Malik Monk says Doug Christie ‘simplified things’ for Kings – NBC Sports Bay Area & California

After hitting a new low following a miserable losing streak that led to the firing of Mike Brown, the Kings have managed to turn things around.

Sacramento’s 138-133 victory over the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night caused the Kings’ victory beam to light up the 916 skyline for the third straight year.

The win also gave Doug Christie a 3-1 record since he was named interim coach of the Kings last Friday. And after Friday’s big win, guard Malik Monk spoke with NBC Sports California’s Morgan Ragan and Kyle Draper on “Kings Postgame Live” to explain how Christie’s leadership helped bring about a needed change for Sacramento.

“He just made a lot of things easier for us,” Monk said. “And he told us our main goal was to win at home, so we just tried to bring the energy here. And he just simplified the game for us on offense and defense, and we don’t think about it as much. So kudos to Doug.”

Prior to this three-game winning streak, the Kings had an overall record of 13-19 and were 6-12 on their own Golden 1 Center home court.

Instead of taking advantage of one of the league’s biggest home-court advantages and digging themselves out of a small hole they had fallen into, they went 0-5 at home, which included losses to the Denver Nuggets, the Los Angeles Lakers (twice) and Indiana gave Pacers and Detroit Pistons.

As a result, Brown was fired and Christie was temporarily promoted.

Monk and the Kings now look forward to Sunday’s game against their NorCal rivals, the Golden State Warriors, in hopes of extending their winning streak to four for the first time in the 2024-25 NBA season.

And they’ll rely on keeping things simple as they try to climb to the top of the Western Conference.

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