Zach LaVine Sends Message Before Kings-Mavericks Play-In Game

Regardless of how you feel about that question, the Kings now are much better off if they make it out of the Play-In and into the Playoffs, which all starts with preparing for Anthony Davis and the Dallas Mavericks. 

Sactown 1140’s Brenden Nunes recently asked King’s star guard Zach LaVine about the matchup, and he had some really interesting thoughts.

“You don’t want to get into a halfcourt battle with them, especially in the halfcourt defense... the easier we can make our lives with getting out and getting easy baskets… we will take that all day.”

From LaVine’s comments, it’s clear the Kings are going to want to push the pace against a team that will likely be playing two bigs most of the game, and I would venture a guess that he’s right about that. 

The Mavericks have three starting-caliber bigs in Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford, and Dereck Lively, and head coach Jason Kidd hasn’t been afraid to play them together. Anthony Davis started five out of the last seven games for Dallas, and each game he shared the starting frontcourt duties with either Gafford or Lively, giving him the opportunity to play his preferred position. 

With AD playing the four, and one of Lively or Gafford in at the five most of the game, LaVine is right to worry about getting baskets in the halfcourt and wanting his team to get as many easy buckets as possible. While the formula seems simple enough, Sacramento has had trouble playing with pace much of the season. 

DeMar DeRozan and LaVine are both isolation-inclined scorers who tend to slow the game down with dribbling and waiting to pick their spots, which is helpful when they’re able to create mismatches, but can be really detrimental to the Kings’ offensive flow when they aren’t able to create those advantages. 

Sacramento is in the bottom half of the league in pace at number 19 per NBA.com, and while there are quite a few playoff teams in the bottom half as well, Sacramento doesn’t do themselves any favors with their shooting like some of the other teams that play slower.

Somehow, Sacramento is also 19th in three-point percentage despite having two of the best five shooters in the NBA in Keon Ellis and Lavine. The team could overcome this with some easy buckets in transition, but the issue is that Sacramento also ranks 21st in fast break points per game and 24th in percentage of points as fast break points. 

I don’t envy Doug Christie’s task of trying to balance the isolation skills of DeRozan and Lavine with the fact that the Kings need to get the ball up the court faster to counteract Dallas’ defensive strengths. It isn’t just about getting out in transition either, you can play with pace in the halfcourt as well, and Sacramento tends to walk the ball up the court way too often.

Let’s all hope that Sacramento can conjure up the spirits of the 2022-23 team that led the league in offensive rating and without one of the fastest players in the NBA in De’Aaron Fox, a lot of that will fall on Zach LaVine who is no slouch himself when it comes to getting up the court fast. Conversely, if we start to see a lot of Sacramento walking the ball up the court and getting into their offensive sets late, it could be a rough night on Wednesday.

Let’s all give our offerings to The Beam in hopes of bringing the ghosts of teams past back to life on the way to a win and another shot at a playoff berth.