The Wizards need to control the pace and come out way stronger than they did against the Nuggets on Monday.
Game info
When: Wednesday, December 15 at 10:00 p.m. ET
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, California
How to watch: NBC Sports Washington
How to listen: The Team 980 AM, 106.7-2 FM
Injury Report
Wizards: Rui Hachimura (Non-injury related, Out); Thomas Bryant (Knee, Out); Kyle Kuzma (Coronavirus protocols, Out)
Kings: Richaun Holmes (Eye, Out)
Pregame notes
The Washington Wizards’s next stop on their 6-game road trip is Sacramento. It will be the first time both teams match up this season and the Wizards will look to snap its two game losing streak.
Washington (15-13) is coming off a 113-107 loss to the Denver Nuggets. After being down by as much as 33 points in the third quarter, the Wizards were able to rally and cut Denver’s lead significantly. It also helped that Nikola Jokic was ejected with just over six minutes left to play. Up until then, the Wizards had no answer for the 2021 MVP, who finished the night early with 29 points, 17 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals and 1 block. He even out rebounded the Wizards all by himself in the first quarter. Davis Bertans led the Wizards with 21 points, going 5-for-9 from beyond the arc. Beal followed with 19 points on 19 shot attempts and 10 assists. Aaron Holiday had an impressive game with 18 in 15 points. Holiday made 75 percent of his field goal attempts. Overall, the Wizards ended the night shooting 45.6 percent as a team. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope finished the night with 13 points after going 5-for-16 from the field. Montrezl Harrell made 4-out-of-7 shots while Spencer Dinwiddie made only 3-out-of-8. From there it didn’t really get much better.
The Kings are currently 11-17 and ranked 11th in western conference standings. They are coming off a loss against the Toronto Raptors and have lost their last 3 games on the road. De’Aaron Fox led his team with 29 points and the Kings bench scored 50 points collectively. Fox is Sacramento’s leading scorer with 21 points per game followed by Harrison Barnes, who is averaging 17.4 points per game. Sacramento will look to run the ball as they are 6th in their conference with 13.2 fast break points per game led by Buddy Hield averaging 2.5.
The Wizards had a day in between games and are hopefully adjusted to their new time zone. They’ll have to focus on controlling the pace, shoot the ball much better than they did on Monday and be more aggressive so that they don’t dig themselves into a hole like they did against the Nuggets.