The Sacramento Kings’ loss against the Houston Rockets on Saturday night eliminated them playoffs contention and clinched a postseason berth for the San Antonio Spurs.

If you thought the Spurs would then roll over a disappointed Kings team at home on Sunday, you were wrong. San Antonio’s offense sputtered to finish the game and allowed the Kings to finish off a 3-0 season series sweep against the 44-33 Spurs.

Let’s break down what happened for the Spurs in this game:

3 Observations

The Spurs went ice-cold on their jumpers late

Poor shooting luck doomed the Spurs at the worst time on Sunday. San Antonio shot just 1-of-16 on field-goal attempts outside of 11 feet in the game’s final 13 minutes and 17 seconds.

They weren’t bad looks, for the most part. Here are all 16 of those shots, including the lone make by Patty Mills.

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The Spurs were outscored 29-21 in that closing stretch of offensive ineptitude. The painted area was more hospitable to San Antonio, but not nearly hospitable enough.

The team didn’t react properly to Pop’s ejection

Early in the third quarter, the referees made two consecutive bad calls against the Spurs. A Bryn Forbes three-pointer was wiped away because De’Aaron Fox drew an offensive foul trying to hop on Derrick White for a piggy-back ride. On the other end, White blocked the ball off Harrison Barnes’ thigh and the official ruled it Kings ball.

Gregg Popovich erupted and got ejected, giving the Kings two points from free throws.

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The Spurs were the home team and maybe could’ve gotten some make-up calls if they channeled Pop’s passion and stayed aggressive. San Antonio failed to take advantage, though.

From the 9:38 mark of the third quarter to the 7:53 mark of the fourth quarter, San Antonio scored just six points in the paint and made only two free throws.

The Kings are not known for their protection of the interior. They entered Sunday’s game 26th in both opponent points in the paint per game (51.4) and opponent free-throw makes per game (19.3). BBall Index’s team talent data has “big interior defense” as one of the Kings’ three biggest weaknesses. Sacramento has a league-wide percentile of 6.5 in that area.

There was no reason for the Spurs to be as tentative as they were for much of the second half.

This game may not have a huge impact in the standings, but…

The Thunder also lost on Sunday, which means the Spurs stay seventh in the West because of a division record tiebreaker. The Jazz and Clippers are both extremely hot and are now 2.5 games up on both teams. Even with a win tonight, the Spurs probably wouldn’t catch either Utah or LA.

San Antonio should be able to stay seventh over the Thunder, though. The Spurs play four teams with records of 32-46 or worse and Denver. All five of OKC’s remaining opponents are 34-42 or better, including the Rockets and Bucks. The Thunder are essentially down a game on the Spurs, since the Spurs will have the tiebreaker.

Aside from standings talk, though, this game has to be a bit disheartening for Spurs fans. San Antonio couldn’t keep up its strong home play against a Kings team that was just eliminated from playoff contention and playing the second night of a back-to-back. Marvin Bagley and Harry Giles were both out.

The Spurs are now 2-4 since their nine-game winning streak. Interestingly enough, they brought good effort against the teams above .500 in that stretch (Rockets and Celtics) and then played down to their other competition.

San Antonio won’t get the chance to pace itself or play meh games against its Western Conference foes in the playoffs. The team’s margin of error is too thin for that.

2 Questions

What was going on with Ettore Messina’s rotations?

Messina made some very interesting lineup choices in Pop’s stead to end this game.

The Spurs entered the fourth quarter with Patty Mills, White, Marco Belinelli, Rudy Gay and Poeltl. That group began the night as the Spurs’ 48th-most used lineup, with only 17 minutes together this season. Forbes came in for Mills at the 10:22 mark, creating an even rarer five-man group that had played only five minutes together as the Spurs’ 116th-most common lineup.

Those two groups finished their stints at the 8:31 mark. The quarter score to that point? Kings 9, Spurs 0.

Messina then put Sunday night’s starting group of White, Forbes, DeRozan, Gay and Aldridge  back on the floor. That’s also the Spurs’ most common lineup this season. They righted the ship with a 6-3 run in just over two minutes.

The Spurs assistant quickly moved on from that group, subbing out White and Gay for Bertans and Mills at the 6:22 mark. That group (15th-most used) also got positive results, surging ahead with a 13-4 run. Then, Gay came in for Bertans with 2:43 left (9th-most used lineup), which immediately resulted in a 6-0 run for the Kings that effectively sealed their win. Belinelli then came in for Gay with 27 seconds left to add outside shooting punch.

I wouldn’t read too much into the individual plus-minuses of every group, but those were some weird lineups to start the quarter, and the frequency of the subbing seemed pretty high. The decision to leave an ice-cold Mills on the floor instead of White was questionable. Neither guy was having a good offensive game, but White helps way more on defense and usually closes games.

How can Derrick White back on track?

White was mostly solid on offense from late-December through mid-March. He’s struggled recently, though.

The second-year guard has averaged just 7.7 points in 25.8 minutes per game in nine contests since March 16. His true-shooting percentage in that stretch is 41.5, and he’s knocked down only four of his 20 three balls.

White looks less confident than he has for much of the season. He’s not pulling up for jumpers that he consistently took as recently as two weeks ago, and he’s been less assertive as a slasher. After missed shots or turnovers, he’s shown frustration in his body language.

The Spurs desperately need his two-way contributions in the playoffs. Perhaps they can get him going with more usage against some of the weaker defensive teams coming up, such as the Hawks, Wizards and Cavaliers.

1 Prediction

We’ll see more starting lineup shuffling in the last five games

Popovich inserted Gay for Poeltl in the starting lineup this game, interrupting a stretch of nine out of 10 games for the White/Forbes/DeRozan/Aldridge/Poeltl starting group. It seemed Pop wanted a more versatile unit on the floor to combat the speed and shooting of the Kings.

My guess: this won’t be the last time Pop switches the first unit.

The Spurs have yet to really identity their best lineup, as I wrote about here at BBall Index over the weekend. They’ve had a hard time starting games recently, as they’re a combined minus-10 in first quarters over their last five games and a plus-13 for the remainder of the game.

I think we’ll see both the Poeltl and Gay starting units at least once more in the final five games. Maybe Pop will keep tinkering and throw another another group out there, too.

Note: All statistics are from NBA.com, unless otherwise noted. Video clips are from NBA.com.