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Kings mentally outlast Bucks in fiery win, end decade-long drought in Milwaukee

Kings mentally outlast Bucks in fiery win, end decade-long drought in Milwaukee originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

It wasn’t pretty, but the Kings, after a fiery 48 minutes, put an end to a decade-long drought in Milwaukee. 

Yes, you read that right. 

Behind star Zach LaVine’s fifth 30-plus-point game of a young 2025-26 NBA season, the Kings, for the first time since 2015, pulled off a 135-133 win over the Bucks on Saturday at Fiserv Forum.

Sacramento’s chances looked bleak early on after giving up a 15-2 lead to open the game. But, in an intriguing turn of events with less than six minutes in the first quarter, Bucks forward Bobby Portis, visibly upset over the previous possession, shoved Kings star Domantas Sabonis in the back.

Not only would the altercation foreshadow the physical game that was to come, but it would also light a fire under the same Kings team that gave up 47 points in the first 12 minutes.

“Yeah, we like that. At the end of the day, you guys know how I play,” Kings guard Dennis Schröder told reporters. “That’s just motivation. I think that brought us more together. 

“Russell [Westbrook] having Domas’ back right away, making sure he’s right there. I think that shows that we want to become a team, and we’re getting there. I was really happy. I was on the bench. At that time, I couldn’t get on the floor because I would’ve gotten a suspension. But Russell had his back, and I think it fueled us.”

Even though Bucks coach Doc Rivers admitted that the disruption on the floor started well before Portis’ exchange with Sabonis, he did acknowledge the energy shift it caused.

“The emotional, I agree with you, it definitely changed when Sabonis and Bobby, right,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers told reporters. “But I thought it even started before then …”

“… Again, I’ve always said that I’m fine with all the talking as long as you can play still. If you can’t then we got to keep our focus.” 

The tension carried over into the second half, with Bucks’ Gary Trent Jr. picking up a technical foul in the third quarter and Cole Anthony being ejected with less than 11 minutes to play in the fourth quarter. 

Ultimately, the Bucks failed to keep their focus, making way for the Kings’ core to find their groove despite Milwaukee shooting 59.8 percent from the floor.

Sabonis put up 24 points, 13 rebounds and six assists, while Schröder notched up 24 points, five rebounds and seven assists. Westbrook, who started on the bench, posted 12 points and a season-high 10 assists.

On Saturday, the Kings won the mental game, snapped a three-game losing streak and, most importantly, waved a decade-long drought goodbye.

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What we learned as Warriors' fourth-quarter collapse hands Pacers first win

What we learned as Warriors' fourth-quarter collapse hands Pacers first win originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Salt meet wound. 

After losing to the Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Milwaukee Bucks, the Warriors fell 114-109 against the previously winless Indiana Pacers on Saturday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. 

The Pacers weren’t only without Tyrese Haliburton, but also a plethora of others. They didn’t have Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin, Bennedict Mathurin and TJ McConnell. And it didn’t matter. 

Pascal Siakam and Aaron Nesmith combined to score 58 points, and they were joined by Quenton Jackson, who is on a two-way contract, scoring 25 points with 10 assists. 

Steph Curry scored an ugly team-high 24 points. Curry was a minus-21, and the Warriors were better with him on the bench. 

Jimmy Butler did a bit of everything, scoring 20 points with six rebounds, seven assists, three steals and two blocks. Jonathan Kuminga provided 17 points and Brandin Podziemski scored 16. But the desperate Pacers were the hungrier team. 

Though the Warriors cut their turnovers from 22 the previous game to 16 on Saturday, they still allowed the Pacers to score 17 free points. A number of live-ball turnovers hurt the Warriors. So did the Warriors fouling eight more times than the Pacers and shooting a lowly 27.3 percent from three, going 12 of 44.

Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ first losing streak of the 2025-26 NBA season.

Steph Struggles

As Curry struggled to find his shot and the Warriors were on the verge of losing to the winless Pacers, coach Steve Kerr called timeout and his biggest star took a seat halfway through the third quarter. The Warriors trailed 73-67 at time, and then were ahead by 10 when he came back in with six and a half minutes left in the fourth.

Kerr wasn’t going to let Curry keep watching from the bench, but maybe he should have. 

Curry played the final six minutes and 26 seconds of the fourth quarter and was a minus-13. In his six-plus minutes of the fourth, Curry scored six points while making only two of his seven shot attempts, including 1 of 5 on threes and even a missed free throw. Curry failed to grab a single rebound and only had two assists as he turned the ball over five times for his second consecutive game. 

The game’s greatest shooter was 8 of 23 from the field and 4 of 16 behind the 3-point line. Trying to get past the Pacers’ pressure-filled defense, Curry looked his age and will have to regroup for Tuesday’s game back at Chase Center against the Phoenix Suns.

The Siakam & Nesmith Show

Already down their biggest star, Tyrese Haliburton, the Pacers also were without a handful of other key figures against the Warriors like Bennedict Mathurin, Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin, TJ McConnell and more. The stage was set for Siakam to be a star, and the Warriors were searching for answers early on. 

Siakam scored 10 points on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting in the first quarter while doing work to the Warriors’ makeshift zone defense. All of Siakam’s five shots were around the rim, with his furthest being an 11-foot floater. He then opened the second quarter making a 16-foot jump shot before finally missing a shot, which was his first 3-point attempt of the night. That’s when Nesmith joined the party for the Pacers. 

