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SACRAMENTO — De'Aaron Fox is having a weekend.
The Sacramento Kings guard scored 60 points on Friday and followed it up with 49 more on Saturday. That's 109 combined points in just over 24 hours … pretty decent.
His final two free throws sealed the deal in the Kings' 121-117 win over the Utah Jazz Saturday at the Golden 1 Center.
With Sacramento without Domantas Sabonis (lower back), DeMar DeRozan (back) and Malik Monk (ankle), the bulk of the offense fell to the speedy point guard. He went 16-of-30 from the field and finished with nine assists.
Still, the Jazz were in a position to spoil his big night.
Utah led by as many as 9 points in the fourth quarter and was up by 3 with 1:54 remaining. The Jazz, though, could only muster up 1 point the rest of the way. In the final minutes, Utah was plagued by missed shots, turnovers, and reviews that didn't go its way.
Sacramento coach Mike Brown won back-to-back challenges in the final minute that helped get the Kings over the finish line.
The first changed a jump ball to a foul on Collin Sexton; the second changed an out-of-bounds call from Utah's possession to Sacramento's. In the end, the calls only led to 1 additional point, but that point loomed large when the Kings could play the foul game up by 3 on Utah's final possessions.
"There were some execution things that hurt us; and then there were also moments where, there's no other way to say it, other than, like, gotta grab the ball," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "I feel like in the second half, we had five or six rebounds that almost hit us in the forehead."
Lauri Markkanen had 25 points on 6-of-8 from the field, including 4-of-6 from behind the 3-point line. He went to the free-throw line 10 times, which was a team-wide trend with Utah shooting 42 free throws.
Keyonte George added 19 points, and Collin Sexton finished with 18 in the loss for Utah.
Kyle Filipowski had 9 points — including a highlight-reel driving dunk over Alex Len — and seven rebounds in 28 minutes. Isaiah Collier added 9 points and two assists. Fellow rookie Cody Williams played just 11 minutes.
KYLE FILIPOWSKI THROWS DOWN A MONSTER DUNK 😤pic.twitter.com/4DOhEfDVvm
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) November 17, 2024
The Jazz used a 10-0 run early in the third quarter to take a lead it would hold for much of the second half. Fox's jumper with 2:46 left gave the Kings their first lead of the final frame.
"The third quarter we came out and played with a little bit of an edge after surviving kind of a fast-paced first half," Hardy said. "At the end of the third quarter, I thought our execution just sort of evaporated."
That is to be expected from a team playing a lot of youth, but you may have anticipated the ending being bit stronger.
Utah closed with Markkanen, Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, John Collins and Keyonte George. That's four veterans and a second-year guard who got a lot of experience last season.
"I think it was just careless mistakes, not by one person, but like random stuff happening," Markkanen said.
He pointed to a missed rebound in the final minute when the ball bounced off his hand and out of bounds, and when Utah lost the ball by slipping on a wet spot on the floor.
Throw in a botched layup attempt by Collins with 18 seconds remaining and a near-disaster inbound play with under 10 seconds to go and you'll have plenty of reasons of why Utah didn't leave Sacramento with a win.
"It definitely hurts to let this one go," he said. "We were up in the game, and for the most part, we've fought really well; and a lot of times we executed. I thought we could have won this one, but that's the NBA."
