The Kings’ January Roller Coaster Ride

 The Sacramento Kings have been up and down in January, but still remain in the hunt for the playoffs.

After entering the new year with a 12-20 record, the Sacramento Kings’ chances of making the playoffs looked slim. That was until DeMarcus Cousins provided the fan base with a glimpse of hope. With Cousins playing the best basketball of his life, the Kings rattled off a five-game win streak in the middle of January, which put the team at 8-3 for the month, and 20-23 on the season.

With wins against playoff teams such as the Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana Pacers, Atlanta Hawks and the Oklahoma City Thunder, it seemed as if the Kings had the makings of a dangerous playoff team, and at 20-23, they briefly held eighth place in the west.

For Kings fans, who haven’t seen the playoffs since 2006, that was a welcome sight. Unfortunately, in true Kings fashion, that’s when everything fell apart.

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After suffering a painful double-overtime loss to Charlotte – which saw Boogie foul out with a career-high 56 points — the Kings continued to lose their next two games to the Trail Blazers and the Anthony Davis-less Pelicans. In those two games, the team was a shell of its early January self, showing little effort and giving up 112 and 114 points, respectively.

This was a massive shift from a team that had seemingly improved their defense and had just kept both the Pacers and the Hawks to less than 100 points  a week prior.

During their five-game win streak, not only was DeMarcus great, so was the Kings defense; ranking top five in the league through that stretch. While Boogie remains great, the defense has slipped again, and the team has been embarrassing against much weaker competition. Even 26 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and five blocks from Boogie against the Pelicans wasn’t enough.

Boogie is great, but he can’t do this to the opposition every night. At some stage the defense has to step in.

For a five-game stretch that coincided with the return of Willie Cauley-Stein, the Kings were able to rectify some of the issues that have plagued them all season. The energy and effort was much better over this time, and the Kings were moving up the defensive rankings as a result. But with the recent regression to the norm, the Kings must get back to their best on that end of the floor.

So far it’s obvious that when the Kings are focused they can beat good sides, but when they get complacent they lose games they shouldn’t.  Right now, the Kings 20-26 record doesn’t look pretty, but despite some bad basketball and a three-game loss streak, there is still some hope on the horizon.

As it stands, the Kings are right in the hunt for eighth place — one game behind Portland and Utah — and if they can reclaim their early January form, there’s no reason they can’t make that game up. It’s an uphill battle, but at their best, the Kings certainly look like a .500 club.

In the 11 games this season that the Kings have kept their opponents to less than 100 points, they have won eight of them, so it’s evident that defense is the key. With an offensive weapon like Cousins, scoring hasn’t been an issue, but it’s crucial that the defense catches up to the offense.

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With the right balance between offense and defense, there’s no telling how far the Sacramento Kings can go.