Sacramento Kings' Coach Keith Smart Says Team Is Too Stagnant At Times

 

Sacramento Kings coach Keith Smart knows full well what’s wrong with his NBA basketball team: They need to loosen up on the court.

The Kings lost 103-97 to the Detroit Pistons Tuesday night, thanks mostly to a terrible second quarter. The team is struggling at 11-20 and rightfully so. A Kings’ fan would have to close his eyes for that awful second quarter effort. It wasn’t a pretty scene.

“We were real stagnant,” Smart said. “We played too tight. We did not have the proper spacing on the floor and that kind of separated the game right there. The group that was on the floor did not have the spacing and shooting that was needed on the floor.”

Of course, the Kings were playing without Myreke Evans and Marcus Thorton, struggling with injuries. That doesn’t help but as Smart well knows, a good NBA team is a deep NBA team.

“It is going to happen based on where we are because you do not have another shooter or good attack guy that you can put in there,” Smart said. “They played well in other cases but tonight was not one of those nights but as I managed through the bench trying to find the guys, we managed to get a group to get us back within one with a defensive possession.”

Well, blame it on the New Year, right? Right.

“We were a little slow,” Smart said. “We have been playing at a nice fast pace and we were a little heavy legged but sometimes that happens when you get out here on the first one of a road trip. I thought our bench guys came in searching for a little five minutes of energy anywhere and found the group that got us back in the ballgame with a chance.”