Twitter is waiting for Kings to fire Luke Walton after team blows late lead vs. Hornets

Tom Gatto

•
Twitter is waiting for Kings to fire Luke Walton after team blows late lead vs. Hornets image

The Kings don't need an excuse to fire coach Luke Walton, but if they're looking for a way to justify making a move before the NBA All-Star break, then they could just replay the final minute of their home loss Sunday to the Hornets.

Sacramento led Charlotte by eight points with 1:13 to play in the fourth quarter. From that point on, the Kings missed five free throws, allowed two 3-pointers, committed a three-shot foul and gave up a 3-point play, the latter by Malik Monk with 1.4 seconds to go that gave the Hornets an eventual 127-126 victory.

"NBA games are never over and we should know that. We did something similar in Minnesota last year. But come to an end of a game, we have to step up and put teams, opponents out when we have our chances and we didn't do it," a stoic Walton told reporters.

The Kings have lost 10 of their last 11 games to fall to 13-21 for the season. They were looking for back-to-back wins Sunday after breaking a nine-game losing streak Friday. They're 13th in the Western Conference and four games behind the 10th-place Grizzlies.

While Walton was talking about his team learning from the loss and moving on, a lot of Twitter was ready to move on from Walton, who is 44-62 in one-plus season as Kings coach:

The verdict wasn't unanimous; some blamed the players.

But going 1-10 in the last 11 and not being in the top 10 in the conference near the halfway point of the season is the type of coaching math that adds up to a change.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.