Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Officer and a Laughing Girl; Johannes Vermeer; 1657

Eight days ago, reacting to the Kings firing Mike Brown, the franchise’s second most successful head coach of the Sacramento era, I poked fun at new interim coach Doug Christie’s relative lack of experience as an NBA coach compared to both Brown and other options, I poked fun at Christie’s interesting history in the public eye and I poked fun at Christie writing “Joy Compete Together” in block letters on the white board.

Since then, the Kings have won five straight games, the last two without De’Aaron Fox, one of them an absolute obliteration of a local rival, three of them “clutch games” in which Sacramento had struggled in all season. The Kings, who a week ago appeared destined for the lottery, are now a half-game out of the play-in and just 2.5 games out of the No. 6 seed.

Most of the wins have come over shorthanded teams: the Grizzlies without Ja Morant, the Mavericks without Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, the Heat without Jimmy Butler, the Sixers without Joel Embiid. And the schedule going forward has some more edge: the Kings have a road trip that includes the Celtics and the Bucks, and the Rockets, Nuggets, Thunder and Wolves are on the docket for the next few weeks.

And, you know, the Kings did need clutch performances to beat the shorthanded Sixers, Grizzlies and Heat. In fact, they needed double overtime to beat the Heat. They needed DeMar DeRozan to score nine in double overtime capped with an instant classic DeMar DeRozan dagger to beat the Heat.

They also needed Keon Ellis in most of these wins. For whatever reason, Mike Brown was not playing Keon Ellis consistently or enough. In Brown’s final 10 games, Ellis averaged under 15 minutes per game (including a DNP). In six under Christie, he’s averaged almost 30 minutes per game, skewed by the 49 he played on Monday. Fox is out now, and Keegan Murray missed games before that. But there was something missing from the formula for a while in Sacramento, and it might have been Ellis, who appears beloved by his teammates and is definitely the team’s best individual defender. His on-court impact reminds me a little of Josh Hart. He’s everywhere.

The other bit that’s really striking in this could-be-fools’-gold winning streak is that the players do seem genuinely happy with Christie. Domantas Sabonis has a close relationship with Christie based on offseason workouts done together the past couple of years. Quotes like this stand out.

This team was in the playoffs two years ago. All-time high?!

Here’s Malik Monk after the Warriors win.

“We bought in to what DC is doing,” Monk said. “We all just bought into it, and we all feel good and confident in what he’s saying. He played before so I think he knows how to say it to us a little better than people that didn’t play the game before.”

Fox was defensive in his comments about Brown’s dismissal, but has been supportive of Christie. Kevin Huerter, along with Ellis, had been a bit yanked around in terms of playing time under Brown. Trey Lyles never looked comfortable this season until the past week. Murray looked like a shell of himself offensively, which is odd since he’d only ever played for Brown at the NBA level. (This is the one area where the DeRozan fit has been weird. Having those two as your forwards with Sabonis in the middle is not a natural fit.)

Had Brown stayed on as coach, he might have had one more card to play: move DeRozan to the bench to bolster that inconsistent unit and elevate Ellis to the starting five. But it’s not clear that he could bench DeRozan given his stature, and that might have fully backfired if the starters still couldn’t get unlocked. Instead, Christie started his tenure rolling with the same cards and got different results. And now Ellis has a bigger role, and should keep it even when Fox returns.

Maybe there was something to those block letter words after all. Maybe … the Kangz Kangzed themselves right into something nice?

A Brief Moment of Self-Pity

Has there ever been a worse time to travel to Boston than when riding a 5-game winning streak?

So, What’s Going on With Shaq and Dwight Howard Now?

I don’t know and I don’t care. Life is too short for that nonsense.

Scores

Suns 109, Sixers 99 — Phoenix wins over a Philly team without Joel Embiid (foot) with Bradley Beal scoring 25, but Beal says all the wrong things about coming off of the bench.

This isn’t that bad, and probably technically true, but I just wish players would realize how far it goes with fans (and the media) to embrace coaching decisions like this. Manu Ginobili remains one of the most beloved players of his generation in large part because he embraced a bench role early in his career and never wavered. You know the Suns are better than their record. Their bench leaves something to be desired, and their starters’ defense is questionable. This really is a great move.

