Keegan Murray scored 32 points, De’Aaron Fox added 24 and the Sacramento Kings eliminated a shell-shocked Golden State Warriors team with a 118-94 victory in the play-in game on Tuesday night.
Sacramento advanced to play New Orleans on Friday night with a chance to return to the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Western Conference after breaking an NBA-record 16-year playoff drought last season.
The Kings avenged a Game 7 loss at home to Golden State in last year’s first round by playing cleaner and losing balls faster against the aging Warriors in what was one of the most consistent wins for the franchise in two decades.
The loss kept Golden State out of the playoffs for the third time in the past five seasons, including two eliminations in the play-in tournament. The Warriors scored sixteen goals, gave up fifteen offensive rebounds and far too many open three-pointers. They were nothing like the dynastic team that won four titles between 2015 and 2022.
Klay Thompson missed all ten shots from the field and Stephen Curry didn’t get nearly enough help. Curry finished with 22 points, but was chased by Keon Ellis for much of the game.
The undrafted Ellis, who was on a two-way contract until February, added 15 points in addition to his strong defense. Harrison Barnes scored 17 and Domantas Sabonis had 16 points and 12 rebounds for Sacramento.
The meeting between the Northern California rivals, who were less than 100 miles apart, was a rematch of last year’s series won by Golden State. Curry scored 50 points in the seventh game.
The crowd was loud from the start, even if the energy didn’t quite reach the level of last year’s game, when Sacramento fans celebrated the end of a record-long playoff drought.
Murray hit four 3-pointers in the first quarter and the Kings extended their lead to 16 points in the second quarter before the Warriors rallied behind their bench to cut the deficit to 54-50 at halftime.
Golden State got within one early in the third quarter before Sacramento responded with a 19-5 win, thanks to a pair of three-pointers from Ellis, to build the lead back to 15 points.
The Kings were never threatened in the fourth quarter, leading to cheers of “Light the beam!” during the last few minutes.
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Kings: Sacramento went 0-5 in the regular season against New Orleans and has not gone scoreless in six or more games against the same opponent in a season since going 0-8 against the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1983-84 regular season and playoffs.
