Kings’ Sabonis joins elite list with 20th triple-double of the season
Few men in NBA history have done what Kings center Domantas Sabonis is doing this season.
Sabonis posted his league-leading 20th triple-double of the season with 17 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists, helping the Kings beat the Los Angeles Clippers 123-107 on Sunday before a capacity crowd of 19,370 at Crypto.com Arena.
Sabonis became the sixth player in NBA history to record 20 or more triple-doubles in a single season, joining Oscar Robertson, Russell Westbrook, Wilt Chamberlain, Nikola Jokic and James Harden. Sabonis also extended his double-double streak to 39 games, giving him a league-high 52 on the season.
“This is Domas’ 20th triple-double of the year,” Kings coach Mike Brown said while looking at the list of players who have accomplished that feat. “Guys, there’s only one, two, three, four, five other players in a season, and these are all Hall of Famers. … The sad part about it is this man didn’t even get an All-Star bid and he’s one of six in the history – not this season, in the history of the game.”
De’Aaron Fox had 33 points, six rebounds, seven assists and three steals for the Kings (3323), who moved up to fifth in the Western Conference with the win, percentage points ahead of the Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans. Fox also had eight deflections in what teammate Harrison Barnes called one of the best defensive efforts of his career.
“I know for me to be the player I want to be and my coaches think I can be, and for us to be the team we want to be, it starts on the defensive end,” Fox said. “And just being that first guy, being at that point of attack, picking up, those are things you ask your quote-unquote defender to do or your backup or someone coming off the bench to do, but I want to be one of those guys who can get it done on the offensive end and also do those types of things on the defensive end.”
Barnes scored 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Kevin Huerter added 15 points, going 6 of 10 from the field and 3 of 6 from 3-point range.
“I thought a big thing for us tonight was just our pace and our physicality,” Barnes said. “We talked about that during
this last stretch. We feel like if we play our style of basketball, we’ll be in a lot of these games.”
Norman Powell scored 21 points to lead the Clippers (37-19). Harden had 20 points on 4-of-13 shooting with five rebounds and eight assists. Kawhi Leonard had 20 points on 7-of-18 shooting.
The Clippers shot 48.8% from the field, but they went 8 of 27 (.296) from 3-point range and committed 16 turnovers, allowing the Kings to amass a 25-16 advantage in points off turnovers.
“We always talk about bringing a level of physicality to the game and I thought our guys brought that level of physicality while leading with their chests,” Brown said. “And this is probably one of the games that we did it for as close to 48 minutes as possible. I thought our guys were really, really good on the defensive end of the floor.