Sabonis has historic performance in Kings’ win over Rockets originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
The Houston Rockets have encountered many problems this 2022-23 NBA season and against the Kings on Friday at Golden 1 Center, Domantas Sabonis became their latest.
In Sacramento’s scrappy and physical 139-114 win over Houston, Sabonis proved that regardless of how the Rockets decided to guard the 26-year-old, it wasn’t enough. Once the dust had settled, Sabonis had 19 points, 16 assists, which is a career-high, and 15 rebounds.
The last time a Kings player had 15-plus points, 15 rebounds and 15-plus assists in a game most recently was on Jan. 6, 1965, when Oscar Robertson had 28 points, 20 rebounds, and 16 assists against the New York Knicks as a member of the Cincinnati Royals, per the NBA.
“Pretty cool. Pretty cool,” Sabonis told reporters postgame. “Most important thing is that we ended up getting a win. It was two games back-to-back, tough ones, and happy we left with both victories.”
For context, Robertson had 15 such games throughout his career.
Along with joining the Hall of Famer Robertson in the history books, Sabonis also joined Boston Celtics legend and Hall of Famer Larry Bird in an exclusive list: Being one of a handful of players specifically to have 19 points, 15 rebounds, 16 assists, two steals, and two blocks in a single game.
In his outing, Sabonis notched his 18th straight double-double this season, his 31st overall, and his fourth triple-double this year.
“I think sometimes … when you just look up and you see a guy with 10, 15, 20 rebounds every single night, you almost just take that as a given and you forget how difficult that is to do every single night, especially carrying the offensive load that he does,” Kings forward Harrison Barnes told reporters postgame. “I thought it was just a great performance the last two games by him but the great season that he’s having.”
What’s more, by helping the Kings (23-18) defeat the Rockets (10-32) in dominating fashion Friday night, that moved the Kings to five games over .500, the first time that has happened since April 2006.
“I think it means a lot just to beat the same team twice,” Barnes said. “We talked about just the mental approach to our game, our gameplan discipline, just staying focused in the present.
“I think the biggest thing, look at the standings, where we are, where we want to be, it’s just continuing to just win games that we feel like we can win.”
While Sabonis put…