Portland Trail Blazers vs Sacramento Kings Box Score on Nov 17, 2017

The Sports Xchange
Nov 18, 2017

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Willie Cauley-Stein set a season high with 22 points, the last one a free throw with 3.4 seconds remaining, that lifted the Sacramento Kings to an 86-82 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night at the Golden 1 Center.

Cauley-Stein, relegated to coming off the bench for the first time this season, scored 13 points in the second half and had two key putbacks in the fourth quarter.

Sacramento (4-11) won its third straight at home and snapped a three-game losing streak.

George Hill and Garrett Temple each added 14 points for the Kings.

Sacramento, coming off a 126-80 loss in Atlanta on Wednesday that was the sixth worst in the history of the franchise, scored the game's first five points and never trailed by more than five points.

They have scored 90 points or fewer in three of their four victories.

Sacramento guard Buddy Hield scored eight points in 17 minutes but limped off the court with 6:52 remaining after appearing to turn his right foot. The Kings said Hield sprained his right ankle and did not return.

Damian Lillard scored a game-high 29 points to pace Portland (8-7), but the Trail Blazers failed to win a third straight for the first time this season. They lost for only the second time in their past 10 games against Sacramento.

Portland guard C.J. McCollum, who torched the Kings for 87 points in three games last season, scored 19 points but didn't make a shot from beyond the arc. He also committed four of Portland's 17 turnovers.

The Blazers shot only 37 percent from the field and endured a scoring drought of nearly four minutes and another of just over three minutes in the second half.

Overall, the Blazers made only 7 of 23 shots from 3-point range.

NOTES: Portland's three-guard tandem of starters Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and reserve Shabazz Napier have combined to average 53.8 points and 10.2 assists over the Blazers' past five games. Napier entered with only one turnover in his past three games and had scored in double-digits in three/four of his past five. ... Kings coach Dave Joerger returned G De'Aaron Fox and F Skal Labissiere to the starting lineup and trotted out his team's seventh combination in 15 games. Sacramento consistently has started sluggishly, and is averaging 21.6 points in the opening quarter. ... To say the Blazers would like to speed up their pace of play is an understatement. Portland entered the night averaging 4.4 fast-break points per game, the worst mark in the NBA, 1.5 per game worse than the 29th-ranked New York Knicks and 21.8 behind the league-leading Golden State Warriors. ... F Vince Carter has missed five straight games for Sacramento because of kidney stones. The NBA's oldest active player has averaged only 12 minutes per game, scoring 2.6 points, in the nine games he has played.