Kings at Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers have stumbled against a trio of the best teams in the Western Conference and will try to avoid a fourth consecutive setback when they host the Sacramento Kings on Monday. The Trail Blazers have been held under 100 points in losses to the Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies over the last week and are stalled at 30 wins. The Kings are losers of three straight as well and are missing DeMarcus Cousins.
Cousins sat out Saturday’s 117-108 home loss to the Clippers with an ankle injury, dropping Sacramento to 2-10 without its starting center, and he remains day-to-day. The Kings could use Cousins against Chris Kaman and LaMarcus Aldridge up front for Portland but found a new weapon in Jason Thompson on Saturday. The veteran power forward stepped up with 23 points and a career-high 22 rebounds in 36 minutes against Los Angeles.
TV: 10 p.m. ET, CSN California (Sacramento), CSN Northwest (Portland)
ABOUT THE KINGS (16-24): Shorthanded Sacramento was without Ramon Sessions and Carl Landry in addition to Cousins on Saturday but battled through the fourth quarter behind Thompson and Rudy Gay (knee), who played through injury. “I can’t be any more happy about our effort,” point guard Darren Collison told reporters. “We had a lot of guys who couldn’t play this game due to injuries, but we had a lot of guys who stepped up. If we play with that same effort, we’re going to be all right.” Collison scored 17 points in the loss and has gone for double figures in 15 straight.
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (30-11): Portland has had little trouble with the teams at the bottom of the standings but has lost four straight and five of six against winning teams. “I mean obviously this is a less than ideal situation,” guard Wesley Matthews told reporters. “When you look at the schedule, we played the Clippers, San Antonio, and Memphis back-to-back. We had three games in four nights, but we aren’t making any kind of excuses. We’ve got to be better.” Matthews (778) knocked down seven 3-pointers on Saturday and passed Terry Porter for first place on the team’s all-time list of made 3-pointers.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Gay came off the bench for the first time since joining the Kings on Saturday but played 34 minutes.
2. Sacramento took the first meeting at home 103-94 on Oct. 31 behind 40 points from Gay.
3. Portland F Nicolas Batum has scored in double figures once in the last seven games.