In his first game in the Detroit Pistons jersey, Blake Griffin leads his new team to victory over Memphis. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Thunder lose to Denver Nuggets in an incredible finish – despite OKC’s monster chase! Washington wins thanks to an explosion of Bradley Beal in the fourth quarter against Toronto and the Timberwolves celebrate their next home win against Milwaukee.
Even before the actual tip-off, the atmosphere in Detroit’s Little Caesar’s Arena was magnificent. The announcement of the home team’s starting lineup developed into the first highlight of the evening: Blake Griffin entered the parquet flooring in the pistons’ jersey for the first time in his career, amid the loud cheers of the fans. A few hours later, fans and Griffin also celebrated their narrow victory against the Grizzlies – their debut!
“I just wanted to come out and play hard, because I didn’t know much about our offense yet,”Griffin said after the match. This simple motto seemed to pay off. The Power Forward led his new team to success with 24 points (6/12 FG, 11/13 FT), 10 rebounds and 5 assists. So he didn’t have to wait long for the first praise of his new head coach.
“We were +23 with him on the field in 35 minutes, so we were quite dominant in these sections,”Stan van Gundy was extremely satisfied on the one hand, but also a little surprised on the other:”I don’t know how we managed to do it in the one hour and 15 minutes we had together so far, but we managed to do our spacing really well and understood where everyone had to be”.
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Still, of course, not all that glittered was gold. The lack of coordination among the newly formed pistons was not surprisingly apparent in some situations and so Detroit had to tremble for victory until the final seconds. Only a bouncing ball 10.4 seconds before the end brought the decision after Detroit secured the Spalding. The pistons finally bagged the victory from the free-throw line.
Besides Griffin, Reggie Bullock (15 points), Stanley Johnson (14) and especially frontcourt partner Andre Drummond (14 points, 15 rebounds) were also convincing. On the side of the Grizzlies Marc Gasol was the best scorer with 19 points and 14 rebounds, but the Spaniard had enormous problems with his litter (6/21 FG, 1/8 threesome).
Without John Wall’s knee injury, Bradley Beal is clearly the star of the Wizards – after all, this season’s shooting guard was chosen for the first time in the All-Star-Game, but there was little or nothing to be seen of this Bradley Beal for the first 36 minutes. After the first three quarters, the 24-year-old had just 2 small points on his account, only to explode again in the final section.
In the end, Beal scored 27 points in the boxing score (6 rebounds, 6 assists), but his team-mates also played a major role in the third consecutive victory for the capitals: A total of eight Wizards players were able to score double-digit points, with Beal being joined by Otto Porter Jr. (16 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists) and Markieff Morris (15 points, 7 rebounds).
It was also the latter who crowned a 9-0 run of the hosts with 5 consecutive points. This put Washington in the front line with 115:110, and they were not to give up the lead afterwards. The wizards pocketed 7 of the last 8 free throws and thus secured their success.
The strong performance of Kyle Lowry, who, like Beal, caught fire in the final section, did not help either. The Point Guard scored 17 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, DeMar DeRozan scored 23, Serge Ibaka 16 points. A tripartite attempt of the native Congolese to the possible equalization danced in the last seconds still on the ring, but did not fall through the Reuse. Jakob Pöltl set some strong accents with 8 points (3/5 FG) and 5 rebounds in just 16 minutes of use.
Page 1: Griffin debut in Detroit successful
Page 2: OKC loses incredible thriller in Denver
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