Kings at Warriors
With a brutal stretch of schedule behind them, the Golden State Warriors are back to looking like a juggernaut primed for another run at an NBA title. The Warriors will go for their sixth straight win and try to solidify their standing as the top team in the Western Conference when they host the Sacramento Kings on Friday.
Golden State has not lost since giving Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green the night off at San Antonio March 11 and used a suffocating defense to hold its last five opponents to an average of 94 points. "Guys really just started flying around more," Green told reporters of the change in the defense. "Everybody's taking the challenge of guarding their guys one-on-one. Once you take that challenge of guarding your guy one-on-one, you make a guy take one extra turn, all of a sudden help is able to get there. I think everybody's really stepped up to the challenge, and we're all connected, five guys moving at a time." The Kings are stumbling toward the finish and suffered their third straight loss by at least 16 points when they were trounced 116-98 at home by the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday. Sacramento dropped 11 of its last 13 games as it continues the transition to a younger team in the post-DeMarcus Cousins era.
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, CSN California (Sacramento), CSN Bay Area (Golden State)
ABOUT THE KINGS (27-44): Sacramento is searching for encouraging performances from its young players down the stretch and got one on Wednesday from rookie shooting guard Buddy Hield, who matched his season high with 21 points. The Oklahoma product went 8-of-16 from the floor while scoring in double figures for the 10th time in 11 games this month. Fellow rookie Skal Labissiere had a string of four straight games scoring in double figures come to an end but was solid with eight points on 4-of-8 shooting and eight rebounds in a season-high 31 minutes.
ABOUT THE WARRIORS (57-14): Stars Curry and Thompson both struggled with their shooting before getting a break in San Antonio, and both have been much better over the last five contests. Curry is averaging 24.4 points while shooting 46.9 percent from 3-point range in that span while Thompson is averaging 27 points on 55.3 percent shooting, including 53.2 percent from beyond the arc. "It’s funny," Curry told reporters. "Two or three weeks ago, everyone was wondering what’s wrong with everyone’s shot. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but we never panicked and never got ahead of ourselves."
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Warriors SF Andre Iguodala (hip) sat out on Tuesday and is day-to-day.
2. Kings C Willie Cauley-Stein matched a season high with four blocks on Wednesday.
3. Sacramento snapped a 13-game losing streak in the series with a 109-106 home overtime win on Feb. 4 but fell 109-86 at Golden State 11 days later.