SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA (AP) – The Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings have spent nearly four decades as California neighbours having never played a game with high significance.
The two franchises separated by less than 100 miles never even made the NBA playoffs in the same season since the Kings arrived in California in 1985, much less met in the playoffs.
Now with the Kings having ended the longest playoff drought in NBA history, the teams will meet in a first-round series beginning today in success-starved Sacramento that has the potential to fuel a rivalry.
“I’m not sure if it’s a rivalry yet. If it can end up being that, then fantastic,” Kings coach Mike Brown said. “I think rivalries are great in any competition out there. It adds extra juice to the whole environment or atmosphere whenever two teams play each other. … I wouldn’t say it’s quite there yet, but if it does get there, it’d be awesome”.
Brown has done his part to make it possible, having left his job as lead assistant on the champion Warriors to take over the Kings this season.
He helped transform a franchise that had gone an NBA-record 16 straight seasons without a playoff berth in a league in which more than half the teams make the postseason, turning the Kings into division champions behind a fast-paced offense led by the dynamic duo of De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis.
“Everybody expects them to be back in the Finals,” Brown said.
“Nobody has picked us. Nobody even picked us to finish in a playoff spot, which is fine. We can’t change people’s minds by telling them, ‘Hey, we’re better than that.’ We got to go out and we got to change people’s minds by our play.”
Despite winning four more games than Golden State and being far more consistent throughout the regular season, the Kings head into the playoffs as decided underdogs against the defending champions.
But the Warriors are wary of facing a team that’s coming into a series on such an emotional high and playing in front of fans who have waited years for this chance.
“There’s confidence and excitement for them because they’re doing something that hasn’t been done in a long time and they’ve invested a lot into that journey,” Warriors star Stephen Curry said. “But we all know playoffs are different and again you’ve just got to win four games however you can.”
