For the past three-plus months, every time the Sacramento Kings visited an Eastern Conference city, they fell short.
The next chance at redemption on the road against an Eastern foe will occur Sunday night when the Kings visit the Brooklyn Nets.
Brooklyn (17-57) has a 10-game losing streak, the longest active skid in the NBA.
Sacramento (19-56) is 6-31 on the road, and its 127-111 win at the Miami Heat on Dec. 6 is among its two away victories over an Eastern Conference team.
Both the Kings and Nets have been eliminated from playoff contention.
In the Kings’ previous road win over the Heat, they started DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray, Russell Westbrook and Maxime Raynaud. In recent games, only Raynaud and DeRozan saw major minutes as the club turned to younger players to get a gauge of who can help it next season.
Sacramento began its current five-game road trip with a 44-point loss at Charlotte on Tuesday, but the Kings have been vastly more competitive in the past two contests. After dropping a 121-117 decision in Orlando on Thursday, the Kings absorbed a 123-113 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday.
Sacramento rallied from a 16-point deficit in the third quarter to forge a 97-97 tie on Saturday before getting outscored 26-16 the rest of the way.
While DeRozan led the Kings with 22 points and Raynaud added 18 points and 10 rebounds, coach Doug Christie continued to get extensive looks at DaQuan Jeffries and Daeqwon Plowden.
Jeffries is on the team via a 10-day contract in a hardship exception while Plowden has played 25 games as a two-way player. Jeffries added 15 points after making his debut Thursday while Plowden contributed 14 to reach double figures for the 10th consecutive game.
“Ultimately that’s what we want is the ability to dominate from the bench perspective,” Christie said after his reserves totaled 45 points. “It’s something that you need on a night-to-night basis because they either take the lead, blow it up or they get you back in the game.”
Sacramento is 7-10 in its past 17 games following a 16-game skid Jan. 18-Feb. 21. Before dropping the first three games of its trip, the Kings outlasted the Nets 126-122 last Sunday.
The Nets are on their second double-digit skid this season and are 2-20 in their past 22 games. Brooklyn ended a four-game road trip with Friday’s 116-99 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, when it was outscored 31-15 in the fourth quarter.
Josh Minott led the Nets with 18 points while Ziaire Williams added 16. Minott, along with rookies Ben Saraf and Chaney Johnson, played nearly the entire fourth quarter, when the Nets shot 6 of 19 from the field.
“We just struggled right there, but the guys competed all the way through, every single of them, everybody that played tonight, played really hard and did great things,” Nets coach Jordi Fernandez said. “Everybody got better, so you compete like this, you find a lot of positives.”
–Field Level Media
