SACRAMENTO -- Welcome home, now get back to work. After a week away, the Sacramento Kings return to their home court Wednesday evening. They'll face a Minnesota Timberwolves team that has lost two straight and has fallen below to .500 on the season at 13-14.
The Kings finished their four-game road trip Monday with a 108-89 win over the Bulls in Chicago. De'Aaron Fox shook off a slow first half to jumpstart his team after the intermission. The sophomore guard scored 16 of his game-high 25 in the third quarter and the Kings defense put the clamps on a struggling Bulls team to come away with the victory.
Minnesota has struggled with early season drama, but it appears over now that Jimmy Butler is wearing a 76ers uniform. They are still integrating Robert Covington and Dario Saric into the rotation after acquiring the duo in a swap for Butler on Nov. 12.
Kings Pregame Live on NBC Sports California begins at 6:30 p.m., with tipoff scheduled for 7:00 p.m. All coverage can be seen on the MyTeams app.
The Kings host the Golden State Warriors on Friday evening before heading out for a back-to-back in Dallas and Minnesota on Sunday and Monday. The Timberwolves game is the first in a string of extremely difficult contests that pits the Kings up against some of the best the Western Conference has to offer. The Kings could really use a win to kick off the 13 game stretch that extends into early January.
Line
Timberwolves by 3.5
Sports
Projected Lineups
Kings
PG De'Aaron Fox
SG Buddy Hield
SF Iman Shumpert
PF Nemanja Bjelica
C Willie Cauley-Stein
T-Wolves
PG Jeff Teague
SG Andrew Wiggins
SF Robert Covington
PF Taj Gibson
C Karl-Anthony Towns
Injury Report
Kings
No injuries to report.
T-Wolves
SF Robert Covington (knee) PROBABLE, PG Jared Bayless (knee) OUT.
Rotation Outlook
Kings: Dave Joerger's team returns home healthy and ready to compete. He'll rely heavily on the backcourt rotation of Fox, Hield and Bogdanovic for his scoring, but the team has been getting contributions up and down the rotation.
Bjelica gets an opportunity to go up against his former team. The 30-year-old forward played the last three seasons in Minnesota before joining the Kings in free agency this summer.
Rookie Marvin Bagley is averaging 12.3 points since returning from injury three games ago, but he's grabbed a total of five rebounds over the stretch.
T-Wolves: Tom Thibodeau seems to have survived the Butler situation, at least for now. With Butler out of the picture, the focus has shifted back to Towns as the key figure for Minnesota. The Timberwolves have a deep team of solid veterans, including Derrick Rose, who is having a resurgence in his career after struggling with injuries.
