A gala by Dennis Schröder was not enough for the Atlanta Hawks to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. LeBron James was too strong, partly because he would end up keeping Schröder cold. The Denver Nuggets beat Chicago by buzzerbeater, but have to cope with Nikola Jokic’s loss.
“He beat our asses in the first half,”LeBron James had to admit after the game. What was meant was Dennis Schröder, who already stood at 17 points at the break and gave the Hawks a tight lead. So the king had to take it into his own hands and defended the German in a direct duel for some time.
“My teammates asked me if I wanted to take the challenge and I wanted to,”James said about his defence against the Point Guard. After the change, Schröder only scored 10 points and was cleared by LeBron in the crunchtime. So James once again did pretty much everything for the Cavs. His first seven litters all landed in the basket. In the end there were 24 counters (8/11 FG), 6 rebounds and 12 assists.
Cleveland turned up after the break and turned the game around quickly. The guests took a two-figure lead, but Atlanta was not beaten.
Top scorer of the Cavs was Kevin Love with 25 points. In addition, the center used 16 strong rebounds. At Atlanta it was Schröder who kept his colours in the game with 27 points (11/19 FG) and 5 assists. The Braunschweig man was obviously honored after the game that James defended against him,”It’s incredible when the best player in the world tries to stop you. I kept trying to be aggressive. I won’t stop playing. He’s huge, and it was hard to get past him.”
Schröder was supported by Ilyasova, who sunk four threesomes. Marco Belinelli contributed 18 points. In the absence of Dewayne Dedmon, Rookie John Collins was allowed to start again and scored 13 points (6/7 FG) and 7 rebounds. Towards the end of the match, however, the big man was injured on the shoulder.
High Voltage in the Mile High City. After the nuggets caught up with an early 18-point gap, everything was open in the final phase. The strong Lauri Markkanen (20 points, 7/17 FG, 9 rebounds) provided the Bulls with a mid-range jumper for the three-point lead of just under a minute on the watch. But then Justin Holiday (16) Sixth Man Will Barton fouled at the threesome. The Thrill made all the freebies and went back to the line a little later. This time he left one behind, but the nuggets now led with 109:108.
Kris Dunn (19) countered this with a wild drive and the nuggets that didn’t have a timeout had to cross the entire field in nine seconds. Barton took on this task again. The Bulls were in deep sleep and left the zone completely open, so that the Wing could almost undisturbed make the Korbleger a victory. Barton thus scored the last six points of the nuggets.
The Bulls were thus unable to win again, despite a high quota of 53 percent. Robin Lopez (9/11 FG) scored 20 points like Markkanen. The presentation of Paul Zipser, who came back from the bank, was also gratifying. In 17 minutes the Heidelberg player scored 11 points (4/6 FG, 3/4 threesomes) and 2 assists.
For Denver, Barton was the most diligent scorer with a strong 37 points (13/19 FG, 6/9 threesomes). Gary Harris also played 21 points and 3 steals. Nikola Jokic played just under 16 minutes as he injured his ankle just before the end of the first half when he stepped onto Jerian Grant’s foot. However, it can be assumed that the ankle is only sprained.