What a performance by LeBron James! With 44 points, he leads the Los Angeles Lakers to their next victory – and at the same time moves up to 5th place on the all-time scoring list. Meanwhile the Oklahoma City Thunder with Dennis Schröder continue to win and the Pistons win a heartbeat final in Toronto. Boston, Minnesota and the Suns are also celebrating successes.
The upward trend of the Washington Wizards continues. The team of John Wall and Bradley Beal managed their third victory in a row against the Cavaliers – the Wizards never had any problems with the weakened guests.
Besides the long-term injured Kevin Love (foot surgery) Cleveland also had to do without George Hill (thigh), Sam Dekker (ankle) and Kyle Korver (problems on the right foot).
After all, Collin Sexton jumped into the breach with one of his best games yet. The rookie set a new career record with 24 points. He sunk a strong 9 out of 16 out of the field and was by far the best man of his team. But that didn’t help much against strong wizards.
Led by Beal (20 points) and Otto Porter Jr. (15), Washington lost in the second quarter with a 15-0 run. At the halftime break the hosts were already in front with 73:52, the game was thus decided. The Wizards hammered 13 out of 40 threes around the ears of the guests, Ian Mahinmi also hit from downtown – the first triple of his career in the 556th game in the NBA!
For a good quarter of the time it looked as if the Bulls could actually sniff at the surprise against the highly favoured Celts. After Chicago entered the second leg with a 24-19 lead, however, the home side took it seriously.
About 8 minutes before the change of side it was 28:28, but then Boston finished the second quarter with a 23:7 run, with which the Celtics should finally be outrun. Overall, Kyrie Irving and Co. allowed only 11 bulls counters in the second run, while they themselves exploded for 32 points.
Irving scored 17 points (6/8 FG), 7 assists and 6 rebounds, Jaylen Brown led the team with 18 points. Furthermore, Jayson Tatum (14), Terry Rozier (12), Gordon Hayward (11) as well as Al Horford (10) also scored double-digit points.
Boston also benefited from the 22 ball losses suffered by the Bulls. The Celtics had taken a 22-point lead up to the start of the fourth quarter, and the reservists even increased their lead to 33 points. Daniel Theis only played for 9 minutes and scored 2 points as well as a rebound, a steal and a block.
At the Bulls, Jabari Parker started the game extremely hot with 14 points in the first quarter, but then he didn’t score a single point on the scoreboard. Zach LaVine also disappointed (10, 3/11 FG), while Shaquille Harrison led his team with 16 points.
In the first game after Caris LeVert’s serious injury, the Nets still seemed to be in shock. The home side were unable to find their way into the game in the first twelve minutes and were therefore already 21-37 behind after the first section. Without their best player of the season to date, the Nets were out of the field at 6 out of 24.
Although Brooklyn led by Spencer Dinwiddie (18 points, 5 assists) fought his way up to seven points towards the end of the second run, this was not enough. The Heat quickly found their way back to the track, after 36 minutes they again had an 18-point lead on the credit side.
Miami owed this above all to Tyler Johnson (24, 9/12 FG, Season-High) and Goran Dragic (21). All in all, six heatles scored double-digit points, including Josh Richardson (15) and Hassan Whiteside (14 and 10 rebounds). After three defeats in a row the Heat found their way back to success – even if only against weakened Nets.
Page 1: Clear victories for Celtics, Wizards and Heat
Page 2: Pistons beat Raptors in the heartbeat final
Page 3: Outstanding LeBron writes history