Pelicans complete season sweep of Kings. Here’s what that means for their playoff chances

The Kings had only one path to the No. 6 seed and an automatic playoff berth going into Thursday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Sacramento had to go 3-0 in its last three games and New Orleans had to go 0-3, but the Pelicans made sure that wouldn’t happen by beating the Kings to complete a five-game sweep in the season series.

CJ McCollum and Zion Williamson scored 31 points apiece to lead the Pelicans to a 135-123 victory before a sellout crowd of 17,832 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. The loss sealed Sacramento’s fate as a play-in team a year after the Kings secured the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference to end the longest playoff drought in NBA history after 16 consecutive losing seasons.

“The disappointment is high,” Kings coach Mike Brown said. “We expected to win.”

Trey Murphy III scored 27 points for the Pelicans (48-32), who moved one game ahead of the Phoenix Suns to strengthen their hold on the No. 6 seed.

Jose Alvarado came off the bench to score 14 points for New Orleans. Jonas Valanciunas had 13 points and 10 rebounds.

De’Aaron Fox had 33 points, five rebounds and eight assists for the Kings (45-35), who are now tied with the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers for the No. 8 spot in the West, trailing the Pelicans by 2 ½ games.

The question facing the Kings now is whether they will go into the play-in tournament at No. 7, No. 8, No. 9 or No. 10. That could be determined when the Kings face the Suns on Friday on the second night of a back-to-back.

The teams that finish seventh and eighth will have two chances to win one game to secure either the No. 7 or No. 8 seed in the playoffs. The teams that finish ninth and 10^th will have to win two games while facing a single-elimination scenario.

“If we can finish fifth or sixth, that’s what I’m taking first,” Brown said. “Obviously, now that we can’t, the next best opportunity for us is the seventh spot because it assures us of a home play-in game and an opportunity to take two swings at it, so there’s no question that’s what we all would prefer and what we’re trying to get to, but we’ve got to go get it done on the court. It’s as simple as that. We’ve got to go win games, and the next one is the one we’ve got to win because it’s in front of us.”

Harrison Barnes had 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting with five rebounds and four assists for the Kings, who have lost four of their last five games and six of nine to fall into the play-in tournament.

Domantas Sabonis had 18 points and 10 rebounds. Keegan Murray went 5 of 10 from 3-point range to finish with 19 points. Davion Mitchell continued his hot shooting, scoring 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 shooting from beyond the arc.

The Kings stormed back from a 23-point deficit to get within two in the third quarter, but they never led.

“When you get to the playoffs, you have to put all four quarters together to win a playoff game, let alone a series,” Murray said.

New Orleans has dominated this matchup throughout the season. The Pelicans beat the Kings 129-93 on Nov. 20, 117-112 on Nov. 22, 127-117 on Dec. 4 and 133-100 on Jan. 7.

This one was no different.

The game got ugly early as the Pelicans outscored the Kings 34-11 over the first 9:30. New Orleans went 12 of 19 from the field and 6 of 9 from 3-point range to start the game while the Kings went 4 of 13 and 1 of 5 with five turnovers, drawing a chorus of boos inside the arena.

The Kings finally came alive in the final 2:19, closing the quarter with a 12-0 run to cut the Pelicans’ lead to 11. Fox scored 10 of those points, making a floater in the lane, a 3-pointer and all five of his first-quarter free-throw attempts.

Fox buried another 3-pointer at the start of the second quarter to cut the deficit to eight. The Kings got within seven on a breakaway dunk by Fox before McCollum hit back-to-back 3s to put the Pelicans up 47-34.

The Kings battled back to get within six a few times on baskets by Mitchell, Sabonis and Barnes. They cut the deficit to four on a putback by Sabonis and trailed 64-58 at the halftime break.

New Orleans shot 52.4% in the first half. Sacramento shot 51.2% after making 15 of 26 (.577) from the field in the second quarter.

