Getty De'Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings and Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors.
On Friday night, the Golden State Warriors fumbled. With a chance to close out the series at Chase Center, they got absolutely blown out of the water by the Sacramento Kings in Game 6. It was a complete disaster of a game for the Warriors.
De’Aaron Fox and the Kings lit up the Warriors, beating them 118-99. Fox led the way for the Kings, dropping 26 points and 11 assists. After the game, he talked about how great the Kings played, name-dropping Stephen Curry in the process.
“It was huge, especially when you’re playing on the road,” Fox said of the Kings winning in the margin. “Those are the things that you really want to be able to win. Obviously, we can’t expect Steph to miss three free throws, and Jordan [Poole] to miss two free throws. I mean, those are two of the best free-throw shooters in the league. But I think that the only critique that I really have about our game is my turnovers tonight and them shooting 35 free throws. Other than that, I feel like we basically played a perfect game.”
Curry put up solid numbers, but his efficiency from the field wasn’t great. He finished the night with 29 points, four rebounds, five assists, two steals, and one block. However, he shot just 9-of-21 overall. (But he did shoot 5-of-12 from deep.)
Fox also spoke about how the Kings were able to limit the Warriors’ three-point shooting–outside of Curry, of course.
“Holding them to 31% from three,” Fox said. “Obviously, Steph still shoots over 40%, but I don’t know how often you can really keep him under that. But other than that, I feel like limiting other guys, we did a good job at that tonight.”
Warriors’ Stephen Curry Praises Malik Monk
Meanwhile, after the game, Curry had some high praise for Kings guard Malik Monk. Fox was the top option for Sacramento, but Monk led the team in scoring with 28 points off the pine.
“He’s been an X-factor in their wins, and when we’ve contained him, I think most of those games, we’ve come out with the win,” Curry said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “Even in Game 5, he got hot a little bit down the stretch, but in the first half, we kind of kept him in check. So, it’s just a matter of locking in on his energy. He comes in, he plays aggressive, [and] he loves to score. He was hitting his threes tonight. We kind of gave him to me open looks. So, you obviously have to key in on him. And the way that they mixed up their lineup, he’s featured a lot more. So, [we] got to make the adjustments.”
Warriors’ Kevon Looney Discusses Kings Tactics
Sacramento decided to roll out a small-ball lineup with Trey Lyles at center for large portions of the game. Kevon Looney spoke about how it affected the Warriors.
“I think it affected it some, just because it was kind of a new lineup that we haven’t seen this series,” Looney said via NBC Sports Bay Area. “We kind of had to make some adjustments [with] how we were going to guard it and guard the pick-n-roll. Different things like that. We had been playing a certain way the whole series. So, it took some adjustment. Some time to get used to. It’s something that we got to watch film and see how we want to execute better against the small lineup, but I think we can make the adjustments.”
