The Sacramento Kings very intentionally built their roster to win games in crunch time. De’Aaron Fox won the NBA’s first ever Clutch Player of the Year award in 2023, and DeMar DeRozan, whom they added this offseason, was last year’s runner-up. The danger of relying so heavily on crunch time, though, is that it represents only a small slice of the game, and is therefore subject to the sort of randomness that can occur in tiny samples.
The Kings entered Monday with a clutch net rating of 15.4, but a clutch record of only 1-3. All three of their losses to open the season were late-game heartbreakers, and Monday’s trip to Miami to face the Heat easily could have ended the same way. Trailing by one in the final seconds, Fox went up for what could have been the game-winner from mid-range, but hit the rim.
Fortunately, the Kings are also built for do-or-die offensive rebounding situations because they have the winner of the league’s last two rebounding titles: Domantas Sabonis. Sure enough, in an ocean of seven bodies, Sabonis emerged with the ball and quickly flipped it back up and in for the 111-110 lead.
The Sabonis shot didn’t technically end the game. The Heat were left with 0.7 seconds remaining and called a timeout to draw a play. However, the long 3-pointer from Terry Rozier missed the rim entirely, and the Kings walked away with a 111-110 victory after trailing by as many as 15 points in the game.
Ironically, the Kings have been great mostly outside of clutch time this season. They ranked sixth in the NBA in overall net rating entering Monday. And while there are still kinks to work out on offense between Sacramento’s many high-usage ball-handlers, they’ve mostly controlled games. They’d just fallen victim to the inherent randomness of close games.
They nearly did so again on Monday, but an incredible play from Sabonis saved them and got their record back above .500 at 4-3.
