Sacramento advanced into the quarterfinals of the Las Vegas Summer League tournament on Thursday, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 100 to 86.
Ben McLemore followed up an 18 point effort on Tuesday with a team-high 22 points on 7-11 shooting (2-4 from three) to go along with 6 rebounds, 4 assists, a steal and a block in 31 minutes. Quincy Acy had 15 points and 7 rebounds and Marshon Brooks added 19 points off the bench.
Rookie Nik Stauskas didn't see many offensive touches in his 24 minutes of action, with all three of his Field Goal Attempts coming in the first half. He finished with just 4 points on 1-3 shooting but he still managed to make an impact by dishing out 5 assists to just 1 turnover. Ray McCallum also had 5 assists to go along with his 13 points.
Sacramento shot a phenomenal 60% from the field for the game and also did another good job on the other side of the ball, holding Minnesota to just 41.4%. Minnesota was able to get a lot of second chances thanks to their big men Gorgui Dieng and Kyrylo Fesenko, who together combined for 11 of Minnesota's 16 offensive rebounds. The Wolves only had 11 defensive rebounds however since they couldn't stop the Kings from scoring.
Derrick Williams was not with the team today, leading to some speculation that he was being held out as Josh Smith rumors have heated up. Alex Oriakhi, whose draft rights were acquired in the Isaiah Thomas sign-and-trade, started in his place.
The Kings will play the winner of Philadelphia and Chicago on Saturday.
UPDATE 5:30 PM
Apparently Williams was only ever going to play 3 games according to Malone
Michael Malone said plan all along was for Derrick Williams to play only 3 summer league games. His not playing not related to trade rumors
— Jason Jones (@mr_jasonjones) July 17, 2014