The Kings’ record is almost identical to last year. Why do fans this season feel disappointed?

Boos rained down from the Golden 1 Center stands on March 7. The Sacramento Kings were doing what they had done all season: play down to the level of their opponent, in this case, the cellar-dwelling San Antonio Spurs.

Such a reaction would have seemed foreign during the charmed 2022-23 season, when fans basked in the unexpected glow of the startup Kings’ first winning record in 16 years. Yet despite similar results in 2023-24, this season has felt slightly underwhelming to many fans.

Recent losses, injuries to key rotation pieces and a season-long difficulty finishing winnable games have tempered optimism heading into the play-in tournament. Fans such as Harrison Barley, 15, packed Downtown Commons before Sunday’s regular-season finale — a 121-82 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers — unsure of what the next few days would hold.

“I feel like they’re just the same as last year, (and) I feel like they should be better than last year,” Barley said. “It’s kind of a disappointment, but they got hit with some hard injuries at the end, so you can’t be too mad.”

Starting shooting guard Kevin Huerter is out for the season after dislocating his shoulder and tearing his labrum on March 18, while 6th Man of the Year candidate Malik Monk has missed the past two weeks since spraining his MCL on March 31.

Role-players such as Keon Ellis and Harrison Barnes have stepped up in their absences, but haven’t been able to shoulder the load entirely. Meanwhile, fans such as Pablo Bautista, a season ticket holder since the team played at Arco Arena, have raised their expectations beyond a long-elusive .500 record.

“With the fans, everybody expects good play (now),” Bautista said. “I’m sure everybody expects them to win the whole thing. I know I was one of the people that was like, ‘this is our year, come on, we’re going to do it.’ But as you guys can see, they’ve struggled in the later part of the year, and we’ll see what happens (in the play-in tournament). We’re struggling right now as it is.”

The Kings finished the season 46-36 (.561), just two wins shy of the team’s total in 2022-23, when they finished third in a loaded Western Conference. This year, they limped into Sunday’s finale having lost five of their last six and fallen to the back end of the play-in tournament as the No. 9 seed, with a match-up against the Golden State Warriors looming Tuesday night.

“I don’t know how it’s going to go,” Anthony Guttig, 23, said Sunday. “Obviously I’ve got hope because it’s my team, but I don’t know, man. It’s going to be a rough one for sure. But I think we can get it done. We’re a gritty team, put in a bunch of work.”

If the Kings advance past the play-in tournament, they’ll likely face off against top seeds such as the Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder — all of whom Sacramento has beaten this season.

Yet the Kings might have made the playoffs outright — or at least earned a higher play-in seed, improving their odds of moving on — had they locked up a few more contests against weak opponents. Losses such as a Feb. 7 collapse against the Detroit Pistons, who came into the game 6-43 and were missing their two leading scorers, stings in retrospect.

“Losing games to teams like the Pistons and the (Washington) Wizards is not good,” Barley said. “This team beats so many good teams and loses to really bad ones. It’s really unpredictable, so you never know what could happen.”

Playoff basketball can be similarly surprising, and the Kings did drub the Blazers on Sunday to end the regular season on a positive note.

They sport a 2-2 record this season against the Warriors, their first play-in opponent. The winner of that game will play either the 8th-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, whom the Kings swept in four regular season games, or the 7-seed New Orleans Pelicans, who went 5-0 against the Kings.

With De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis still leading the team and Monk angling for an early return from his knee injury, the NBA should be on notice if the Kings make it through the play-in tournament, lifelong fan Jameson Malvesta said Sunday.

“The Kings can seriously be a dark horse in the playoffs, because even though they’re not as high-seeded as they were last year, they have a lot of really good players like Fox and Sabonis that can turn up in the playoffs,” Malvesta said. “They’re going to surprise a lot of people.