Thriller in DEN@OKC earlier today: Back-forth game, felt like playoffs. SGA hits a 3 with 13.6 left to put OKC up 4. Ya figure that's it. DEN timeout. Ball comes into Jamaal, Joker runs to the top of the arc, Joker gets it, and as his shot is going into motion, Jamaal has a screen for Joker; Jaylin Williams powers through the screen for the whistle: Joker's shot goes in: DEN down 1, and now Murray gets 1 FT for the odd and-one: he hits it: tie game, 126-126. 4 point play with 13 secs left to tie it on the road against the champs. OKC timeout. SGA hits a step-back 3 with 3 secs left, DEN has no timeouts, Aaron Gordon heaves from 70 feet and it hits the backboard. OKC wins.
Bam Adebayo 31 points - Washington 29 in 1 st quarter. Bam Adebayo breaking a Heat franchise record for points in a quarter he already got career high 43 points at half,Had 24 field goal attempts and 14 FT p.s Bam’s stats: 52 points, 30+ shots, 14 3-point attempts and it's still 3 quarter
Really irks me the way Bam got his 83. The whole 4th quarter was a joke. Heat kept fouling (an intentionally missing fts) to get him the ball when he didn't need to play any of the 4th quarter. A true all time game but def bothers me that he beat Kobe's all time record the way he did. People will look back at this game and just see he scored 83, but I (and Pepperidge Farm) will remember how it was done.
Did not see this: NBA says that in review of last 2 mins of DEN game, when Bron inbounded to AR and Jones fouled him intentionally, up 2 with 9.2 left...that Jones stripped the ball "cleanly" and it went out of bounds. The league didn't say which team would have gotten the ball out of bounds after the "clean" strip that was mistakenly called a foul. As I was watching, I thought Jones was trying to foul AR. I don't think any of the commenters (Breen/R-Jeff/Legler) thought it was anything but intentional, but I'll go back and watch it again. Anyway, AR hit both, then we fouled Cam Johnson and he hit both, then AR got fouled near midcourt, when he proceeded to hit the first and then pull off the miracle to force OT. The NBA can blow me: I'm thinking of the last 2 mins of that game against the Bags a couple years ago...
i saw that (espn put at the top of their stories, of course). it was clear they were trying to foul. i do think it's possible you could have not called that one a foul, but it's a weird complaint to make when the plan (to foul) was obvious.
Did any of y'all watch HOU@MIN from 3/25? My gawd... Intense game throughout, then MIN starts to pull away with 5:15 left in the 4th Q. Rudy gets his 5th foul but Jae Sean Tate gets T'd up. MIN is without Ant. Jaden McDaniels make the tech: MIN up 10, at home, with 5 mins left in a game that has implications for tiebreakers in the West. Jae Sean Tate makes 2 FTs on the double-foul with Rudy: MIN by 8. KD blocks Slo-Mo Anderson's shot. KD has had one of his worst shooting games, ever, but his team is still in this. After Sengun gets the ball, KD hits a 12 foot pull-up: MIN by 6, with 4:57 left. Julius drives and misses a running hook, Rudy gets the offensive board, Slo-Mo misses a 10 footer, Tate gets the rebound, Jabari Smith throws it away to Jaden McD; Jaden hits a step-back 3: MIN by 9, just over 4 mins left. Starting to look good for MIN. Jaden McD steals again, from KD, dunks: MIN by 11. With 3:30 left, Sengun makes a driving layup, strong contest. MIN up 9. Nice shot. Julius misses a floater and HOU gets a shot clock turnover and Udoka takes a timeout, with 3 mins left, his team down 9. That Monte Carlo thing has MIN's chances of winning at 96.1%. Remember that. Julius acts like Sengun isn't there and runs through him at speed on a pick. Flagrant One! HOU get 2 FTs and possession. Sengun hits both: HOU is 21 for 21 from the line so far. KD in a PnR with Sengun, who slams: Suddenly HOU is only down 5 with 2:44 left. It was 11 only 45 secs ago. DiVincenzo misses a 3. KD drives, is met with two defenders, he tries to dish to Sengun in the paint, but Rudy steals it, then Sengun is all over him, Rudy tries a wrap-around pass to jaden McD, but throws it out of bounds. Jaden not only hangs his head, but he took a shot earlier in the game and looks like he's sick and is ready to pass out. Doris Burke points out that Jaden has been guarding KD and will continue to need to play great D against him, just as KD goes around Jaden like he's a traffic cone, and dunks: that is very uncharacteristic of Jaden. WTF is wrong w/him? It's now MIN up 3 with 2 mins left. Ball gets deflected out of bounds, Donte D tries to take it in, throws it to Jaden near the logo, it gets picked off by KD, who drives for a slam over Jaden: MIN only up 1, with just over 90 secs left and the crowd is stunned at HOU's comeback. 