De’Aaron Fox tends to bring some extra oomph when he matches up with the other gifted young point guards in the NBA, but that won’t be enough when the Kings play defense like this.
Fox finished with 32 points, seven rebounds and six assists, but the Kings opened a six-game road trip with a 121-106 loss to the Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena on Saturday night.
Trae Young had 28 points and nine assists for the Hawks, who turned a double-digit deficit into an insurmountable lead after staging a huge run in the second quarter.
“Until we get better at playing defense, it’s going to be hard to win,” Kings coach Luke Walton said. “… We can’t rely just on scoring to either stay in games or win games, and right now that’s kind of what we’re doing most nights. Offensively, we’re doing good things. We’re putting up big numbers, but that’s no way to win consistently unless you’re one of the most elite offensive teams of all time, and we’re not there.”
Clint Capela had 24 points and 14 rebounds for the Hawks (18-20), who have won four in a row for the first time since 2017. Danilo Gallinari came off the bench to post 15 points and seven rebounds.
Richaun Holmes recorded his 13th double-double of the season, finishing with 20 points and 12 rebounds for the Kings (15-23). Marvin Bagley III had 12 points and seven rebounds.
The Hawks shot 51.2% from the field, made 12 3-pointers and went to the free-throw line 33 times. The Kings shot just 43.9% from the field and 19.4% from 3-point range as Fox and Buddy Hield combined to go 4 of 21 from beyond the arc.
The Kings raced out to a 24-10 lead with Fox orchestrating the offense beautifully and Bagley feasting around the rim. Bagley demonstrated nice timing, rhythm and touch in the pick-and-roll, spinning into the paint with a variety of moves to score eight points in the first 5:30.
Sacramento led by 11 at the end of the first quarter, but Rajon Rondo came off the bench to pick the Kings apart in the second. Rondo wiggled into the lane for a bucket, knocked down two 3-pointers and made sure to feed Capela around the basket, helping the Hawks outscore the Kings 24-2 to start the second period.
It took 3:01 for Fox to score Sacramento’s first points of the quarter. The Kings went another 3:33 before Harrison Barnes scored their next basket with 5:26 to play in the first half. The Hawks would outscore the Kings 39-18 in the second quarter to carry a 61-51 lead into the halftime break.
“Outside of the first quarter, we just struggled to play with continuity on both sides of the ball,” Barnes said. “Defensively, we kept having breakdowns.”
The Hawks put up another big number in the third quarter, outscoring the Kings 37-30. They led by as many as 23 in the third and took an 18-point lead into the fourth. The Kings got within 10 on a driving layup by Fox with 5:03 to play, but they waived the white flag after Young buried a 3-point bomb from the half-court logo to put the Hawks up 119-104 with 1:40 remaining.
