Fears and Williamson Erase Sacramento's Big First-Quarter Lead
New Orleans rallied from a 30-24 first-quarter deficit to beat Sacramento 132-120, handing the Kings a loss despite 34 points and 13 assists from Darius Acuff Jr. The story of the night was how completely New Orleans flipped the script after Sacramento looked like the sharper team through the first twelve minutes.
Sacramento came out swinging. Trey Murphy III opened the scoring with a running dunk and a 24-foot three, but the Kings answered with a sustained burst that was hard to ignore. Acuff Jr. hit three free throws, then a 27-foot three, then a 3-foot running dunk — Sacramento reeled off a stretch that pushed the lead to 25-18 with just over four minutes left in the first. De'Andre Hunter added a step-back three and a dunk off Domantas Sabonis to push it to 25-18, and by the time Zach LaVine converted a driving layup at the buzzer, Sacramento led 30-24 heading into the second quarter. On paper, that looked like a Kings game to lose.
The single play that appears to have cracked the door for New Orleans came at P1 3:36, when Sabonis made a free throw — a moment that swung the home win probability from 64% to 51%, a 14-point shift. That's not a typo. One free throw, and suddenly the math looked different. New Orleans didn't waste the opening. Derik Queen hit a 25-foot three to open the second quarter, Saddiq Bey converted three free throws, Herbert Jones drove for a layup to tie it at 32, and Bennedict Mathurin pushed New Orleans ahead 34-32 from the line. Sacramento went cold — completely cold — and New Orleans kept building from there, eventually pulling away for a 132-120 final.
Jeremiah Fears was the engine New Orleans needed: 22 points, 8 rebounds, 13 assists, 2 steals, and 4 blocks. He assisted on Murphy's opening dunk, set up two Zion Williamson baskets in the first quarter, and kept the offense organized when Sacramento was threatening to run away with it. Williamson finished with 22 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 steals — that defensive number looks like the difference between a close game and a comfortable win. For Sacramento, the numbers are genuinely impressive and genuinely insufficient: Acuff Jr.'s 34-point, 13-assist night, Hunter's 24, Achiuwa's 24 points and 9 rebounds, LaVine's 21 — four players with 21 or more, and still a 12-point loss. That's a roster-depth problem that no individual performance can paper over. Six players were listed as DNP — coach's decision for both sides combined, including Leaky Black, Jonathan Mogbo, Daeqwon Plowden, Julian Reese, DeAndre Jordan, and AJ Johnson — so rotations were already compressed. New Orleans made theirs count. Sacramento didn't.