Malik Monk and De'Aaron Fox combined for 54 points as the Sacramento Kings forced a seventh and decisive game against the Golden State Warriors with a front-running, 118-99 victory in San Francisco on Friday; watch the decider live on Sunday from 8.30pm on Sky Sports Arena
Monday 1 May 2023 16:48, UK
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr insists his side can have no excuses after the reigning NBA champions were dragged into a winner-takes-all decider against the Sacramento Kings in the NBA playoffs.
The Warriors took a 3-2 series lead and a dominant home playoff record into Game 6 on Friday evening, where a shock 118-99 defeat leaves them facing a Game 7 fixture for the first time since their 2018 Western Conference Finals success against the Houston Rockets.
The Kings will have home advantage in Sacramento on Sunday for the decider, part of their first postseason since 2006, although Kerr is backing his Warriors outfit to bounce back quickly from a rare home loss.
"We will be ready for Game Seven," Kerr said. "You know, it doesn't matter. You can look at everything and make excuses and say 'well, we didn't have this'. It doesn't matter, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is going out there and and doing it.
"They [Kings] were the aggressor for sure. They had more juice, more energy. And so we've got to make sure that we're the team that has that on Sunday."
Stephen Curry had a game-high 29 points and shot five-for-12 from three-point range for the sixth-seeded Warriors, with the 35-year-old frustrated not to wrap up the series victory.
"We just had a lot of kind of mental errors," Curry admitted. "They took advantage of it and grabbed momentum early. I don't know if that was an energy thing or a focus thing, or whatever it was, but you have to be able to learn those lessons quickly."
Malik Monk scored 28 points and De'Aaron Fox added 26 points for the Kings to help them stave off elimination, with Sacramento now confident of enjoying more success and booking a semi-final berth.
"There's no pressure for us because ain't nobody think we'd be here," Monk said. "We just go out there and leave it out all on the floor every game.
"Closing this game out and going back to Sacramento gives us more confidence to show what we can do. We held them under 100 points, and that's hard to do with this team, especially they the defending champs. So it just gave us a lot more confidence."
Who will progress in the NBA playoffs? Watch Golden State Warriors @ Sacramento Kings live on Sunday from 8.30pm on Sky Sports Arena and the Sky Sports YouTube channel.
There's NBA playoff semi-final action before that, with New York Knicks hosting Miami Heat on Sunday from 6pm on Sky Sports Arena. Watch the conclusion of the NBA season live on Sky Sports!
