Brooklyn Nets: 3 things to watch in collision with hot Kings

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The Brooklyn Nets host the Sacramento Kings for a Martin Luther King Day matinee in a matchup of hot teams powered by their dynamic young backcourts.

For casual followers of the NBA, Monday afternoon’s matchup between the Brooklyn Nets and Sacramento Kings — with both teams sporting winning records — must seem like something straight out of Black Mirror.

With narratives being as slow to die as they are, it would be understandable if someone who doesn’t follow the league closely looked at a Kings-Nets matchup with disdain.

But these are not the same old Kings. Nor are they they same old Nets.

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In fairness, it’s the first time in almost a decade that the Nets and Kings come into a game with winning records and the last time it happened, on Oct. 29, 2010, at Prudential Center in Newark, Sacramento and the then-New Jersey Nets both entered play 1-0.

You have to go back much further than that to find a Kings-Nets meeting in the second half of a season in which both teams were above .500. That would be March 16, 2004, at what was then known as Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, when the 40-24 New Jersey Nets hosted the 49-17 Sacramento Kings.

Both teams have been hot of late coming into Monday. Brooklyn (24-23) has won three straight, seven of its last nine and 16 of its last 21 games.

Sacramento (24-22) has won four of its last five games and five of its last seven.

The Nets return home for a three-game homestand this week after getting over the .500 hump for the first time this season with a 117-115 come-from-behind win on the road over the Orlando Magic on Friday.

The Kings last played Saturday, when Buddy Hield‘s buzzer-beater pushed Sacramento past the Detroit Pistons on the second leg of the Kings’ current six-game road trip.

But the East-West divide in the NBA being what it is, one game better than .500 has Brooklyn safely in sixth place in the Eastern Conference with a three-game lead over the ninth-place Pistons.

Two games over .500 has Sacramento in 10th place out West, on the outside looking in, but just one game behind the eighth-place LA Clippers and only 3½ games in back of the Oklahoma City Thunder — currently third in the Western Conference. Tightly bunched is an understatement.

The Nets have had a three-year playoff drought, last reaching the postseason in 2015. The Kings? How about the longest current string of playoff-free basketball, having last qualified for the playoffs in 2006.

Sacramento swept the two-game season series from Brooklyn last season, winning at Barclays Center 104-99 on Dec. 20, 2017, and taking a 116-111 overtime decision at home on March 1.

When digging into this matchup, one sees two young clubs on similar tracks. Here are three things to watch when the Kings and Nets tangle Monday afternoon.