NBA: Washington Wizards vs Sacramento Kings Preview, Odds, Prediction

It appears that the Sacramento Kings are about to experience another frustrating season and extend their playoff drought. If they don’t come up with some radical improvement in the next few days, Luke Walton’s crew will stay outside the play-in tournament zone, and officially lose any prospects for the postseason. On the other side, the Washington Wizards are slowly getting near 10th place, the last one that leads to the play-in, and are just two points away from the Bulls, who currently occupy that position. The franchise from DC looks much better recently, and even though they don’t have the needed consistency to make some notable winning stretch, the improvement in their performances is obvious.

Preview

Washington Wizards (20-33, -115) won three in the past four, noting that all of them took place on the road. The first two were in Florida against the Orlando Magic and San Francisco, where they defeated the Warriors. After that came the loss in Phoenix vs Suns, before one of the biggest surprises following an All-Star break, which is a win in Salt Lake City, over Utah Jazz, 125-121.

The Wizards had a superb second period, during which they outscored the home team, 37-23. Even though the guests had to save their lives in the end, everything turned out well for them, beating the league-leading crew.

Russell Westbrook had a triple-double, 25 points, and 14 boards and assists each. The No.1 scorer in the league, Bradley Beal, added 34 buckets, a team-high, while Daniel Gafford scored 15 off the bench. Washington scored just nine threes in this contest.

Sacramento Kings (22-32, -105) have seven losses in a row. This is arguably the worst moment of the campaign for one playoff candidate to start playing badly, and that is exactly what the Kings have been doing over the past few weeks.

Defeats were piling up, one after another. It all started in San Antonio against the Spurs, then extended at home against the Lakers and the Bucks, on the road in Minnesota, then at home against the Pistons, before the most recent two failures in Salt Lake City and New Orleans.

Even though De’Aaron Fox dropped 43 points in the Big Easy, that didn’t save the Kings from losing against the Pelicans, 117-110. Sacramento was heavily outrebounded in this clash, 51-34, and believe it or not, Richaun Holmes had zero points in 16 minutes.

Head to Head Games

The Kings triumphed in Washington on March 17th, 121-119. fox scored 28 points, Barnes and Holmes had 18 each. Beal added 29 for the hosts and Westbrook 26 with 14 rebounds and 10 assists for the home team.

Prediction

At this particular moment, the Wizards are in better shape, and we expect them to win this match. Even though this might be a clash of two similar teams when looking at the standings and the overall record, the current is what separates these units. On one side, the Kings are terrible, with seven defeats in a row, while Wizards come to town with high spirits after a win over the NBA leaders. So it is worth taking a risk and betting on their victory.