Portland Trail Blazers vs. Sacramento Kings: Injuries, How to Watch

The Portland Trail Blazers have been in a real “rabbit season, duck season” situation with the play-in. In a tortured analogy that would have Joe Cronin and Chauncey Billups playing one of either Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck, the Blazers have been flirting with the 10th seed for weeks, either winning or losing large chunks of games at a time, juking and jiving whenever it seems certain they’re breaking one way of the other.

Since mid-January, Portland has win streaks of four, six, four, and four games with losing streaks of five, four, and five games.

Tonight’s contest may well and truly end the speculation.

Portland Trail Blazers (32-41, -3.0 Net Rating) vs. Sacramento Kings (35-37, +0.4 Net Rating)

Thu. March 27 @ 7pm Pacific

How to watch via antenna or cable: See your options on the Rip City Television Network

How to watch via streaming: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; NBA TV elsewhere (also available on streaming via NBA TV on League Pass)

Trail Blazers injuries: Toumani Camara (questionable); Jerami Grant (doubtful); Robert Williams III, Deandre Ayton, Bryce McGowens (out).

Kings injuries: Jake LaRavia, Devin Carter (questionable); Malik Monk (out).

The 35-37 Kings are 3.5 games ahead of the Blazers for the final play-in spot with nine games to play, and the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks also stand in their way by three games. Passing one of those teams would be tough; passing all three seems very unlikely. The Blazers going on a weird heater out of nowhere would be perfectly in character for this season, but tonight’s game feels like the moment when Elmer Fudd (who I guess represents the collective basketball deities deciding the fate of a given franchise) finally commits to where he points his cartoon hunting rifle.

Last Time They Played…

…Portland extended their early February win streak to six, and Portland survived 15 fourth-quarter DeMar DeRozan points and got the 108-102 win.

Reader Questions

Before most games, we ask you all to make our previews better by asking us questions! Keep your eyes peeled for posts just like this to add your questions and (possibly) have them answered right here in these very previews!

From BlazersTom:

One of the main concerns raised about Scoot is that he currently can’t do anything at an above-average NBA level, or doesn’t seem to have an elite NBA skill. Based on this, I have a question: In five years, someone tells you Scoot developed into having two above average/bordering on elite NBA skills. What two skills would you bet on right now?

You gave two answers of your own (getting to the line and creating open shots for his teammates). One of my answers is related, in that I think he can learn to use his athleticism to get into the paint at will. This would include blowing by people, but more important using changes of speed and direction to get an advantage and then use his body to seal off his defender and make time slow down for him as he considers what to do next. The second one is a bit of wishful thinking, but can’t we see this guy being a really good defender? He’s athletic. He tries (usually). And I think with more reps and maybe a concerted focus during the summer on some of the dark arts of guarding NBA players, we could see this start to show up more in year 3.

From pokermonk:

The Kings appear to be a cautionary tale of the thin margins in NBA team-building. They had a great anomaly of a season, made some moves they probably wouldn’t have (signing DeRozan, preferring to further hedge on offense while neglecting their defense) and now it looks like it all came crashing down.

What can the Blazers learn from that? And can we agree that if things go amazingly above expectations next year they shouldn’t go sign a Beal or someone similar and just trust (not the process…) the young group that overachieved?

The Blazers made this mistake in somewhat recent history, mistaking a feisty post-LMA season as proof of contender concept and giving over $180M (and this in a much smaller cap environment!) to Evan Turner, Allen Crabbe, and Meyers Leonard. Yowza.

While Neil Olshey was in charge at the time, Joe Cronin was on staff. And you would hope the institutional memory of those mistakes wouldn’t be lost on him. That said, the decisions made by the Blazers franchise may be up to someone else, and that someone else may not have the best judgement in the world. So, no: the Blazers shouldn’t think the cake is mixed and ready to bake when they’re still missing the flour.

From The Ghost of Petteri Koponen:

Do Kris and Keegan have tattoos or other clearly noticeable differences in their looks? How long would it take for someone to notice if they’d switch places for a game?

I honestly wish they would do this once, keep it quiet, then years later admit they did it and see what the NBA did. I’m sure there’s some bylaw about impersonating players in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, but it would be super worth it.

About the Opponent:

Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee wrote about Kings coach Doug Christie responding to “the vibe is not good” comments from Kings wing Zach LaVine following a recent loss:

No one in Sacramento is satisfied after watching the Kings lose four in a row and eight of their last 10, but [Kings coach Doug] Christie was quick to respond when asked about LaVine’s remarks before Tuesday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. “He was incorrect,” Christie said. “I think when you ask a question like that when you go through a little bit of a losing streak, it’s more about not being happy that you lost, like I’m upset that I lost. “But when I addressed them upstairs, everybody sat down, and the first thing I said was I’m happy to see that your vibe was right because I was about to say something, but their vibe was spectacular, and that’s how it’s always been.”

“I don’t think it’s bad,” [Kings forward Kris] Murray said. “It’s obviously not a great stretch to be in, especially with the teams that we just played and we still have to play. If you have a bad locker room, that’s not a good sign for the rest of the season. I think everyone’s still connected together, so I’m not worried about the vibe in the locker room.”