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It wasn't pretty but the Kings avoided disaster and finished off their five game homestand with a 101-92 win over the visiting Utah Jazz to move to 11-10 and hand Utah their 9th straight loss. Rudy Gay led all scorers with 29 points in the victory.
The Kings looked like they might lose their second game in row to a below .500 team for a while, falling down by 8 early on in the first quarter. They were able to make up the deficit thanks to some horrendous Jazz shooting, which fell off by a lot after the first quarter. After allowing 31 points in that quarter, Utah would only go on to score 61 over the following three quarters. The Jazz ended up shooting just 40.5% from the field and 3-17 from three. Meanwhile Sacramento made 47.3% of their shots and also made 3 threes but on just 8 attempts.
Sacramento was buoyed by the arrival of Nik Stauskas. Stauskas, who has struggled immensely in the early season, scored a career-high 15 points on 6 of 12 shooting to go with 8 rebounds in 30 minutes. He looked aggressive early and kept shooting even after missing his first couple shots. Hopefully it was the confidence boost he needed going forward.
Utah had five players in double digits, led by Gordon Hayward's 19 points. Alec Burks came back from injury early to score 16 points on 11 shots.
The Kings will now look to make it two in a row when they visit the Lakers tomorrow.
