Two teams eager to shed their early-season struggles meet when the Sacramento Kings host the Minnesota Timberwolves in an NBA Cup group stage game on Friday night.
Minnesota lost its third straight game and second in a row to the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday. The Wolves shot 7-for-39 (17.9 percent) from 3-point range in the 106-98 defeat. All-Star guard Anthony Edwards was 0-for-9 from beyond the arc.
“We’ve got the answers. The coaches give us … the answers,” Edwards said. “We’re just not doing it as a team, one through 15. They give us the answers every night. We come in here at 35 (minutes) on the night, and they tell us what we need to do to win the game, and somehow we don’t do it every night. We’ve got to get back to it. We’ve got to mature, man.”
Minnesota played without starting point guard Mike Conley, who was rested on the second half of a back-to-back. The 37-year-old is expected to be available against Sacramento.
The Kings are striving to build on Wednesday’s encouraging outing against the Phoenix Suns. De’Aaron Fox had 29 points, six rebounds and 10 assists in the 127-104 victory.
After entering the contest ranked last in the NBA in 3-point shooting at 30.1 percent, Sacramento was 15-of-28 (53.6 percent) from beyond the arc against the Suns.
“Any night like this gives us a lot of confidence, especially when we didn’t get off to a great start at all shooting the ball this year,” Kings forward Keegan Murray said. “To have things fall in place tonight after a rough game in San Antonio, it’s a good feeling and hopefully we can carry that on to the next game.”
Murray made three 3-pointers against Phoenix and also helped to hold Suns star Devin Booker to 18 points on 6-of-16 shooting.
“I’ve gotta give a shoutout to Keegan,” Sacramento coach Mike Brown said. “He was our defensive player of the game. We had a lot of very good defensive performances. You’re not going to stop Book. You’ve just got to try to make him work. Keegan did his best to make him work and our team was there to support him.”
The Kings are monitoring the status of guard DeMar DeRozan, who exited Wednesday’s game at halftime due to lower back tightness and did not return. DeRozan reportedly did not practice Thursday and will be listed as doubtful.
Sacramento is hoping to avenge a season-opening 117-115 loss to Minnesota on Oct. 24. Julius Randle scored 33 points to lead the Wolves, who won after Edwards made two free throws with 2.4 seconds remaining.
The Wolves are 5-5 since that victory and still figuring out how to best integrate Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, who were acquired from the New York Knicks before the season for Karl-Anthony Towns.
Minnesota center Rudy Gobert said he needs to set a stronger defensive tone following Wednesday’s loss to Portland, but the team has a long list of other concerns.
Instead of looking to the Wolves’ coaches for solutions, Randle said the players need to figure out a way to emerge from the team’s early-season fog.
“We talk about it and we drill it every single day,” Randle said. “It’s on us as players. We’ve got to take responsibility, look ourselves in the mirror. We’ve got to fix this. When we decide we’re gonna do that on a consistent basis, we’ll win games.”
