Against the New Orleans Pelicans James Harden conjures his next brilliant performance on the floor. The Beard takes the Pels apart in 30 minutes with 27 points – the Rockets celebrate an unchallenged blowout victory. Meanwhile, the Pistons can continue to hope for the playoffs and also win the Magic and Lakers.
Giving up is out of the question for the Pistons in the fight for the last playoff place in the Eastern Conference. Although the eighth-placed Bucks still have a relatively comfortable lead, Detroit won three of the last four games.
The hot little hand from downtown helped against the Bulls. In the first half alone, the hosts sunk 13 of their 27 attempts from a distance and thus achieved a 66:47 half-time lead. Although the pistons cooled off considerably afterwards (3/15 triples in half two), Chicago could not turn the game any more.
Eight players from the Pistons scored double-digit points, the best thrower was Anthony Tolliver, who scored 25 points and scored 6 of his 12 threesomes. Andre Drummond also contributed 15 points and 20 rebounds – already his 50th birthday. Blake Griffin played his career with at least 20 boards – while Blake Griffin (10 points, 9 assists) held back a bit.
Denzel Valentine was the top scorer of the Bulls, who lost for the fifth time in a row, with 19 points (4/7 trio). Seven players scored in double figures, but they had nothing against the Pistons’ fireworks of three in the first half.
The Suns are still in free fall. The Magic – not necessarily the creme de la creme of the Eastern Conference – was Phoenix’s eleventh consecutive bankruptcy, with 26 defeats in the past 28 games! The guests came out again without the Devin Booker and T.J. in trouble. Warren stopped – and kept up well for three quarters of the time.
Thanks to good performances by Josh Jackson (18 points, 5 assists) and Alex Len (15 points, 9 rebounds), the Suns even gained an 8-point lead after the first 24 minutes. After the change of sides, however, the guests made 6 turnovers, which Orlando skilfully exploited: The Magic returned with an 11-0 run.
In the fourth quarter the landlords finally hammered 6 of 9 threesomes through the cage and set themselves off a bit. In the 36 minutes before, Orlando sunk just 5 of their 21 attempts from downtown, but in the final section they flipped the switch. Aaron Gordon alone contributed two triples in the fourth round on the way to his 29 points (plus 11 rebounds and 8 assists).
Two minutes before the siren the 22-year-old raised to 101:94 with a reverse dunk for the Magic, so the game was decided. Besides Gordon, D.J. also did magic Augustin made a strong appearance on the floor. The Point Guard just missed a triple double (15 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds), while Nikola Vucevic scored 24 points and 11 rebounds. Orlando thus won again after three consecutive defeats.
Page 1: Pistons with triple rain to victory – Magic beat Suns
Page 2: Harden disassembles the Pels – Grizzlies lose against LAL