Monk says interim coach Christie has ‘simplified’ things for Kings originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
After hitting a new low point following a miserable losing streak that led to the firing of Mike Brownthe Kings managed to turn the situation around somewhat.
Sacramento 138-133 win against the Western Conference’s second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night prompted the Kings’ victory beam to light up the 916 skyline for a third straight game.
The win also gave Doug Christie a 3-1 record since named interim head coach of Kings last Friday. And after Friday’s big win, Kings guard Malik Monk spoke with NBC Sports California’s Morgan Ragan and Kyle Draper on “Kings Postgame Live” to talk about how Christie’s leadership helped spark needed change for Sacramento .
“He just made a lot of things easier for us,” Monk said. “And he told us our main goal was to win at home, so we just tried to bring energy here. And he just made the game simpler for us on offense and defense and we didn’t think about it not much. So big ups to Doug.”
Before that three-game winning streak, the Kings were 13-19 overall and 6-12 on their home floor at Golden 1 Center.
Rather than take advantage of one of the best home field advantages in the league and dig themselves out of a subtle hole they had put themselves in, they went 0-5 in the home game which included losses to the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers (twice), Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons.
Therefore, Brown was fired and Christie was temporarily promoted.
Monk and the Kings now look forward to Sunday’s game against their NorCal rivals, the Golden State Warriors, hoping to extend their winning streak to four for the first time in the 2024-25 NBA season.
And they will rely on simplicity to try to climb to the top of the Western Conference standings.
