Don’t look now, but the Sacramento Kings might be brewing something. Domantas Sabonis scored the fourth 20-20 game of his career to lead the Kings to a 122-115 win over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night. This was the Kings’ fourth win in five games, taking their record to 6-6.
Sabonis got off to a somewhat slow start this season, but he’s picked up in the last few weeks and that trend continued into this game. He scored or assisted on the Kings’ first 16 points of the game and already had five points, five rebounds and four assists by the end of the first quarter. Still, the Kings trailed by 13 due to the Warriors’ hot outside shooting.
However, the Kings dominated the second quarter to take a halftime lead and had increased their lead to seven by the fourth. From there, they were able to stem the Warriors’ comeback attempt, largely thanks to De’Aaron Fox. However, Sabonis also played an important role on the track. He assisted on Fox’s 3-pointer that gave the Kings a definitive lead with just over three minutes left and converted a big putback a minute later to extend the lead back to six.
Sabonis finished on 10-of-17 from the field with 26 points, 22 rebounds and eight assists. This was his third straight 20-point effort and fifth in the last six games. Additionally, he became the first player since Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2020 to have a game with 20 points, 20 rebounds and five assists, according to Stathead.
During the Kings’ recent turnaround, Sabonis averaged 22.4 points, 12.4 rebounds and 6.4 assists on 58 percent shots from the field. For the current season, the Kings have an offensive rating of 116.8 when he’s on the floor — that’s 10.4 points per 100 possessions better than when he’s sitting. His ability to be a hub both with and without Fox on the ground and to create second chances with his offensive rebound has the Kings offensively buzzing in a tie for fifth in the league (114.4 offensive stats overall).
This recent hot streak put the Kings in ninth place in the Western Conference and just a game behind sixth place and the last automatic playoff spot. While it’s still very early days, it seems the Kings are actually good enough to have at least one play-in berth in the mix. As a matter of fact, given the bad luck they had with the office In the final seconds of the losses to the Miami Heat and the Warriors, their record could easily be a few games better.