Nesmith scored six points in the first quarter and then really got going in the second, making two two-pointers, two 3-pointers and two free throws for 12 points. By halftime, he was the Pacers’ leading scorer with 18 points and Siakam was right behind at 16. The rest of the Pacers scored 19 points in the first half.

Jackson joined the party in the second half, but Siakam and Nesmith never slowed down. Siakam found his sweet spots around the paint — and hit a dagger three with 37 seconds left. Siakam scored 27 points on 12-of-23 shooting. The game, however, belonged to Nesmith. He went from averaging 11 points this season to scoring a career-high 31. Nesmith made five threes the previous two games combined and then made five on the Warriors.

Cleared For Takeoff

What’s the fastest path from Point A to Point B? A Kuminga dunk, apparently. 

Sit back and pick your jaw off the floor. 

Kuminga threw down a grand total of five dunks. He missed consistently from the mid-range and was 1 of 3 beyond the arc. What he did do was power his way to the rim. 

On multiple occasions, Kuminga has said he won’t participate in the Slam Dunk Contest. In losing fashion, he showed how his in-game leaping ability can be such a weapon when the Warriors’ offense goes flat.

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Injuries keep piling up for Pacers: Obi Toppin out months following foot surgery

On the bright side, Obi Toppin will have plenty of time to get over the strained hamstring that already had him on the sidelines.

Toppin has "a partial stress fracture of the fifth metatarsal in his right foot," and will undergo surgery to repair it, the Pacers announced. When asked about it, coach Rick Carlisle said not to ask about it again until Feb. 1, suggesting he will miss at least three months (that timeline matches up with the average recovery time from this surgery for NBA players).

This is what is known as a Jones fracture, and it's relatively common in the NBA. Players who have had it include Kevin Durant and, currently, Max Struss of the Heat.

The list of injuries for Indiana is long: Tyrese Haliburton (Achilles tear, out for season), T.J. McConnell (hamstring), Andrew Nembhard (shoulder), Bennedict Mathurin (big toe), Kam Jones (lower back stress reaction), and Johnny Furphy (foot). Now, Toppin is on that list for an extended amount of time.

Because of all the injuries, the league has granted a hardship exception to the Pacers five games into the season, and they are expected to use it to sign forward Jeremiah Robinson-Earl to a 10-day hardship exception contract, Shams Charania reports at ESPN.

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Frustrated Ja Morant on his and team's early-season struggles, 'Go ask the coaching staff'

Ja Morant is frustrated.

He scored just eight points on 3-of-14 shooting in a loss to the Lakers on Halloween night, but his responses to questions postgame show just how bad the vibes have gotten in Memphis. After the game, Morant threw the coaching staff under the bus when speaking to reporters. Check out this exchange (via Lopo on X).

Reporter: "What went wrong for you today?"

"Go ask the coaching staff," Morant responded.

Reporter: "From the outside... it didn't feel like you had your usual energy tonight."

"Go ask the coaching staff why," Morant replied.

Reporter: "What could have been done differently, other than asking the coaching staff?"

"According to them, probably don't play me, honestly," Morant said. "That's basically what the message was. It's cool."

It's clearly not cool. Morant spoke in the locker room at the same time as coach Tuomas Iisalo, so he was not asked about Morant's comments. Iisalo was hired at the end of last season after coach Taylor Jenkins was fired, in part because he moved away from Morant's preferred pick-and-roll to an offense of cuts and player rotations (a less extreme version of what Miami is running this season). After trading away Desmond Bane this offseason, the expectation was that more of the offense would be run through Morant this season, but he is averaging 28.5 minutes a game (the fewest of his career), although the 75.8 touches he is getting a game is up from the 67.7 a game he got last season (and very close to the 77.8 and 77 a game he got his All-Star seasons).

It wasn't just the reporter in the locker room who noticed Morant's low energy while hounded by Marcus Smart all night, Blake Griffin called Morant out on the NBA on Prime broadcast:

"This is a guy who is insanely talented. Speed is his No. 1 weapon, and coming off a ball screen, passing the ball like this, kind of lazily cutting to the corner, that's just not what's gonna get it done for Memphis... For a guy that's making $40 million and needs to be the leader of this team, I just don't love it. I don't know if he was not feeling well, if he's hurt, but that to me is a very bad sign and something that has to change."

Something has to change. Things in Memphis are not good, although it's not a disaster. Yet. The Grizzlies are 3-3 with a bottom-10 offense in the league (and a -3 net rating overall). Memphis has gone a long way down the Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. path, and if things continue like this, the front office is going to need to conduct a serious assessment of what should come next.

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Gonzaga coach Mark Few seeks to return the No. 21 Bulldogs to national title contention

Coach Mark Few wants to return No. 21 Gonzaga to the list of national title contenders, and he's assembled a loaded team to get there. Gonzaga went 26-9 last season, and finished 14-4 in the West Coast Conference, losing the regular-season title to archrival Saint Mary's. The Zags lost to top-seeded Houston in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the first time since 2012 they did not advance to the second weekend.

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Significant graduation losses challenge Marquette in its quest for 5th straight NCAA Tournament bid

Coach Shaka Smart has led the Golden Eagles to the NCAA Tournament each of his four seasons by relying on an old-school strategy for this era. Smart used the transfer portal to rebuild Marquette's roster immediately after his arrival, but he hasn't added a Division I transfer since and instead has relied on developing players already on his roster. Marquette must replace its top three scorers — including Associated Press All-America second-team selection Kam Jones — from the team that lost to New Mexico in the first round of last season's NCAA Tournament.