EFEReading: 5 min.
Teams like the Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls will seek their place in the playoffs through the ‘play-in’
We had to wait for the 82 regular season games to determine the final balance in the West and this Sunday the Los Angeles Clippers finished the year in fifth place and will meet the fourth-placed Phoenix Suns in a vibrant first round of the ‘NBA playoffs.
The Clippers’ victory, precisely once morest the Suns, dropped the Golden State Warriors to sixth place, so the defending champions will play once morest the Sacramento Kings.
In it ‘play-in’, Los Angeles Lakers they beat the Utah Jazz and finished seventh, so they will play at home once morest the Minnesota Timberwolves, who took eighth place from the New Orleans Pelicans.
Norman Powell, with 29 points, and Kawhi Leonard and Russell Westbrook, with 25 each, gave the Clippers the victory in Phoenix and will face the Suns in the first round, finishing fifth, ahead of the Golden State warriors.
The Suns played the game without Kevin Durant, Chris Paul or Devin Booker and avoided facing the Warriors, although a high-voltage first round awaits them once morest some very competitive Clippers pending the recovery of Paul George.
The champions sent a message to the rest of the suitors by shielding their presence in the ‘playoffs‘ with a 56-point victory once morest the Blazers, with a scoring recital. They shot with a 60% accuracy rate (58 of 96) and connected 27 triples.
Steph Curry signed 25 points, with five triples, and Klay Thompson had 20, with four triples. He also sealed 25 points, with four triples, coming off the bench.
The Warriors finished sixth and will play the first round of the ‘play-in‘ once morest the Kings.
LeBron James signed a monumental performance, with 36 points, six rebounds, six assists and eight triples, and allowed the Lakers to finish seventh, which will give them home field advantage once morest the Wolves.
To the angelenos, who will dispute the ‘play-in‘For the second time in three years, following failing to qualify last year, it will be enough for them to beat Wolves to gain access to the ‘playoffs‘.
The Wolves won the direct match once morest the Pelicans and managed to finish eighth, which allows them, a priori, to avoid a round of ‘play-in‘.
The duel was marked by a tough altercation between Wolves players in the first half. Frenchman Rudy Gobert punched his teammate Kyle Anderson and his team took him to the locker room, without him competing once more.
After being officially knocked out of the postseason on Friday, in a game in which the front office decided to shut out its stars, the Mavericks closed out a year to forget with a humiliation at home once morest the Spurs.
The Texans played without Luka Doncic, who did not appear before the media to comment on the failure of the Mavericks’ season. The Slovenian did speak this Sunday and assured following the game that he is “happy” in Dallas and settled the rumors regarding his possible departure.
The Nuggets, already secure in the West lead, beat the Kings without Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon.
Bruce Brown, with 21 points, led a group of seven Nuggets players in double figures.
The center Kenneth Lofton Jr. signed a double double of 42 points and fourteen rebounds, but the Grizzlies, without Ja Morant, Desmond Bane or Jaren Jackson, fell in the field of the Thunder, in a game without significance for both franchises.
Tre Mann, with a triple double of 24 points, twelve rebounds and twelve assists, was the best of the Thunder.
Neither the Celtics nor the Hawks, second and eighth respectively, wanted to risk their stars. Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Al Horford and Marcus Smart were absent in Boston, while Atlanta played without Trae Young, Dejounte Murray and Clint Capela, among others.
Faced with those casualties, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser staged a triple festival. The first hit nine and the second eight for a total of 25 three-point shots as a team.
Against a starless Bucks, the Raptors triumphed driven by 23 points and four 3-pointers from Gary Trent, in a game in which the Canadians rotated Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet.
Toronto is already thinking regarding Wednesday’s game once morest the Chicago Bulls. The Bucks, the best team in the NBA (58-24), will face a team from the ‘play-in‘.
The Bulls were one of the few franchises that did not rotate their stars and, with DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine starting, they triumphed once morest the Pistons, bottom of the East.
LaVine had 17 points and DeRozan 16 for some Bulls that will be played on Wednesday ‘play-in‘ once morest the Raptors.
Mikal Bridges joined the small club of players who played 83 games in an NBA regular season, starting the Brooklyn Nets game once morest the Philadelphia 76ers, in which Joel Embiid and James Harden did not play.
Only 42 players in NBA history have achieved this mark and Bridges did it following playing 56 games with the Phoenix Suns and following playing 27 with the Nets, which he joined in February in an operation that brought Kevin Durant to Arizona.
Already without postseason options, the Pacers won at Madison Square Garden with 26 points from Bennedict Mathurin and a brilliant 19 of 54 team on three-pointers (55.9%).
In the Knicks, rivals of the Cavaliers in the first round of the ‘play-in‘, the best was Obi Toppin, with 34 points and five triples.
Spaniard Ricky Rubio started for the second straight game and had six points, five rebounds and seven assists in 26 minutes in the Cavaliers’ loss once morest the Hornets.
Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Caris LeVert did not play for the Cavs.
The Heat paid homage to Udonis Haslem, their flag and triple NBA champion, who retires at 42 following twenty years in the franchise. The forward will remain in the team’s coaching staff.
Haslem gave himself an followingnoon of 24 points, with three triples and three rebounds. Jimmy Butler didn’t play, and stars like Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo started, but only played a few minutes.
Jabari Smith led a group of seven players over ten points with twenty points, in the Rockets’ victory at the Wizards’ field.
