Judgement Day.

On the night of March 26th, I stuck around the arena a little longer than I usually do. I’ve witnessed bad losses, but that night was something different. The Mavericks blew the doors off the Kings in the third quarter, hitting six threes and dominating the glass, and opened the quarter with a pair of threes from Tim Hardaway Jr. to seal an insurmountable lead. 

The Kings rolled into that nationally televised game hotter than hell and half of Georgia, playing a brand of defense that delighted the fanbase. The Kings walked into it with a higher rated defense than offense, a fact completely inconceivable to us fans at the beginning of the year. That was supposed to be our statement game. 

But it was Dallas’s, and it began a downward spiral towards the play-in, as the trade-deadline darling Mavericks surged to Western Conference safety. 

This loss, and the ones that followed sparked a feeling of helplessness, a feeling of impending doom, as the team careened into the depths of the West. The injury bug struck late, taking Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk.

I tried to ignore that feeling, hoping maybe the upstart Rockets would fell our old foe, but to no avail. With every passing day, reality became clearer. We would face Golden State again - but this time, in a single, winner-takes-all game. 

It’s an ironic outcome to a season defined by the status quo and continuity, a cruel punishment for complacency. It’s as if the universe heard the cries of Mike Brown and Monte McNair, stressing internal development and addition by retention, and said... “Prove it” 

The story with the Warriors starts, is, and ends with their big three, and you wouldn’t be wrong in saying that they’ve collectively taken a step back, with Klay Thompson no longer being that defensive force, and the inevitable Steph Curry taking a significant step back in his age 36 season.

While the record may not indicate it, this is a better Warriors team than the one we faced a year ago. The Warriors return largely the same roster, adding the future hall-of-famer Chris Paul, as well as a pair of electrifying rookies in Trayce Jackson-Davis and Brandin Podzemski. Those three were vital in replacing the production of their mercurial sixth man, Jordan Poole, who departed to Washington in the offseason. Jonathan Kuminga improved massively, and now roams the perimeter as a threat that Andrew Wiggins never was. 

The largest difference that I see when I watch this Warriors team as opposed to last year or even earlier in this season, is that the non-Curry minutes have improved massively. Trayce Jackson Davis is the dynamic, lob catching, rim running foil to the plodding Kevon Looney. Brandin Podzemski’s two-man game with Chris Paul, and his screen setting opens things up for Klay Thomspon, who has looked revitalized with the second unit. Last year's Warriors had a massive hole in their armor, with the team’s offensive rating plummeting by seven points. This year, that drop is just two, to a 117.0 offensive rating without their star. 

The Warriors have undeniably improved since the last time the Kings saw them. Have the Kings?

Yes, and no. 

The absence of Malik Monk and to a lesser extent, Kevin Huerter, limits the explosive offensive ability of this team. Monk in particular, has operated as the team’s primary bench creator and closer, opening up the paint for Sabonis in the stretch. Even Huerter’s presence, whether he’s hot or cold, requires attention from defenses as a league established shooter. 

That sort of impact is impossible to replace on the fly, but could be recreated in the aggregate by Davion Mitchell, who has turned into a three-point specialist, shooting over 42% from three since February, and Keon Ellis, the former two-way fan favorite who lacks personal shot creation ability, but thrives working around screens and punishing defenders who go low on screens at a 41% clip from three. 

Fox and Sabonis’s two-man game remains the calling card of the Kings offense, and it’s only improved with Fox commanding more respect from defenses beyond the arc. The Warriors defense is used to, and well equipped to stop it, which is why I’d choose to run it slightly differently. 

The Warriors are 100% going to counter the PnR sets with a packed paint. Draymond will likely draw the Sabonis assignment, and Trayce Jackson-Davis will loom as the rim defender/help defender. Those two, Green and Jackson-Davis are a pairing the Kings haven’t seen yet, and boast a 99.2 defensive rating, good for 18th among two-man pairings with 200 possessions. 

I’m looking for the Kings to recreate what they did against the Portland Trail Blazers last night, having Sabonis set those screens for Fox as high as possible, allowing either Fox to get a head of steam before meeting the Warriors at the rim, or to give Sabonis top of the arc threes / elbow mid-ranges, shots he’s managed to hit at a decent clip. To buoy that two-man game, Trey Lyles and Davion Mitchell will be huge as our two best corner shooters, hopefully drawing the defense away from collapsing on Sabonis as the Warriors tend to do.

While the offense will have to make up for lost personnel, the defense that this Kings team has flashed recently is like nothing the Warriors have seen from the Kings. Last playoffs, Davion Mitchell was a pest to Steph Curry, but got played off the floor due to his lack of offense in place of Terence Davis, who got shelled in Game 7. This year, Davion has improved so much on that side of the ball, and I fully expect him to be chasing down Curry all game. 

Keon Ellis, De’Aaron Fox and Keegan Murray have evolved from being essentially defensive non-factors in last year’s playoffs and earlier this season, to legitimate stoppers. Keegan has been one of the best isolation defenders in the NBA. De’Aaron’s 2024 matched only the defensive wizardry of Doug Christie in deflections and steals. Keon Ellis has been the ultimate help defender, with some of his best defensive moments coming in transition, as a true defensive shit wrecker. Even the often-maligned defense of Domantas Sabonis has taken a step forward, this Kings team does not have the same holes as last year’s iteration.

The vast improvement on defense gives me hope in a bleak situation. 

When the third quarter opens with back-to-back Curry threes, how will this team respond?

Are we the revitalized, scrappy Kings, driving the final blade into the heart of the Warriors beast, or are we again going to be the little brother, our attacks parried by the original version of the offense we try so hard to emulate, watching in horror as one of the greatest players in NBA history dissects us from afar. 

It's judgement day.