A worrying sign for all bettors wagering on this game coming out of Atlanta is the status of Trae Young who has been placed in the concussion protocols and will be out for a significant period of time. That’s a big blow for the Hawks’ ambitions here, Young averages close to 27 points and 11 assists per game this season. That means the bulk of the offense will have to go through Dejounte Murray here, although he has excelled against Miami and Orlando last week, I’m just not sure if he’s capable of running a team of his own just yet. The Hawks have lost by 21 points in their last game, Sacramento won the first meeting of the season 117-110 after the two teams met near the end of 2023 in Atlanta. Interestingly enough, that was the first Kings win in this match-up over the past 5 meetings.
Kings fans would welcome a similar result with open arms here, following their team’s poor run of 4 losses in a row over the past 10 days. The last 3 defeats were by just 1, 2 and 5 points which is surprising considering Sacramento has performed well in the clutch. Can the Kings be trusted to put away a injury riddled Hawks team? They’ve covered the spread just once in their last 6 home games, for the season they’ve not been very reliable at the Golden 1 Center at just 9-12 ATS. They’re in much better shape injury wise, only Sasha Vezenkov is missing, but he doesn’t play a major part in the rotation anyway. This is a really good spot for Sacramento to turn things around, De’Aaron Fox has scored 30+ points in 3 of the last 5 meetings.
