Kings Rally Late, Win Vegas Summer Title
Ray McCallum had a few big moments toward the end of last season for the Sacramento Kings.
After a summer like this, he might have shown he's ready for plenty more.
McCallum scored 29 points and helped key a big Sacramento rally in the final minutes, as the Kings topped the Houston Rockets 77-68 Monday night to win the NBA Summer League championship game.
"It means a lot," said McCallum, as he held the tournament MVP trophy. "I've been trying to put in a lot of hard work this summer."
The Kings went 6-1 at Las Vegas, and McCallum more than saved his best for last. He scored a total of 55 points in his first six games in the tournament, then connected on 9 of 15 shots from the floor in the title game.
Ra'shad Jones scored 12 points and Nik Stauskas added 10 for Sacramento, which closed the game on a 27-10 run before a crowd of 7,603.
"This is a great way to start off an NBA career," Stauskas said.
Nick Johnson scored 17 for the Rockets, who got 16 from Donatas Motiejunas and 15 from Isaiah Canaan.
McCallum - who appeared in 45 games for the Kings last season and made 10 starts late in the year, with three games of 22 points or better in the season's final weeks - had just one point in the first quarter, and the Kings trailed 17-8 early.
But once he got rolling, the Kings followed suit.
McCallum scored nine in the second, 10 more in the third and nine more in the fourth - including a beat-the-shot-clock 3-pointer with about a minute left to cap an 11-0 run that put the Kings in control for good.
"Guys were laying it on the line," McCallum said. "But it's a championship game. You've got to bring your `A' game. We just had to find a way to push through toward the end and as a collective group we found a way to get it done."
The league All-Star teams were announced after Sunday's semifinals.
Washington's Glen Rice Jr. was voted MVP and joined on the first team by Wizards teammate Otto Porter, Chicago's Doug McDermott and Tony Snell, and Motiejunas. On the second team were Utah's Rudy Gobert, New York's Tim Hardaway Jr., Philadelphia's Jordan McRae, New Orleans' Russ Smith and Phoenix's T.J. Warren.
Updated July 21, 2014
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