The Sacramento Kings clinched the Playoffs spot after a 16-year hiatus with a 120-80 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night.
The Kings have not played an NBA postseason game since May 5, 2006, at their former home court – The Arco Arena in Sacramento. And with their current position as a projected higher seed, they are expected to host their first playoff game in 17 years at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
The Kings had been eligible to qualify for the playoffs since last Saturday but had been missing out on getting the needed wins themselves and from other teams results impacting on their qualification.
Going into Wednesday’s game, the Kings were set to clinch their first playoff berth since the 2005-06 season either with a road win against the Trail Blazers, or a Minnesota Timberwolves away loss against the Phoenix Suns or an LA Clippers road loss against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Eventually, the Kings took the matter into their own hands by beating the Blazers after the Clippers won and before the Wolves game came to an end.
Reacting to the feat, Kings’ coach Mike Brown said “It wasn’t just our goal to just make the playoffs.”
“Hey, let’s be like everybody else. Let’s try to win a championship just like everybody else. That’s why we’re doing this and don’t set a bar that’s too low for us to attain as a group. So, we’ve been talking positively about our season from day one. And trying to instill that belief in them from day one has been a big focus of mine.
“The guys seem to believe it and buy into it, and every little win or every little success that we have as a group has just added fuel to the fire and helped with the belief, which is extremely important. Sometimes you can have a team that people may view as maybe not as talented as another team, but if they’re connected, they believe they can be a dangerous group.”
On the fans massive contribution, He said: “We want to give [the fans] a lot more than we’ve given them so far already because they’re more than deserving of it. And, you know, when you have a fan base that’s as intelligent, rather passionate about not only their team, but their city, too, you could feel it’s a prideful thing. You want the world for them and you’re excited about it. We want them to celebrate, but we, we also expect more from us and we expect to hopefully give them more.”
Point guard De’Aaron Fox said, “I guess this would be like relief. People can’t keep saying it. It’s over and done with, We want to do bigger things. But [16] years, it’s a long time. It feels great to get it off of us.”
Forward Harrison Barnes also commending the fans said that “It would have been nice for us to do it at home for them and for them to see this. That was a letdown for them. But for all the support they have had over the years, to continue to come to the arena after frustration, heartbreak and disappointment season after season, to finally get this moment, it was everything.”
BUILD UP STORY
To put this into perspective, When it comes to the NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA, No franchise has had a longer playoff drought than the 16-year record that belonged to the Kings. In the 2005-06 season, The Kings won 44 games in the regular season and lost in the first round of the playoffs to the San Antonio Spurs. Ever since then, the Kings has been struggling to make the NBA playoffs, failing to earn a winning record in any season entering 2022-23.
They have also been quite unfortunate with bad draft picks since 2006 as well as passing on the now-NBA superstars like Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Devin Booker, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Zach LaVine, Bam Adebayo, Luka Doncic and Trae Young when they had the chance.
Also within that time frame, they’ve had 12 head coaches in and out of the Job. The late NBA commissioner David Stern and the NBA board of governors relocation committee denied their proposed near-move to Seattle. They even traded then-NBA All-Star DeMarcus Cousins on the day of the 2017 All-Star Game.
Starting the season, they were looking like the same usual haplessKings when they opened this season with an 0W-4L record. However, things began to get better and they got everyone’s attention as they entered 2023 with a 19W-15L record. The Kings going to Wednesday’s road game against the Trail Blazers had a 45W-30L overall record and a Western Conference-best 22W-14L away mark.
It has indeed been a fairytale run so the Kings so far and we can only wait to see if it ends here in the regular season or they can keep the dream alive an do the impossible in the post season .
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