempted, about 30 of them were “wide open,” leaving them no other choice but to punish the Kings’ defenders and put the rock up and in.

Here are a few examples:

“We got cracked too many times,” Brown said, “and then we wouldn’t talk, and two guys would go with the guy that’s diving to the rim and leaving a guy open or vice versa.”

Kings third-year forward Keegan Murray, a true student of the game who has bought in to Brown’s defensive dreams over the past two years, spoke to reporters postgame before his coach but nearly replicated Brown’s exact concerns defensively.

“Yeah, I mean, a lot of the guys are making shots. Just watching and looking back on it, I think it was just a lot of communication errors and not being physical enough off the ball, which led to a lot of their open, uncontested 3s,” Murray said. “So I guess that’s why we play in the preseason, so we can clean that kind of stuff up.”

True.

And that’s exactly what they’ll do. The Kings will practice Thursday before traveling 80 miles southwest to San Francisco to face this same team Friday night at Chase Center.

Wild guess? They’ll focus on their 3-point defense before the preseason rematch.

As Murray attested to, preseason is the time to tighten loose ends. Although it’s a small sample size and quick turnaround facing the Warriors again, it could be a good way to measure the progress made in that area before the real fun begins in the regular season.

Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox, who continues to make defensive strides with each passing season, didn’t mince his words about the team’s defensive effort in Wednesday’s loss but pointed out some positives.

“We definitely need to defend the 3-point line better,” Fox said postgame. “I think they almost made 30, yeah, 28 3s. We have to be much better than that. And I mean, we only gave up 13 free throws, which is a great number. Obviously, they only made six, but even if they made 13, only sending the team to the line 13 times in the game is great. But more than half the shots that they made were 3s. So we have to be better at that.

“And then only giving up four offensive rebounds also helps us. But, I mean, they shot almost 55 percent [from the field] so not many opportunities for them. So we have to be better on that end — especially guarding the 3-point line.”

With the addition of DeMar DeRozan this offseason, there’s no telling the heights this team can go offensively with the six-time NBA All-Star, Fox and Domantas Sabonis leading the way.

Defensively, however, there are a few question marks surrounding how effective that starting lineup could be with those three listed above, in addition to Murry and Keon Ellis.

Brown knows there are things to work on, but he shared an overall assessment of that first unit’s defensive performance.

“Good in spurts,” Brown said of his starters’ defense. “I thought those guys did some nice things on the defensive side of the ball in spurts, but the biggest thing is the physicality has to increase with that group, and the communication has to increase with that group.

“We’re going to find ways to score. And, you know, we still got Kevin [Huerter] out, we got Trey [Lyles] out. So we’re going to find ways to score. We’re going to have the combinations out on the floor to get it done. But it comes back to us, being great defensively, which we weren’t, consistently over a long period of time — and that includes our first unit.”

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