Kings coach Mike Brown after loss to Spurs: ‘If I’m another team, I’m targeting us, too’

Kings head coach Mike Brown has been his team’s most stern critic throughout the season.

He has called Sacramento’s league-leading offense “fool’s gold” if the defense doesn’t improve. He said it’s imperative for All-Stars De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis to hold their teammates accountable in ways that a coach can’t following a stirring nationally televised victory over the New York Knicks last month.

And after clinching the team’s first playoff berth in 16 seasons last week, Brown didn’t hold back on his team again Sunday following an ugly overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs.

“I don’t know what their mindset was individually coming into the game,” Brown said. “I imagine some of them thought that we were just gonna be able to show up and beat these guys — the win was just going to happen. And you know, maybe we need to get hit in the head a few times in order to respect the game, respect the process.”

The Spurs improved to 20-58 on the season and were missing a number of their regular rotation players, including Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell and Jeremy Sochan while it’s widely believed they are positioning themselves for a chance at generational prospect Victor Wembanyama in the NBA draft.

Yet the Kings during Sunday’s matinee struggled to slow San Antonio’s Doug McDermott (30 points), undrafted rookie Julian Champagnie (26 points) and point guard Tre Jones (17 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds).

Sacramento lost 142-123, learning another hard lesson about playing without intensity or physicality on the defensive end, even against lesser opponents.

“We didn’t come out as locked in as we should have to start the game,” Sabonis said. “They got going, and when a team like that gets going, it’s tough (for us) to turn it on later in the game.”

There’s been some talk of other teams preferring to play the Kings when the playoffs begin in two weeks. Warriors forward Draymond Green said in a recent podcast he would prefer to play Sacramento in Round 1, citing travel convenience, while ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst said in a recent podcast he believes the “Kings are the mark” for Western Conference rivals.

Collectively, Sacramento lacks experience having never been to the postseason as a group, while Harrison Barnes, Sabonis and Kevin Huerter are the only regular rotation players with substantial playoff history.

Teams could also want to play the Kings because of their struggles on the defensive side throughout the season, a topic which led Brown to say perhaps the most damning thing of his 12 minute, 25 second press conference following Sunday’s loss.

“If I’m another team, I’m targeting us, too,” Brown said. “And we’re the only ones that can change that narrative.”

The Kings are likely going to finish as the third seed in the Western Conference and are most likely to play the Golden State Warriors or Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs. Each team has a former Finals MVP in tow — Stephen Curry with the Warriors and Kawhi Leonard with the Clippers.

Brown was asked how the bad habits his team may have created in the regular season could harm them come playoff time.

“There’s a lack of physicality and sense of urgency that you have to bring to the table defensively every single possession,” he said. “Whether it’s allowing a guy to blow by you without touching him, coming off a screen without touching him, getting an offensive rebound without boxing out. Those types of things are what I worry about. I worry about doing it consistently.”

The Kings, of course, clinched their first playoff berth since 2006 last week in Portland and returned to Sacramento Sunday after a pair of games in the Pacific Northwest. They were greeted to a hero’s welcome at the airport early Saturday morning.

Among the issues for the Kings on Sunday, Fox cited allowing San Antonio 14 offensive rebounds leading to 20 points, letting the Spurs get to the line 32 times (they made 25), and allowing a handful of backdoor layups in the first quarter when the Kings fell behind by nine.

“We have to be able to get stops,” Fox said. “That’s where our season’s going to hang.”

A win over the Spurs would have meant gaining a game on the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies in the standings. Instead, the Kings remained two games back with four remaining, and became less likely to have homecourt advantage in the second round should they advance beyond the first.

That could mean having to open a second-round series on the road and potentially playing a Game 7 away from Golden 1 Center. At which point the Kings might look back at some of their losses at home against inferior opponents — teams like the Charlotte Hornets, Washington Wizards and Spurs — and wonder what could have been.

“There’s four games left,” Sabonis said. “We have to sharpen things up.”

Next up for the Kings is a back-to-back Tuesday and Wednesday against the New Orleans Pelicans and Dallas Mavericks. Their home finale is Friday against the Warriors before the regular season ends April 9 on the road against the Denver Nuggets.