NBA: Houston reaches milestone – Lou Williams saves the Clippers with clutch performance

Without injured Dennis Schröder, the Houston Rockets walked against Atlanta to the next milestone of an outstanding season so far. Lou Williams kept his Clippers’ play-off hopes alive with an incredible fourth-quarter performance and the Golden State Warriors went under against the Utah Jazz.

There was actually enough reason to be happy for the Pacers after the overtime thriller against the Heat. With their 43rd victory of the season, the Pacers have officially secured a play-off spot – but there was no sense of satisfaction in the Indiana cabin after the match.

“We’re far from finished,” explained Thaddeous Young, who had an elementary share of the win with 22 points (10/16 FG), 9 rebounds, 5 steals and 3 blocks, “We want to get as far up the table as possible and now just try to win the maximum number of games” Indiana ranks fifth to the east, but remains within striking distance of the Cavaliers at

After a lively exchange of blows, the Pacers stumbled massively in the final quarter and could only score 14 points – but in extra time they could then rely on Victor Oladipo (23 points, 8/21 FG) who, with 80 seconds to play, gave his team a six-point lead by three.

“Vic (Oladipo) has often proved to be our closer,” commented Nate McMillan, “We wouldn’t be here without him now,” but the Pacers coach could also count on Darren Collison, who scored 8 of his 12 points in the last five minutes of the game.

Miami showed a balanced team performance, led by Tyler Johnson with 19 points (7/10 FG). James Johnson (15 points, 9 rebounds) brought the Heat into overtime with two free throws and Dwyane Wade scored 13 points from the bank. Heat-Coach had already left Indianapolis on Saturday to attend the birth of his first child.

Thanks to an outstanding clutch performance by Lou Williams, the Clippers’ play-off hopes remain alive: Sweet Lou scored 18 of his 26 points in the final quarter against his former team. Previously, the best bank scorer in the league had only hit 3 of his 13 attempts at throwing.

“With a scorer like him, it comes to the point where he sees the ball fly through the basket and it doesn’t matter what you do against him,” explained DeMar DeRozan. The Raptors were already leading 27:12 in the first quarter, but continued to weaken offensively.

DeRozan (3/12 FG) and Kyle Lowry (11 points, 4/10 FG) were unusually passive and even the strong Raptors bank could not set their accents as usual: “This was the first time in a very long time that our second unit had not played well,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey defended his bankers. Only Jonas Valanciunas could convince with 16 points (7/11 FG) and 12 rebounds in only 20 minutes played.

Doc Rivers was understandably pleased after the game: “All of us did good things today,” commented the Clippers coach. Among others, he referred to the strong bank performance of Montrezl Harrell (19 points, 9/12 FG) and the contributions of Milos Teodosic (15 points, 4 assists), Tobias Harris (20 points) and DeAndre Jordan (9 points, 14 rebounds).

Page 1: Pacers win OT thriller, Wizards stumble

Page 2: Terry Rozier with Career-High

Page 3: Houston reaches milestone, Warriors without a chance