Warriors sacrifice Kings to Dub Nation faithful 137-103 in Chase Center

That franchise in Sacramento is not a rival to Golden State, which is shocking considering their 2023 first round playoff clash was a 7-game classic.

The Warriors needed this one. In an up-and-down season that has had a lot of hiccups, Golden State found some more rhythm against the Sacramento Kings on Friday night, winning 137-103 at Chase Center.

Stephen Curry dropped 27 points and dished out a season-high 10 assists for his second double-double of the year, orchestrating an offense that finished with 39 total assists. Jimmy Butler contributed 15 points, six assists, and six rebounds. The Warriors’ bench outscored Sacramento’s reserves 66-46, with De’Anthony Melton (19 points), Brandin Podziemski (14), and Gary Payton II (12 points, 9 rebounds) providing crucial production.

Sacramento, meanwhile, went 7-for-27 from three-point range for the game and got outscored 74-44 in the second half. This marks Golden State’s eighth win in their last 11 games and their third straight home victory. At 21-18, they’re fighting to stay relevant in a loaded Western Conference playoff picture.

Every divisional win matters when you’re trying to avoid the play-in tournament. But here’s what makes this win really matter for the Warriors. To echo our guy Punk Basketball, it reminds Dub Nation that no matter how bad things get, at least we’re not the Kings.

Remember When Sacramento Was the Future?

This is Sacramento’s seventh straight loss. They’re 8-30 on the season. Six of those seven consecutive defeats came by double digits. Four were blowouts of 24 points or more.

Let’s rewind to April 2023 when the Kings took a 2-0 series lead over Golden State in the first round of the playoffs. Sacramento was going to dethrone the dynasty. The beam was lit at Golden 1 Center after every victory, a purple beacon announcing that the 16-year playoff drought was over and a new era had arrived. Dub Nation was supposed to be worried.

Then the Warriors won four of the next five games, eliminated Sacramento in seven, and reminded everyone that experience matters in playoff basketball.

But even after that loss, the narrative held: Sacramento had arrived. They’d won 48 games in the regular season, pushed the Warriors to seven games, and had a young core built to compete for years. Mike Brown was Coach of the Year. De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis looked like legitimate All-Star cornerstones. The future belonged to the Kings.

Fast forward to January 2026, and Sacramento is a bottom-dwelling disaster. They’re 22 games under .500. They’re last in the Pacific Division. They’re not just irrelevant in the national conversation about competitive sports teams; they’ve become a cautionary tale about mistaking a fluke season for sustainable success.

All that energy. All those beams lighting up the Sacramento sky. All the talk about a new era in Northern California basketball. Dead. Finished. Meanwhile, the Warriors who are aging, supposedly done, and definitely past their prime, just steamrolled them by 34 points and continue to be a fringe contender while Sacramento fights to avoid 40 losses before February.

Let me take you back to October 25, 2023, when The American River Current published an article with this headline: “The Sacramento Kings’ 2022-2023 success was not a fluke.” The article stated: “Many expect the Kings to regress off of a great season, but that will not be the case.”

SILENCE, YOU FOOL.

Zach LaVine knows exactly what this is because he lived through it in Chicago. He and DeMar DeRozan couldn’t make it work with the Bulls, yet Sacramento’s front office looked at that failed partnership and thought geography was the problem. They assembled a roster with more ball-dominant scorers than defensive schemes, more shooting guards than cohesive offensive sets.

This is roster construction malpractice. When you pair LaVine and DeRozan with Russell Westbrook, Dennis Schroder, and Domantas Sabonis, that’s how you get buried alive in Chase Center in front of Dub Nation on a Friday night.

LaVine also said something that cuts deeper: “You don’t get points for keeping things close in this league. You’re supposed to keep it competitive and get it down the stretch and figure out how to win, and we haven’t done anything but the opposite of that.”

That’s the sound of a veteran who knows this situation is unsalvageable.

After the game, reporters asked Stephen Curry if the Warriors and Kings remain rivals in 2026. His response: “Geographically, yeah. That’s about it”.

Curry just reduced an entire franchise to a map coordinate. Remember the 2024 play-in tournament when the Kings beat the Warriors to make the playoffs? That feels like ancient history. The article from October 2023 also claimed: “The Kings will not be able to surprise any of their opponents like they did last season. The entire NBA knows that the years of the Kings being the joke of the NBA are over.”

The joke isn’t over. It never ended. Sacramento just gave everyone false hope before returning to form. That’s not just gold blooded cynicism, folks. That’s pattern recognition. The beam stays off and the rebuild continues. And somewhere in the archives, that optimistic prediction serves as a reminder that hope without foundation crumbles quickly in this league.

Let’s go Warriors!