Sacramento Kings vs Dallas Mavericks

The Golden 1 Center in California will become alive this Thursday when the Sacramento Kings challenge the Dallas Mavericks at their NBA play-in tournament.

Sacramento completed ninth in the regular season with 40-42 wins but the Mavericks placed 10th in the Western conference with 39-43 victories.

The playoff destiny for this team will be determined by their success in this match because the winner will play against either the Golden State Warriors or the Memphis Grizzlies this weekend to advance into the postseason.

The Sacramento Kings secured their fourth win in six games by defeating the Phoenix Suns 109-98 during their final regular-season game while previously winning only four out of 15 matches since the beginning of the year.

Since acquiring Zach LaVine Sacramento has endured defensive problems and lost their on-court leader status after trading De'Aaron Fox.

Sacramento's offensive capability remains undeniable since Domantas Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan score 19.1 and 22.2 points per game alongside the team ranking ninth in points per game at 115.7 PPG.

The regular season marked a 20-21 split between home and away games for Doug Christie's team but they matched this opponent entirely in three successful matchups. Their last triumph ended in 122-98 at the start of February.

Regardless of Dallas Mavericks postseason success in 2024-25 the team will mostly be known for their Luka Doncic trade to Los Angeles Lakers.

Even though the team acquired Anthony Davis in the same trade, he and Kyrie Irving have both missed a significant portion of their time in Dallas because of injuries.

Although Jason Kidd's squad finished the season with a 17–25 road record and defeated Phoenix by three games to secure the last play-in position, one might argue that the Suns' complete collapse contributed more to the final standings than the Mavs' own actions

 The Mavericks are 38-42-2 ATS and finished the regular season in the middle of the pack, scoring 114.2 points per game (15th in the league) while giving up 115.4 points on defense (20th overall).

Jake LaRavia will probably miss this game because the Kings said before of their season finale that he will miss the game due to an injured thumb that would be evaluated again in seven to ten days.

But the biggest blow to Sacramento is that Malik Monk will not be playing for the rest of the season after suffering a calf injury in the team's victory against the Detroit Pistons little over a week ago.

Given that he missed their season-ending game as part of injury management and has only played nine times since being moved to Dallas because of a left adductor strain, Davis ought to be available for this game.