Kings Face The Hawks On Halloween Night

The Sacramento Kings got a big win at home on Saturday against a tough and young Timberwolves team and are now 2-1. Tonight, they head out on a five-game East Coast trip starting on Halloween night with the Atlanta Hawks.

The come-from-behind victory on Saturday is one of many reasons to be interested in the next game. The Kings have not won in Atlanta since the 2005-06 season, just about 10 years ago. The Atlanta Hawks are right now at 2-0, after beating the terrible Wizards and the slightly more terrible 76ers. Saturday's 32-point victory for the Hawks shows you how good the Hawks are against bad teams, and although the Kings are now considered bad yet, they still have yet to show they can beat a really good team. They couldn't do it against San Antonio, despite how well they played and how well Cousins played.

DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay are leading the way for this team, and they'll probably do the same tonight, but reserves Ben McLemore and Matt Barnes have also stepped up as key contributors. The Saturday night game showed you that example. McLemore had 13 points in that game, while Barnes added 12 points, nine assists, and five rebounds.

What's going to be interesting tonight is how the Kings will go up against the great front court that is Atlanta. Dwight Howard is the center and he has already put up effort-worthy numbers for the Hawks, and Millsap is also doing wonders so far at the power forward position for the Hawks. Tonight, if the Kings are going to play tough, they must limit the contributions of both of them by applying pressure and limiting the interior space for Howard and Millsap to do their work. Although the Hawks won big in their game against the Sixers, they only scored 5-of-20 from the arc in that game. So keep limiting the interior game and don't let them get inside. Get them to shoot threes in bunches and perhaps the Kings can be in this game.

It's very tough to pick who wins this game, because the Kings have played so well so far but the Hawks are just blowing people away, like in that Sixers game. I don't know if the Kings can limit the Hawks' interior play forever in this game, and I don't know how well Rudy Gay, Ben McLemore, and Matt Barnes are going to do in Atlanta. Atlanta is a very tough place to play and like I said, the Kings haven't won there in 10 years. Therefore, I think the Hawks will end up getting the victory tonight.