Spurs: Best shot of securing a win during the road trip comes against Kings

The San Antonio Spurs have their best chance of securing a Rodeo Road Trip win tonight against the Sacramento Kings.

The Rodeo Road Trip is always the most daunting part of the San Antonio Spurs season. We knew that the near month-long road trip was going to test this year’s Spurs but it’s looking like the Silver and Black have a real chance of going winless on the trip.

Tonight’s road contest against the Sacramento Kings is the Spurs’ best chance of securing a win on the road trip. The final four games come against the Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, and Oklahoma City Thunder. It’s now or never for San Antonio.

The Kings push the Spurs for the title of “most disappointing team” of the 2019-20 season. Their offseason acquisitions of Dewayne Dedmon, Cory Joseph, and Trevor Ariza indicated that the Kings were gearing up to fight for the playoff race. Fast forward to where we are now and Joseph is the only one of the three remaining on the roster. Injuries have derailed the Kings’ playoff campaign and have them destined for the lottery yet again.

He’s had a quiet road trip thus far but the Spurs will need Dejounte Murray to be at his very best tonight. He’s sure to have his hands full as he tasked with slowing down one of the fastest players in the league in De’Aaron Fox. Fox is a blur in transition and pretty skilled in half-court sets as well, if Murray is able to use his length to take him out of the game the Spurs chances of coming away with a victory are markedly better.

An interesting wrinkle to the Kings’ recent lineups has been the change in starting lineups with Bogdan Bogdanović replacing Buddy Hield. This move makes Derrick White‘s play tonight even more important. It will be interesting to see how Gregg Popovich uses him tonight, we could be in for some much needed White/Murray minutes.

Gameday bets and prediction

The Spurs are the favorites in this one but at this point, it’s hard to put money down on them coming away with a win. We’ve seen this team blow far too many games against lower-tier opponents like the Kings and Cavaliers. The better money would be put on the over, neither of these two teams has a strong record of playing defense this season so tonight’s action could end up in a barnburner.

That said, we’ve got to stay optimistic about the Spurs chances. The Kings are 10-15 on their home court so the opportunity is there. You can count on DeMar DeRozan going for 20 plus points, and around five rebounds and assists. It’ll come down to the Spurs guard’s defense and role players stepping up to compliment DeRozan.

Tonight is San Antonio’s best shot of snagging a win on the Rodeo Road Trip. Their playoff chances are already fading, failing to get a win during this stretch could cause them to evaporate entirely.