Kings top Magic, end eight-game skid
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Darren Collison scored 19 points and added 11 assists, one of them an alley-oop to Willie Cauley-Stein that broke a tie and lifted the Kings to a 120-115 victory over the Orlando Magic on Monday night at the Golden 1 Center.
The Kings blazed away with 16 3-pointers, the most important of them Anthony Tolliver's team-high fifth of the night with under a minute left that came a possession after a 3-pointer by Orlando's Aaron Gordon cut Sacramento's lead to 103-102.
Tolliver finished with 19 points as the Kings (26-41) snapped an eight-game losing streak and won for just the second time in 10 games since the All-Star break. Six players canned more than one 3-pointer for the Kings.
Nikola Vucevic led all scorers with 23 points and added nine rebounds, but Orlando (24-44) lost for the third straight time and for the fifth time in six games. The Magic, the NBA's fifth-worst shooting team, had another rough night from the field, canning just 46.4 percent of their shots and making 13 of 33 from 3-point range (38.2 percent).
Magic guard Elfrid Payton finished with 13 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds, his third triple-double in five games. Evan Fournier added 21 points for Orlando, including a drive down the lane that tied the game 109-109 with 2:38 left.
However, Collision found Stein on the alley-oop, and after an Orlando miss, Kings guard Garrett Temple found Tolliver alone under the bucket for a dunk and a 113-109 lead.
The Kings broke their longest losing streak since an eight-game run in 2014-15 despite playing without four regulars. Guard Tyreke Evans sat out with a sore left ankle, while guard Ty Lawson, forward Arron Afflalo and center Kosta Koufos each were given a night off for a planned rest. Koufos missed his first game of the season.
Sacramento made 44 of 82 shots from the floor (53.7 percent) and 16 of 30 from 3-point range (53.3 percent). Cauley-Stein scored 18 points, and Buddy Hield added 17 for the Kings.
NOTES: The Magic played for the sixth time in nine nights as they began a three-game Western Conference trip. By the time they end the trip against Phoenix on Friday, they will have played nine times in 18 days. Orlando will get back-to-back days off at the end of the trip for the first time since January. ... G Buddy Hield played his 10th game as a King since being acquired from the New Orleans Pelicans at the deadline. He is averaging 14.2 points and shooting 51.5 percent, including 49 percent from 3-point range, in about 26 minutes a night. ... Magic G/F Evan Fournier told the Orlando Sentinel that the Kings' glory teams of the early 2000s inspired him as a youngster growing up in Paris. Current Sacramento GM Vlade Divac was a center on those clubs. ... Kings F Langston Galloway played for the first time since being acquired with Hield and G Tyreke Evans at the All-Star break. He scored six points in 22 minutes.