NBA Scores: Kings drop 153 on Nets, what’s up with Sacramento

More and more over the last few years, I’ve grown tired of NBA on TNT’s slates. Not because I’m anti-basketball — hello? — but because the same few teams are more than likely to make their way onto the national airwaves if TV executives have anything to say about it (spoiler alert: they do). This season, the opening night games on TNT featured the Boston Celtics playing the Philadelphia 76ers, and the defending champion Golden State Warriors taking on the Los Angeles Lakers. If I gave you three guesses as to what the opening night games would be before they were announced, you’d have nailed both no problem.

Now, don’t get me wrong, those are fine matchups, and they make perfect sense to open the season. But the games that came later — Clippers-Lakers, Warriors-Suns, Bucks-Sixers, etc. — felt all-too familiar. With the NBA moving in the direction of mass imparity, my greedy, nerdy mind was hoping for something a bit more unique.

Which is why I now mark Tuesday, Nov. 15 the night when it all changed. Pelicans-Grizzlies? KINGS-Nets? Sure, a few of these teams are contenders, but blue-bloods they most certainly are not. They are teams that have built from the ground up to become feisty, grind-it-out squads whose stars weren’t bought, but drafted.

This Tuesday slate could serve as an awakening for the NBA and its fans. Let’s recap it.

Last night was the first time since the 2018-19 season that the Sacramento Kings had a nationally televised game. How’d they handle it? By thrashing the Nets to the tune of a near wire-to-wire blowout for their fourth-straight win.

Terence Davis led the way for Sacramento with 31 on 12-of-16 shooting (seven-for-10 from three) in a game where six other Kings scored in double figures and everyone on the active roster saw a few minutes of action. Brooklyn’s largest lead was two; the Kings sprung ahead by 39 at one point. Watching it all unfold was further proof that the NBA is a better place when the Kings are competitive. They are 7-6 and have won five of their last six games. Are the Kings....good?

Maybe it’s just a better place when every team has a chance to beat any opponent every night. Case and point: Davis outplayed Kevin freakin’ Durant, and made it look easy.

This was a weird one. Dallas spent much of the game in front — it led 54-32 at halftime, and the Clippers looked dead in the water. But Paul George played the entire second half, scoring 17 of his 23 points in the final two quarters to bring Los Angeles back to life. The Clippers fought all the way back to take a five point lead down the stretch, but in the final minutes, an errant pass from Reggie Bullock found its way to Luka Doncic, who did Luka things to finish off the Clippers.

In case you weren’t aware, Ja Morant isn’t human.

His team, on the other hand? Full of humans, in the sense that not every night can be a perfect one. A big third quarter surge from the Pelicans — namely CJ McCollum, who scored 14 of his 30 points in the third — made it close, and a 15-4 run to begin the fourth helped put away the Grizzlies for good.

Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d type without a hint of sarcasm: Is it time to start worrying about the Utah Jazz? They’ve lost three in a row, all close games against the Wizards, Sixers, and Knicks, but after a scalding start to the year, what are we to make of this slump?

It could be tired legs, or maybe, their team-wide inability to miss a shot was never meant to last. As a team last night, the Jazz shot just 32 percent from three and 43 percent from the field as the Knicks had their number from the jump. Despite Tom Thibodeau’s baffling coaching decisions down the stretch — he benched Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin late in the fourth, which fueled a Jazz comeback — New York had done enough in the early going to eke out the win. Jalen Brunson led the charge with 25 points, as he continues to look worth every penny of his gargantuan contract.

Allow me to be the first to controversially say yes to the dress (aka, these new Portland unis).

White. Hot. Much like the Blazers, who improve to 10-4 on the year behind 29 from Jerami Grant.