What a whodunit in Portland! Despite a lead of 18 points, the Philadelphia 76ers are still out of control in the final stages. Just like Portland, the Bucks are also catching up strongly, while the Spurs and Magic are also winning victories.
Of the surprising and excellent start to the Magic season, there has been little left over for some time. For the Florida franchise, there were nine defeats in a row, but now Orlando finally managed to win again after almost three weeks. The Magic owed this to Bismack Biyombo and Marreese Speights.
In the second game without the injured Nikola Vucevic, the two Big Men jumped into the breach. Together they reached 28 points and 18 rebounds and led the Magic together with Elfrid Payton (19 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists) to success. Evan Fournier also contributed 17 points, Aaron Gordon scored 14 points and 7 rebounds.
The decisive factor was a phase at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter. Speights (16 points in total) scored the last 9 Magic counters in the third round and pocketed a three-way to start the final section. An assistant to the D. J. waiting on the three-line. Augustin later, thanks to Speights, Orlando had an 18-2 run and a 13-point lead on the credit side.
“The boys didn’t force any action and we got our wages for it:” The Pistons were able to reach no more than 8 points in the final minutes, despite good performances by Tobias Harris (21 points), Ish Smith (18) and Andre Drummond (17 points, 18 rebounds).
In the middle of the third section it got really loud in Milwaukee, but not in the nice way. Numerous boo-sounding shoutings of their own fans pelted down on the Bucks players, in the face of the 20-point gap Milwaukee was trailing at the time, not surprisingly.
Obviously it was just the right incentive for the hosts to step on the gas again. Milwaukee started a 21-10 run to fight his way back up. In the final minutes of the fourth quarter Eric Bledsoe took control. Of his total of 26 points (6 assists and 5 steals) the Point Guard scored 6 in the last two minutes.
First he led the Bucks for the first time in the game, then he served Giannis Antetokounmpo under the basket. The Greek increased his lead 64 seconds before the end to 7 points and the game was over. Antetokounmpo contributed a total of 22 points and 10 rebounds, Khris Middleton and John Henson each scored 14 points.
In the Timberwolves, on the other hand, nothing came together at the end of the game. In the fourth quarter, the guests scored just 12 points – seasonal lows. Karl-Anthony Towns (22 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists), Andrew Wiggins (21 points) and Jimmy Butler (20 points, 7 assists) performed well before. After last night’s overtime thriller against Denver, Minnesota obviously ran out of steam in the end.
Page 1: Bledsoe leads Bucks to comeback victory
Page 2: Crime thriller in Portland – Sixers give victory to Portland