Pistons at Kings
The Sacramento Kings will look to build upon their best game under new coach Michael Malone when they host the Detroit Pistons on Friday in a meeting of 2-5 teams. The Kings defeated the Brooklyn Nets by 21 points on Wednesday while holding the Nets to 37.8 percent shooting with the high-energy defense Malone has been preaching. "If I could've written a script for tonight," Malone said afterward, "it would've played out just like it played out."
The game will also be a meeting of two of the league’s best young big men in the Pistons’ Greg Monroe and the Kings’ DeMarcus Cousins. The two were selected two picks apart in the 2010 draft, and both are key to their teams’ rebuilding efforts. Monroe and Detroit have gotten the better of Cousins and Sacramento thus far, winning five of their six meetings since the two entered the league.
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
ABOUT THE PISTONS (2-5): Detroit is riding a four-game losing streak and coming off a 113-95 defeat at Golden State in which the Warriors shot an NBA season-high 60 percent from the field. That was not much of an outlier, as the Pistons rank last in the NBA in opponent field-goal percentage at 49.3. New point guard Brandon Jennings leads the team in scoring with 18.8 points, but he’s shooting just 39.1 percent from the floor.
ABOUT THE KINGS (2-5): Shooting guard Marcus Thornton provided Sacramento with a boost off the bench in the win over the Nets after losing his starting spot to rookie Ben McLemore, scoring a season-high 24 points. "Marcus, I said to him after the game, 'Maybe I should've put you on the bench sooner,' " Malone said. The Kings have received a lot of support from reserves in general, ranking third in the league with 43 bench points a game.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Monroe is averaging 15.2 points and 9.5 rebounds against the Kings, while Cousins is averaging 17 points and 10.5 rebounds per contest versus the Pistons.
2. Both Sacramento (30.7 percent) and Detroit (27.4) are in the bottom six in 3-point shooting.
3. McLemore, the seventh overall pick in the draft, scored just two points on 1-of-8 shooting in his first career start.