National Basketball Association

Kings, Timberwolves still feeling out new coaches

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:41 p.m. ET

foxsports

SACRAMENTO --- Two games into the Dave Joerger era, the Sacramento Kings look considerably different in two areas: Defense and effort.

Tom Thibodeau would like to see those two things for a bit longer in his second game coaching the Minnesota Timberwolves than he did in the first.

Both new coaches have been tasked with the job of leading their teams out of the lonely wilderness of bad basketball. Both face each other tonight at Golden 1 Center, with Joerger seeking his squad's first win in its new home, and Thibodeau aiming for his first win with Minnesota.

The Timberwolves, who haven't reached the playoffs in the past 13 seasons, won all four of their meetings against Sacramento a campaign ago. The Kings, who haven't been to the playoffs since 2005-06, have shown in their opening two games that they aren't the same team that lost those four.

"Our aggression, our competitiveness is real high," guard Arron Afflalo said. "Our expectation to win is there every night. We know defensively we can stay in games, so we expect to win."

The Kings led most of three quarters in a 102-94 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in their home debut Thursday. They lost despite holding San Antonio to 38 percent shooting from the field in the third quarter and 42 percent in the fourth.

That effort came after a 113-94 opening night win at Phoenix. The Kings held the Suns to 46 percent shooting in that one. The two efforts resembled how Joerger's teams used to play when he coached the Memphis Grizzlies, not the kind the Kings played last season when they allowed a league-worst 109.1 points per game.

"Coach Joerger's got them playing defense after one game the way they played defense in Memphis," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "That's because he knows what he's doing obviously, but it's a tribute to (the Kings) to pick that up, jump in and buy into that. If they sustain that, they're going to be a good basketball team."

Thibodeau, who won 255 games and led the Chicago Bulls to the playoffs in all five seasons he coached them, is preaching the same things as Joerger. The Timberwolves showed periods of good defense, but his team melted in the end of a 102-98 loss to the Grizzlies on Wednesday.

The Timberwolves led with 1:45 to go, but allowed an 11-5 run to end the game.

"When we go back and look into it, we're going to see the defense wasn't good enough," he told reporters after the game. "The rebounding wasn't good enough. ... Some of the mental mistakes got us down the stretch."

They also were sometimes lazy defending the arc; the Grizzlies canned 11 against them including six in the first quarter as an early 20-3 Minnesota lead leaked.

The Kings have shown a propensity to do most of their offensive work inside, with center DeMarcus Cousins tallying 61 points in Sacramento's first two contests.

Fellow Kentuckian center Karl-Anthony Towns, the top pick in the 2015 draft, scored 65 points and grabbed 37 rebounds in four games against Cousins and the Kings last. He collected 43 points and 21 rebounds in the final two.