Ah yes, the trap game. If you’re unfamiliar, a trap game can be when a very good team runs into a very bad team that they should beat, or when they face a good team that is missing one or more of its best players. Trap games come down to the favored team overlooking their opponent and letting their mentality get in the way of getting an expected win.
The Sacramento Kings have had more than their fair share of losses in games like this, which makes facing the Los Angeles Lakers without Luka Doncic and LeBron James a bit worrying. Let’s get into a brief history of the Kings’ trap games and why they tend to struggle.
We can easily go back much further than the “Beam Team” when it comes to trap game losses, unfortunately (or fortunately), I can’t write a novel on the subject. This brings us to the 2022-23 season, which was Mike Brown’s first in charge and the point where things had started to turn around for the Kings.
In January of 2023, the Kings took on the 76ers after rattling off six straight wins to get themselves into a solid place in the Western Conference standings. Philadelphia was without Joel Embiid and James Harden, leaving Tyrese Maxey as the lone player for the Kings to worry about.
Maxey would end up with 32 points, which was expected, but the Kings were crushed on the boards and in bench scoring, which led to a two-point victory for the Sixers. The Kings’ bench was outscored 49 to 20, and the team was outrebounded 46 to 29 and which allowed Philadelphia to stay in the game and squeeze out a win.
Tyrese Maxey scored 15 of his 32 points in the 3rd quarter & dished out 6 assists in the Harden & Embiid-less 76ers win over the Kings! pic.twitter.com/Cc45IwMK4Q https://t.co/GDrwhSsYkp
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) January 22, 2023
The “Beam Team” once again found itself on a nice streak after three straight wins on the road and was getting ready to face a Utah Jazz team that was sitting under .500 and had one of the least impressive rosters in the league.
The Kings were heading home to face the Boston Celtics on a back-to-back, which could be chalked up to a loss even before the game started. No offense to any of the players I’m about to list, but a team that is starting Ochai Agbaji, Simone Fontecchio, Kelly Olynyk, Walker Kessler, and Talen Horton-Tucker should be an easy win for a Kings team that had already won 43 games at this point.
Surprise, surprise, the Kings came out extremely flat and let Utah jump out to a 40-19 lead in the first quarter and spent the rest of the game trying to shoot their way out of it with 52 three-point attempts. Agbaji would go off for what was then a career-high 27 points on six triples, and Olynyk would chip in 19 for the Jazz as they never let the Kings get all the way back.
Ochai Agbaji gives the @utahjazz the lead and adds to his career high with 23 points!
1-point game, 2:18 left on NBA App
📺 https://t.co/1pomQZMAZK pic.twitter.com/ZJKBbC1INf
— NBA (@NBA) March 21, 2023
We all remember this one. The Kings had just had a huge win over the Golden State Warriors to advance to the next round of the Play-In Tournament and just had to get by a New Orleans team missing Zion Williamson to get into the playoffs. The Pelicans had been an issue for the Kings all season, as they had already lost to them five times, but this was a winnable game.
Sacramento was missing key players in Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk, which ended up being much more important than expected. De’Aaron Fox led the team in scoring, but fell in love with the three-ball against a big Pelicans team and ended up shooting 4-16 from deep. A lack of scoring from everyone else not named Fox, Harrison Barnes, or Domantas Sabonis was the final nail in the coffin and ended a hopeful Sacramento season.
WIN to GET IN.
The Kings and Pelicans clash in tonight’s #SoFiPlayIn action to decide the West 8 seed!
⏰ 9:30pm/et, TNT pic.twitter.com/giaxascnSp
— NBA (@NBA) April 19, 2024
The easy answer for this phenomenon is mentality. The Kings have had issues “getting up” for bad teams as long as I can remember, while almost always putting up a good fight against better squads.
This comes down to leadership from the coaches and players who need to get the whole roster to buy into each game being a blank slate, regardless of who is playing for the other team. Some of this is unavoidable, as teams always fall victim to trap games during long seasons. The issue for Sacramento is that some of this is personnel-related.
The Kings’ lack of size on the wing, poor rebounding, and abysmal three-point defense have been issues since the “Beam Team” and are still a problem. This gives players all the confidence in the world to go out and let it fly when they have nothing to lose, while Sacramento plays the NBA’s equivalent of prevent defense.
The roster issues are unavoidable for now, but Sunday night’s matchup against the Lakers will be their chance to show that Doug Christie has changed the mentality of this team and that they’re ready to compete night in and night out.