The Sacramento Kings seemed dead and buried when they lost in Game 5 to the Golden State Warriors but they then stunned the basketball world by winning Game 6.
The teams now face off in a do-or-die Game 7 and Charles Barkley is predicting the Kings will get the win and that they’d beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the next round too.
“The Sacramento Kings are going to the conference finals,” Barkley said.
https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1652514407568625670
Barkley has been very high on the Kings for a while now. He had guaranteed before the playoffs started that the Kings would win a series, whether it was against the Lakers or the Warriors. The Kings were seen as perhaps the easiest of the first-round matchups among the top four seeds but they have shown they are more than capable of holding their own in the playoffs.
You can’t stress enough how impressive that win on the road in Game 6 was, considering they were facing elimination in a building where the Warriors have been so dominant this season. It’s way too early to say that they will make the Conference Finals, but at this point, it won’t shock anyone if they do make it that far, based on their displays against Golden State.
Stephen Curry Picked Malik Monk As The X Factor On The Kings
While De’Aaron Fox has been fantastic for the Kings, averaging 29.3 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 8.0 APG, and 2.5 SPG in this series, some others have disappointed. Domantas Sabonis, Harrison Barnes, and Kevin Huerter have struggled so far, and while three starters playing poorly would be the death knell for most teams, the Kings have gotten an unexpected boost from Malik Monk off the bench.
Monk has upped his scoring average from 13.5 PPG in the regular season to 19.8 in this series. He had 32 points in their win in Game 1 and then 28 in Game 6. Stephen Curry called Monk the X factor for the Kings and said that whenever they have shut him down, they have won. Perhaps the Warriors will be keying in a bit more on Monk in Game 7, so it might be up to their three underperforming starters to finally step up to get this all-important win.
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