‘Great look’: Kings confident in their ability to bounce back in Game 5 against Warriors

It could have been a backbreaking defeat — the type of loss that kills confidence, derails a playoff run, or pushes a young, inexperienced team off its axis.

“We’re fine,” De’Aaron Fox said after the Kings lost to the Golden State Warriors 126-125 in Sunday afternoon’s Game 4.

Added Malik Monk: “We’ll see them again at our place.”

The first-round playoff series, of course, is tied at 2-2. The difference between Sacramento taking a commanding 3-1 lead versus it becoming a best-of-three was a shot that went a touch long from Harrison Barnes as time expired.

“(It was) a great look,” Barnes said afterwards. “Wide open, process was good. Fox obviously trusts me to take that shot. And I back-rimmed it. So, on to the next, but confident where we are and what we have going.”

The game inside an edgy Chase Center came down to the final 10.5 seconds when Kings coach Mike Brown called a timeout after Stephen Curry, who finished 32 points, missed a mid-range push shot that would have extended Golden State’s lead to three. It set up Sacramento with a chance at its bread and butter: Fox in a late-game situation.

Fox led the NBA in clutch scoring by a wide margin to earn the NBA’s first-ever Clutch Player of the Year award. He took the ball at midcourt and had a pick-and-roll set up with Barnes. Draymond Green was to Fox’s left guarding Barnes with Curry to his right.

Fox crossed over to his right to match up with Curry, but the ball momentarily slipped out of his hand, forcing him to backtrack. Curry overplayed Fox’s right side, leading him to drive back towards Green. Green had position to bother a midrange jumper, while Barnes was open at the left wing. Fox decided to give Barnes the open look — and it clanked off the back iron, going just inches too long.

“He got a great look,” Fox said. “I mean, it was just long. It wasn’t left, it wasn’t right. As a shooter, that’s the way you want to miss. And he had a good look. It was a good miss, so it is what it is. You move on.”

The vibe around the Kings? The way they responded after their 17-point loss in Game 3 to nearly stealing Game 4 is a positive going into Game 5 on Wednesday in Sacramento, where the Kings won the first two games of the series.

Keegan Murray broke his shooting slump and scored 23 points after coming in with 10 points over the first three games combined. Sacramento shot 40% from 3 after making just 27% in the three previous games. The Kings managed to get 12 more shot attempts than Golden State thanks to winning the turnover battle 12-10 while getting 12 offensive rebounds, leading to an 18-11 advantage in second-chance points.

“I thought our guys came out with purpose tonight and gave ourselves a chance to win,” Brown said afterwards. “That’s all you can ask for come playoff time. We made some tiny mistakes, especially in the fourth quarter.”

Said Barnes: “We’re motivated. Coming into Game 3, I don’t think we had the physical approach we wanted to, playing on the road, being up 2-0. Obviously, tonight we battled. We made some mistakes here and there, but overall it was the effort we wanted and we had the opportunity to win it. So for us going into Game 5, our focus is just keeping it play by play.”

Brown said he thought playoff inexperience plagued his team down the stretch. He noted his players too often went under screens when guarding Curry and Klay Thompson (26 points, plus-22 in 39 minutes) allowing them to get too comfortable on 3-point shots. Curry and Thompson combined to go 9 of 20 (.450) from long range.

Brown also said he thought his team did too much complaining after attacking the rim, where they often found multiple defenders, causing them to be steps slow going the other way defensively. The Warriors scored 17 fastbreak points.

“We’re going to keep playing fast,” Brown said. “But all of our guys are driving into two, sometimes three guys in transition and begging for a call. We can’t continue to do that. It’s a great learning experience for our guys to be able to see because we wasted a ton of possessions in transition, driving, just throwing up some crazy stuff.

“Space the floor,” Brown continued. “If we miss a wide-open 3, that is way better than driving and throwing up some crazy stuff. Because at the end of the day ... you’re going to have knock these guys out. You can’t rely on the referee. Because if I’m a referee, the shots we’re taking at the rim in transition, I ain’t calling it either, because you’re begging for a foul. You can’t drive to the rim and beg for a foul every single possession. And then they run it back at us because they have a numbers advantage. We gotta play the right way, and when we’re playing fast — we didn’t do a good job of that, especially in the second half.”

The Kings took a Warriors-like haymaker in the third quarter when they were outscored 37-23, losing the four-point lead they took into halftime. Sacramento responded by scoring the first seven points in the fourth quarter, cutting a 10-point deficit to three, and finished the fourth with a 33-24 advantage in the frame.

“Obviously, it’s a game of runs, but we had just too many mental lapses to where we couldn’t get over the hump,” Fox said. “This is the defending champs and they made us pay.”

For Barnes, it wasn’t his first missed shot in a big moment involving the Warriors. He made just 3 of 15 3-pointers over the final three games of the 2016 NBA Finals when Golden State blew a 3-1 lead to the Cavaliers. And because of it, he didn’t sound like he would hold onto his miss at the end of Sunday’s game.

“After you learn to put yourself together after 2016, I think one shot is not going to necessarily faze you,” Barnes said. “For me, it’s all about trusting process. We got a good look (but) we missed it.”