Blazers 115, Pistons 118 — The Detroit Pistons are .500. We’re about 1-2 weeks from the midpoint of the season. This is incredible. They were 3-33 this time last year, and now they are 18-18. Give J.B. Bickerstaff all of Monty Williams’ money, too. On top of the money he’s getting.

Fun fact: the Detroit Lions and Detroit Pistons have not appeared in the playoffs in the same year since 2000.

Bucks 128, Raptors 104 — Giannis Antetokounmpo’s streak of 20-point games above 50% FG% ends … with an 11-12-13 triple-double in a blowout win in which he only took eight FGAs and two FTAs in 29 minutes. I blame you, Raptors.

Magic 103, Knicks 94 — A big ol’ OOF for New York, with the offense sputtering with Karl-Anthony Towns resting. Three straight losses for the Knicks.

Pacers 113, Nets 99 — Baseline cut alley-oops: a deeply underutilized action!

The Pacers are 10-6 over the last month plus.

Clippers 106, Timberwolves 108 — L.A. led by 19 in the first half. Then Anthony Edwards put on the apron and started cooking.

Mavericks 104, Grizzlies 119 — Kyrie Irving is suffering from a bulging disc and will reportedly miss 1-2 weeks. Given what we know about back injuries, the fear is the Mavericks — already without Luka Doncic for at least a couple more weeks — could be without Irving for longer if healing doesn’t happen quickly. It’s too bad, but the Mavericks are a really solid team. But no team can survive losing their best two players. For a team this top-heavy (in that Luka is playing at All-NBA level and Kyrie at All-Star level), it’s really rough.

Dallas has lost five straight and has a dense schedule with 10 games leading up to the earliest date Luka would theoretically be available (January 27). Seven of those 10 games come against teams in the playoff picture right now. And then right after a theoretical Luka return, the Mavs head to the East Coast for five games in 11 days. They are currently tied for No. 6 in the West, 2-1/2 games out of the No. 11 seed.

Spurs 110, Bulls 114 — Helluva win by the Bulls, who are doing everything they can to make the Sixers earn that ascension into the East play-in. The Spurs led wire to almost wire, with a 15-point lead early in the fourth. But the Spurs went ice cold in the fourth, Zach LaVine popped off and Coby White did this to Victor Wembanyama.

DAMN. Going up like that up one against that dude. Respect.

Heat 118, Kings 123 — I didn’t mention that the Heat led by 17 in the fourth, did I? These teams had two absolutely bonkers games this season.

Schedule

It’s TNT Tuesday! Relish the potential discovery of our fair league. All times Eastern.

Suns at Hornets, 7
Rockets at Wizards, 7
Lakers at Mavericks, 7:30, TNT
Timberwolves at Pelicans, 8
Hawks at Jazz, 9
Celtics at Nuggets, 10, TNT
Heat at Warriors, 10

Links

Disney is buying Fubo to make the lawsuit blocking the sports mega streamer go away. Fubo will be merged with Hulu + Live TV. It’s unclear if Fubo will be a part of the Venu sports bundle with ESPN, ABC, TNT, TBS and Fox Sports.

The guy ArtButMakeItSports might be a genius.

Katie Heindl on compartmentalization as a skill and the Magic’s luck.

Thinking Basketball on the continued 3-point boom.

Kelly Dwyer on Bradley Beal and Jimmy Butler and stuff.

John Schuhmann gives the No. 1 slot in his Power Rankings back to the Thunder. They play the Cavaliers on Wednesday. I could not be more excited.

On the Cavs’ shooting.

Marc Stein on Cam Johnson’s availability. Plus Stein on the De’Aaron Fox trade calculus for Sacramento.

Hardwood Paroxysm on how the Jimmy era was always going to end.

14 writers (including me) provides their hopes and fears for the NBA in 2025.

Tom Haberstroh on whether the Grizzlies should trade for Jimmy.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got. Be excellent to each other.