Luka, Mavs detonate Kings’ defensive groove in blowout fashion

Luka, Mavs detonate Kings’ defensive groove in blowout fashion originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

The Kings were playing their best defense of the 2023-24 NBA season during the month of March — until Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks came into town.

Aside from Dončić’s 26 first-half points in Sacramento’s 132-96 blowout loss to Dallas on Tuesday night at Golden 1 Center, the Kings did a relatively good job sticking to their scheme that had helped elevate their defense over the previous 13 games.

Until the second half.

The Kings’ recently successful defensive plot folded at the hands of the Mavericks, whose high-scoring offense lit them up with a 38-point third quarter. Dallas outscored Sacramento 38-23 in the third and 36-20 in the final frame.

“It’s definitely a step back,” Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox said after the loss. “Even if you take out their transition points, which I think they had 20-something transition points and 18 fast break points, it felt like more. But even if you take away that, we still lose this game in a lot of other areas.

“So as an all-around basketball game, I think in the second half we played horrible and I think it was one of our worst halves of the season.”

Before Tuesday’s game, the Kings ranked fourth (108.9) in defensive rating and first in allowing the fewest opponent fast break points, with just 9.8, in the month of March.

A big part in the defensive turnaround came from the impact of Kings guard Keon Ellis, whose uptick in minutes and opportunity paid dividends for Sacramento. But not even the Ellis Island effect worked against the Mavericks on Tuesday.

Kings coach Mike Brown took part of the blame, and he shared a matter-of-fact response to the pitiful defeat during his opening postgame statement.

“We got our behinds kicked, starting with me all the way down,” Brown said. “You’ve got to give Dallas credit. They actually played the way we like to play. They just kept the game simple.”

The way the Kings…