Stars, studs and duds: Kings ‘totally outplayed' Celtics

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Being mentioned in the same breath as Cleveland, Golden State and Toronto is a good thing, right?

Not when it comes to the Sacramento Kings who are a bad team that plays their best against the best, evident by them knocking off three aforementioned teams.

“That was probably our worst loss of the season,” said Boston’s Isaiah Thomas.

You can now add the Boston Celtics to the list after Sacramento defeated them 108-92 on Wednesday night.

Boston led by as many as 10 points in the first quarter, but from there … things changed dramatically.

“From the second quarter on, they were just the better team,” Celtics head coach Brad Stevens told reporters following the loss.

Making the loss even more disheartening for the Celtics was that the Kings won despite not having three-time all-star DeMarcus Cousins who was suspended without pay after picking up his 16th technical foul which comes with an automatic one-game suspension.

But the Celtics refused to buy into the notion that they took the Kings lightly with Cousins out, even though their play certainly looked that way.

“You hate to talk about that, but you have to give them credit,” Boston’s Al Horford told reporters. “They’re professional. They stepped up and totally outplayed us tonight.”

Marcus Smart added, ‘we knew these guys would come out just as good without him. They out-efforted us tonight.”

And when that happens, results such as Wednesday’s 16-point loss are bound to happen.

“We didn’t play our game,” said Boston’s Isaiah Thomas. “We didn’t play hard. They played harder than us on both ends. It showed. Like I said, they punked us; they 100 percent punked us.

Thomas added, “If we want to be the team we want to be, we can’t have nights like this, a team that might not even make the playoffs.”

Here are the Stars, Studs and Duds from Wednesday night’s game.

 

STARS

Darren Collison

It has been a while since a non-established superstar has been able to go toe-to-toe with Isaiah Thomas, but that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday. Collison had 26 points on 12-for-21 shooting to go with five assists and four steals.

Isaiah Thomas

His 26 points scored was one of the weaker performances we have seen from him in a while. Thomas also led the Celtics with seven assists.

 

STUDS

Matt Barnes

His energy and work around the boards was a major factor in the game’s outcome. He finished with a double-double of 14 points and 11 rebounds with four assists.

Amir Johnson

Isaiah Thomas didn’t get much help other than Johnson’s play tonight. He finished with 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting, with five rebounds and three steals.

Ben McLemore

A streaky shooter, McLemore got into a rhythm and never cooled off. He had 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting which included 3-for-5 on 3’s.

 

DUDS

Celtics defense

Bigs. Smalls. It didn’t matter. Boston’s defense as a group played poorly, showing an inability to slow down Sacramento’s guards in addition to doing a poor job of keeping the Kings off the glass in the second half.

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