Sports Writing (USA), Apr 28 (EFE).- With everything against them and in a duel with no margin for error, the Sacramento Kings achieved a huge victory on Friday against the Golden State Warriors (99-118 ) to force a seventh and final game to be played on Sunday in Sacramento (3-3 in the series).
Despite losing the court factor on Wednesday, these young and surprising Kings jumped into this sixth game in San Francisco without complexes and defeated the defending NBA champions with admirable solvency, who will have to win again at home to avoid being eliminated in the first round of the West.
Malik Monk, with 28 points and 6 rebounds coming off the bench, and De’Aaron Fox, with 26 points and 11 assists despite still playing with a broken finger, commanded the triumph of some Kings in which Domantas Sabonis had many problems with fouls and ended up sent off (7 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes).
Stephen Curry (29 points) and Klay Thompson (22 points) were left very alone in some Warriors who only made 10 of 32 in triples and had a poor performance from their squires (Jordan Poole finished with 7 points and a terrible 2 of 11 in shots).
SACRAMENTO DOMINATES FROM THE BEGINNING
The Kings urgently needed the best version of Sabonis and the Lithuanian giant responded with two blocks and a triple for a powerful 0-8 start for the visitors.
Curry responded with 6 consecutive points although one of the biggest cheers of the start was taken by Draymond Green when he entered the field as a reserve.
The joy of the multifaceted and controversial Golden State player did not last long since he accumulated two fouls in just over a minute.
In any case, the Warriors closed the first period ahead (25-23) after 12 minutes of errors by both teams (no team exceeded 40% in field goals and the Kings also got tangled up with 8 turnovers).
Mike Brown shook the shaker early on and tried to catch his old bench partner Steve Kerr off guard.
Thus, a practically unprecedented Terence Davis in the series entered the Kings’ rotation with important minutes while center Alex Len was relegated due to Brown’s commitment to low fives when Sabonis was not in the fivesome.
The strategy worked out wonderfully for Brown, who was voted the best coach of the year this season in the NBA, and the second unit of Sacramento shone with impudence, effort and great success.
Monk and Trey Lyles, with 9 points per head in that quarter, as well as a very willful Davis led the charge of the Kings’ reserves that turned the game around in the second quarter and got to +11.
The Warriors also saw how Green added his third foul, although the most prominent image was that of a Sabonis who was left with scars on his face after an involuntary elbow from Kevon Looney.
Apart from that, the Kings, who also enjoyed Keegan Murray with four triples before intermission, closed the first half ahead (51-58) against the Warriors with Thompson as the top scorer with 16 points.
The restart began with very bad news for Sabonis, who in six minutes in the third quarter made three fouls and went to the bench with five on his locker.
But the Kings once again gave a lesson in survival in the face of adversity.
Monk excelled with three triples for 9 points in that period and Fox accompanied him with another 9 points to put fear into some Warriors who did not quite plug into the game (80-90 before the last quarter).
To the rescue of Golden State appeared the usual, Curry, who in the first four minutes of the last period drove the visiting defense crazy with 11 points.
Despite the sudden awakening of the brilliant Warriors point guard, the Kings, who lost Sabonis due to fouls halfway through the last chapter, kept a comfortable cushion around ten points and took it to +16 with a triple by Kevin Huerter (96-112 with 4.58 to go).
Steve Kerr’s men only had to resort to the epic but this time the coin came up tails and on Sunday they will play the pass to the West semifinals in a life or death game in Sacramento.
