The Sacramento Kings proved they were playing to win with back-to-back victories over the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers.
They did it again Saturday, going on the road to upset the Los Angeles Clippers despite having only nine players in uniform.
DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points and Russell Westbrook recorded another triple-double to lead the injury depleted Kings to a 118-19 victory before a crowd of 17,420 at Intuit Dome in Inglewood.
Precious Achiuwa had 25 points, 13 rebounds and four blocked shots for the Kings (17-51), who have won three of their last four games. Rookie center Maxime Raynaud scored 23 points on 11-of-12 shooting. Westbrook, the NBA’s all-time leader in triple-doubles, posted his fifth of the season and 209th of his career with 12 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
Kawhi Leonard scored 31 points to lead the Clippers (34-33), who had won four in a row and seven of their last eight. Darius Garland had 25 points and seven assists. Bennedict Mathurin came off the bench to score 24 points.
The Kings shot a sizzling 58.5% from the field while going 12 of 27 (.444) from 3-point range. The Clippers shot 46.4% while going 9 of 27 (.333) from beyond the arc.
The Kings led 33-31 at the end of the first period and carried a 68-54 advantage into the halftime break. They went up by as many as 20 points while holding the Clippers to 34.8% shooting in the third quarter.
The Kings went up 97-78 on a 3-pointer by Daeqwon Plowden early in the fourth quarter. The Clippers then staged a 20-4 run, storming back to cut the deficit to three on a three-point play by Mathurin with 5:24 to go.
The Kings were clinging to a four-point lead with just over three minutes remaining, but 3-pointers by Plowden and Nique Clifford helped Sacramento secure the victory.
The Kings won despite the absences Zach LaVine (finger), Domantas Sabonis (knee), Keegan Murray (ankle), De’Andre Hunter (eye), Malik Monk (ankle), Devin Carter (calf) and Drew Eubanks (thumb).
The recent victories are good for team morale, but they could be bad for Sacramento’s position in the NBA draft. The Kings had the worst record in the NBA for several weeks. They now have the third-worst record with only a half-game lead over the Brooklyn Nets.
The teams with the three worst records will have a 52.1% chance of securing a top-four pick and a 14.1% chance of landing the No. 1 pick. The team with the fourth-worst record will have a 48.1% chance of getting a top-four pick and a 12.5% chance of being awarded the No. 1 pick.
The team with the worst record can fall no lower than fifth in the draft while the team with the fourth-worst record can fall as far as eighth.
This story was originally published March 14, 2026 at 11:09 PM.
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Jason Anderson is The Sacramento Bee’s Kings beat writer. He is a Sacramento native and a graduate of Fresno State, where he studied journalism and college basketball under the late Jerry Tarkanian.