‘He ain’t afraid of the moment’: How Malik Monk’s brash confidence helped Kings beat Warriors

Malik Monk has roughly 200 pairs of Kobe Bryant’s signature sneakers scattered all over the country.

Some are in storage units in Charlotte and his home in Arkansas. Some are with him in Sacramento. He went through about 25 pairs during the regular season, picking his shoes on a given night based on how they feel with his insoles during his early shooting sessions an hour and a half before tip off.

Among the reasons he chose the Los Angeles Lakers when he signed in free agency in 2021 was so he could play on the same team and in the same building as Bryant.

So for his playoff debut Saturday against the Golden State Warriors, Monk tapped a special pair. They were custom player editions, one of one, designed by his Nike rep, Marquise, who has eight custom pairs lined up for Monk for the playoffs.

The shoes offered a glimpse into Monk’s signature flair — bright pink and teal accents over black snake skin on the sixth edition of Bryant’s signature line.

“These hard!” Monk often says after picking his sneakers on game nights.

So was Monk’s performance in his first playoff game.

A microwave scorer

The Kings’ sixth man sparked Sacramento’s sputtering offense against the Warriors, setting the tone for the series in Game 1 with a 126-123 victory. Monk scored 32 points on just 13 shots while making all 14 of his free throws, including a pair with 2.9 seconds remaining

That forced Stephen Curry to shoot a desperation one-footed 3-pointer as time expired.

The second free throw came with Warriors forward Draymond Green stopping him and talking trash by saying “Gimme one!” trying to initiate a miss. It didn’t work.

“I’ve been trying to score my whole life, man,” Monk said afterward when asked about his aggression and confidence.

Monk is the Kings’ microwave scoring source. His big nights — 45 points in the wild 176-175 double-overtime win against the Clippers in February and 33 points in a one-point win over the Denver Nuggets in December, for example — have given the Kings a much needed boost off their bench.

He led all NBA reserves with 1,041 points, was third in 3-pointers made (143) and ranked third in assists (298).

But none of his regular season performances came close to Saturday’s. The Kings were struggling offensively. It took time to settle into the raucous atmosphere inside Golden 1 Center. They needed a spark after the Warriors appeared up for the challenge of quieting the crowd in such a hostile scene.

Sacramento shot just 35% in the first quarter after having the best offense in the league throughout the regular season. Monk got going in the second, scoring 15 of his team’s 26 points. He added 13 in the fourth quarter, as he and longtime friend De’Aaron Fox combined for 70 points on the night, spurring the Kings to their first postseason victory in nearly 17 years.

‘His game is built for a stage like this’

Fox and Monk have known each other since high school and were college teammates at Kentucky. They have contrasting personalities, with Fox being quiet and unbothered, while Monk is permanently outgoing and unshakably confident.

Monk’s bravado, which allows him to wear pink and teal Kobe’s in the biggest game of his pro career, is also what gave him the aggressive approach to score when his team needed it most.

Fox said Monk has had that confidence “since as far back as I can remember ... but he definitely takes better shots than he did some years ago.

“But for me,” Fox continued, “just seeing the evolution of his game, not only being a scorer, but being one of our better playmakers, one of the best playmakers in the league, if not just off the bench as well. So his game’s evolved so much, and I think his game is built for a stage like this. ... There’s nothing on the offensive end that he can’t do.”

At points in the game, head coach Mike Brown said, he spoke to Monk to try encourage him to pass out to shooters at the 3-point line to get them going. The Kings shot just 27% on 3-point shots in the first three quarters, including while the starters made just 1 of 16. Brown said shooters were open, in part, because Golden State’s defense was collapsing on Monk.

“I said, ‘I’m not going to call you off your shot,’” Brown said. “’I’m going to live with you shooting the ball. But when you touch that paint, if you can feel it, we got guys wide open on the perimeter.

“’I know you can score, and if you don’t agree with what I’m saying, you’re going to do what you’re going to do and we’re going to live with it.’ You can feel Malik’s confidence and we need that in games like this because he ain’t afraid of me, and he ain’t afraid of the moment, which is what we need.”

The game switched late in the third quarter. Curry subbed out with 2:18 left in the period and Sacramento turned an eight-point deficit into a 91-90 lead, going on a 13-4 run. Monk opened the fourth with a stepback 3, and the building was back in a frenzy after Golden State seemed to take the crowd out of the game before halftime.

Trey Lyles off the bench gave the Kings 16 much-needed points in 18 minutes. Davion Mitchell offered his regular high-level defense against the Warriors’ sharpshooters. Alex Len gave a surprising boost with 13 active minutes while Domantas Sabonis was on the bench.

Monk hit all eight of his free throws in the fourth while the Kings outscored the defending champions 35-33 to cap the win.

Terence Davis has a good sense of Monk. His locker is next to his and he shares a kinship — both are from the South.

“He went to the free-throw line 14 times and knocked them down 14 times,” Davis said. “I said it was gangsta to score 32 on 13 shots. That’s gangsta. That’s all I can say.”