Than 21. Carmelo Anthony hits the 25,000-point mark in the history of the NBA. The special moment of victory against the pistons is overshadowed by Andre Roberson’s injury. Meanwhile, the Mavericks lose a thriller in Denver, the Pacers make a monster comeback and the Hawks go down against Washington.
This evening Carmelo Anthony will certainly not forget so quickly, especially this one transformed free-throw in the middle of the third quarter. What doesn’t sound spectacular at first glance was celebrated by Melo. First all the teammates applauded with him, then he proudly raised his right arm: Anthony had just scored the 25,000 points of his career.
“This is a special moment,”said Melo after the match,”I know what has brought me to this point, how much work I have put in. And yet I am at a point in my career where I still want to achieve a lot” Anthony is only the 21st century. NBA history player who hits the 25,000-point mark after the historic free-throw scored 4 more points and finished the game with 21 points. The fact that the Thunder also scored the seventh victory in series by the way sweetened this milestone even more.
With a 15:0 run, Oklahoma City was down to 27 points in the third round. Especially the starters around Anthony, Paul George (26 points) and the once again strong Russell Westbrook showed a good match. The latter finished 15th with 31 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds. triple double this season.
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However, the Thunders also had to put up with a considerable drop in courage in the third section. Andre Roberson landed strangely on the ground during an alley op attempt and had to be carried away on a stretcher. Later, several media reported that Roberson had apparently contracted a torn patella tendon and the entire remaining season was cancelled.
Little wonder that the Thunders were shocked after this event. Detroit took advantage of this, led by the strong bank (64:25 Bench-Points), the pistons fought their way up to 9 points. Reggie Bullock contributed 16 points to the comeback attempt, Ish Smith scored 15 points and 9 assists. Boban Marjanovic also confronted the Thunder reservists with enormous problems with his size (14 points, 8 rebounds), but in the end the Thunders were able to assert themselves thanks to their Big Three.
For a long time it looked pretty bad for the Pacers. Orlando got off to a really good start in the game, led by Aaron Gordon (22 points, 11 rebounds) and Evan Fournier (21), the Magic even managed a 21-point advantage in the meantime. Gordon presented himself in the very best slam-dunk-contest form and hammered a spectacular reverse-windmill-dunk around the Pacers ears.
Like I said, it looked pretty bad for Indiana. However, for the hosts, abandonment was out of the question at no time and so the Pacers gradually shortened the gap. Finally Victor Oladipo (24 points, 6 Assists) and Lance Stephenson (21 points, Season-High) turned up in the fourth quarter where properly. The two guards led Indiana to a 15-0 run and turned the game upside down.
In a wild final phase, the Magic had some possibilities to win a victory or at least to reach the overtime. Gordon, however, lost his nerves on the free-throw line and Jonathan Simmons’ last attempt at downtown also landed only on the ring. The Magic had to take the tenth defeat in the past twelve games.
Raven-black evening for Dennis Schröder and the Hawks. Atlanta were knocked out early in their home game against the Wizards, and in the second quarter the hosts were trailing by 18 points – even though John Wall was not there due to knee problems.
Tomas Satoransky (11 points, 7 Assists) and Tim Frazier (4 points, 14 Assists, Season-High) jumped into the breach. The two backups did their job brilliantly and ensured that the ball was perfectly moved through their own ranks. So the Wizards ended up with excellent 40 assists with only 12 ball losses. This ball-movement allowed some open throws, which used the distance shooters of the wizards mercilessly.
Washington pounded the Hawks 18 threesomes around their ears (at 32 attempts, 56.3 percent) and set their seasonal peak. Markieff Morris led his team with 23 points (4/5 of a threesome), otherwise Mike Scott (19 points), Otto Porter (18) or Bradley Beal (18) stood out from a strong overall team performance.
The Hawks, on the other hand, had little in common. Schröder in particular had enormous problems and finished the game with a meager 9 points (3/12 FG) and 7 assists, with the entire team struggling with the throw similarly to the German team, with a 27.9 percent of the throws (12/43) falling from a distance. Taurean Prince, Dewayne Dedmon and Tyler Dorsey were the top scorers with 14 points each, but the end result did not change much.
Page 1: Milestone for Anthony – Hawks going down
Page 2: Mavs lose crime thriller – Timberwolves series continues