The Kings kept coming in the second half. They got within two on a reverse layup by Barnes before the Pelicans staged a 9-2 run to go up by nine. New Orleans led 98-89 at the end of the third quarter and blew the game open early in the fourth

McCollum hit a 3-pointer to put New Orleans up 118-100 and Cody Zeller threw down an alley-oop dunk to push the lead to 20, sending thousands of fans to the exits with 6:48 remaining.

McCollum hit 5 of 7 3-point attempts with two big ones in a span of 26 seconds during a backbreaking 15-2 run in the fourth quarter.

“He made a lot of big shots,” Fox said. “We were going on a run, he hits a big shot. ... He’s done that every single time we’ve played them. He’s been doing it for a long time.

“Obviously, he’s one of those guys, when you talk about who’s the best player who’s never been an All-Star, he’s always one, two or three on that list. He’s very capable of being an All-Star. Probably should have been an All-Star already, but I think he’s a great complement to that team, especially when they’re healthy and you have to worry about guys like Zion and BI (Brandon Ingram) when he’s back.”

McCollum credited Williamson, who scored 17 points in the third quarter on 6-of-8 shooting from the field and 5-of-5 shooting at the foul line.

“He was aggressive and assertive,” McCollum said.” He had a couple of pull-ups, got to the free-throw line. He was an artist tonight, figuring out how he wanted to paint his canvas, and did a tremendous job of helping us close the game.”

The Kings made one last charge to get within eight on a 3-pointer by Murray with 2:00 remaining, but they wouldn’t get any closer.

“I’ve been saying in the past few press conferences; every game is important for us,” Williamson said. “We

want to have a complete game from start to finish. We start the game off on fire, getting a lot of open looks. They had cut the lead a few times, but we were able to maintain and execute.”

Points in the paint

The Kings have had trouble scoring around the rim since Sixth Man of the Year candidate Malik Monk went down with a right MCL sprain.

Monk, who is averaging 15.4 points and 5.1, has been one of the team’s best finishers around the rim this season. He is also Sacramento’s best pick-and-roll ballhandler, which creates easy scoring opportunities around the basket for Sabonis.

The Kings rank 11^th in points in the paint (51.0) on the season, but they are 29^th (39.7) over the past six games without Monk.

“Malik was a big part of our ability to get downhill and attack the rim,” Brown said. “Without him, we’re still searching for that a little bit and it hasn’t been great, but I’m playing guys that are trying to figure it out.”

Let it fly

Over those same three games without Monk, Sacramento has soared from No. 3 in the NBA at 39.4 3-point attempts per game to No. 1 at 46.8. Unfortunately for the Kings, their 3-point percentage has dipped from 39.4% to 36.3%.

The Kings fired up a franchise-record 58 3-point attempts in Tuesday’s 112-105 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. They only made 20 of them, converting at a rate of 34.5%.

“We played a beautiful game of basketball offensively,” Brown said. “We just couldn’t make wide open shots. I hate to say it — people may disagree with me on this — but if you’re open like we were in that game, you’ve got to do it. ... If they’re going to give us that, we’ve got to step in and make shots.”

The Kings were more measured in their attack against New Orleans. They outscored the Pelicans 38-30 on points in the paint while going 11 of 29 (.379) from 3-point range.

Up next

The Kings will continue their three-game homestand when they face the Suns on Friday at Golden 1 Center in another game with major playoff implications for both teams.

The Suns (47-33) are coming off a 124-108 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. They are seventh in the Western Conference, one game behind the Pelicans for the No. 6 seed with two games remaining.

The Kings are 2-2 against the Suns this season. The winner of this game will hold the tiebreaker if they finish with identical records.

Kevin Durant is averaging 27.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.1 assists. Devin Booker averages 27.2 points, 4.5 rebounds and 7.0 assists. Bradley Beal averages 17.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists.

Upcoming schedule

April 11 vs. New Orleans Pelicans

April 12 vs. Phoenix Suns

April 14 vs. Portland Trail Blazers