Barnes Has 36 As Kings Beat Portland 124-121

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Harrison Barnes scored 36 points and De’Aaron Fox added 27, and the Sacramento Kings spoiled Portland’s play opener nether caller manager Chauncey Billups with a 124-121 triumph implicit the Trail Blazers connected Wednesday night.

Richaun Holmes had 21 points and 11 rebounds for the Kings, who led by arsenic galore arsenic 18 points successful the 3rd quarter.

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Portland rallied successful the fourth. Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic made back-to-back layups to get the Blazers wrong 117-111 with 3:49 to go, and Norman Powell’s 3-pointer chopped the borderline to three.

Barnes deed a 3-pointer to propulsion the Kings’ pb to 120-114 with 1:39 left. After Buddy Hield’s escaped throws gave Sacramento a 122-117 lead, CJ McCollum and Lillard some deed baskets — but Lillard’s 3-point effort to triumph it was off.

FINAL: Kings decision Blazers 124-121

👑 @hbarnes career-high 36pts & 8 threes
👑 @swipathefox 27pts 5rebs 8asts
👑 @Rich_Holmes22 21pts 11rebs pic.twitter.com/cIQQo5irB9

— Sacramento Kings (@SacramentoKings) October 21, 2021

McCollum finished with 32 points and Lillard added 18 points and 11 assists.

The Trail Blazers were coming disconnected a winless preseason, losing each by an mean of 23.7 points.

Portland finished 42-30 past play and earned the sixth effect successful the Western Conference. But the playoffs ended rapidly with Denver eliminating the Blazers successful the opening round.

The squad parted ways with longtime manager Terry Stotts pursuing the play and hired Billups, who made his regular-season debut arsenic a caput manager connected Wednesday.

The Kings went 31-41 past play and finished tied for 11th successful the Western Conference. It was the 15th consecutive play the Kings person missed the postseason.

Fox got disconnected to a accelerated commencement for the Kings with 10 points successful the opening quarter. Sacramento led by arsenic galore 13 points en way to a 62-49 pb astatine halftime.

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Fox, who was Sacramento’s person past play with an mean of 25.2 points a game, finished the archetypal fractional with 16 points to pb each scorers.

The Kings extended the pb to arsenic galore arsenic 18 points successful the 3rd quarter, but Portland began to propulsion person midway done the play and Nassir Little’s 3-pointer got the Blazers to wrong 88-79.

The Blazers swept the Kings 3-0 past season.

TIP INS

Kings: Forward Marvin Bagley III was not successful the starting lineup, pursuing reports that helium would not beryllium successful the rotation for the opener. Kings manager Luke Walton would not sermon the situation. “I’m not getting into immoderate of that. For me, we’re a team. We’ve person a plan, we cognize what that program is, and we’re going to request everyone this season.”

Trail Blazers: Coach Chauncey Billups said earlier the crippled that Little’s minutes would beryllium restricted due to the fact that of a lingering hamstring injury. … Norman Powell appeared to deed a 3-pointer successful the 2nd quarter but it was aboriginal taken distant connected review because helium was judged to beryllium out-of-bounds. … Lillard, entering his 10th NBA season, broke into the NBA’s apical 100 vocation scoring database with his 13th constituent of the night.

UP NEXT

The Kings big the Utah Jazz connected Friday.

The Blazers big the Phoenix Suns connected Saturday.

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