10 straight by HOU in crunch. Bones drives to the rack, puts it up high, but misses, two guys dive for the ball, it goes out: MIN ball with 72 secs left. As the refs are trying to make sure the clock is right, Jaden is waiting to guard KD and looks sick. KD signals to MIN's bench - looked like to me - about Jaden, who is hunched over, He took an elbow to the midsection earlier, and also an accidental shot to the knee. He walks over to MIN's bench, but stays in. Why, I don't know. Kid is kinda badazz. MIN can't get anything going after inbounding the ball, and Rudy loses it...shot clock violation. Great HOU defense. Disastrous for MIN! 1:08 left. Jaden finally goes out, Slo-Mo in. KD dribbles right, then left, has Julius on him like a cheap coat, hits that fadeaway create-space thing he's done forever: HOU leads by 1 with 53 secs left. At this point, it looks like MIN has epically choked this crucial game away, at home. KD after making it, backpedals to play D, has that "I'm mad" look on his face. After a kicked-ball, clock resets to 14 for MIN with 33 secs left. Julius drives with Thompson on him, hits a high arcing 3 footer: MIN by 1 with 27 secs left. Every shot at the rim looks like multiple fouls, but the refs are lettin' 'em play. This is one of those physical games where you just hope some guy doesn't get seriously hurt, but it's also thrilling to watch. KD has the ball, probing, right, then left, a switch: he's now got Rudy on him. KD crosses over on Rudy, gets Rudy on skates and loses him, then pulls up from the FT line...and Rudy somehow recovers and blocks KD's go-ahead shot! Ohhh...my freaking gawd what a great block! I'd say only Wemby makes that play in today's NBA, but here's Gobert. HOU gets it, KD gets it back, tries to pass, and Rudy knocks it out of bounds. Awesome. Can MIN hang on and win this after that barrage led by KD in the final 3 mins? Udoka takes a timeout. HOU has 4.5 to shoot. There's 9 secs left in the 4th Q. Before the ball is inbounded, Rudy's on Sengun in the paint, both guys wrestling, then Sengun looks like he does the flopperoo and the refs buy it: Rudy has fouled out. He can't believe it. Replays: both guys are hooking each other, but Sengun sold the foul. The refs - or the announcers - think, furthermore, that it might be a flagrant, because Sengun ended up on his knees. If it is a flagrant, Rudy has 8 flagrant points and will miss TWO games. As I watch the replay, both guys were givin' as good as they were gettin', but Sengun hooked Rudy first. Turns out they didn't call a flagrant, but wanted to see if the foul occurred before the ball was inbounded, which it was: one FT awarded to HOU, and KD hits it to tie the game with 9 secs left. 22 of 22 FTs for HOU. Sengun's acting really paid off bigtime. Jaden is out, Ant of course is injured, Rudy has fouled out. HOU takes the ball out with 9 secs left, tie game. KD gets it, his pass is picked off by Naz, a mad rush toward the hoop by MIN, crowd sounds insane, cross-court pass to Julius who puts up the winning shot from two feet...which Sengun makes an insane block on!, both Julius and Sengun go sprawling out of bounds at the endline at the buzzer. Sengun gets up,walks back to his bench, his bottom lip bleeding profusely. He looks calm. Overtime. MIN has to feel like jit: they were up 11 with 3:30 left. How will they respond? HOU gets the tip. Reed Sheppard misses a 3, HOU gets the offensive board, out to KD, who's heavily guarded, he dishes to Reed for another 3: swish. HOU up 3. Julius hit Slo-Mo, cutting to the rack; he goes to slam, but Sengun blocks it! HOU on break, KD slams: HOU up 5. Naz runs into Sengun's chest for an offensive foul. Must really blow to be a MIN fan right about then. Naz has 5 fouls, Finch challenges whether Sengun had position or not. HOU is on an 18-2 run. Looks to me like Naz stopped and barely hit Sengun's chest, though he went down. His lip is still bleeding. The challenge fails. Then Naz apparently said something worse than "That call is b*******, man," and Scott Foster throws Naz Reid out. KD hits the tech: HOU up 6 with 4:13 left in OT. KD hits a 3 from the top of the arc with Julius in his jock: HOU is up 9. This is insane! Anderson's pass is knocked away by Sheppard, they drive two on none and Thompson slams: HOU up 11 with 3:26 let in OT. Finch calls a timeout, as would you. The crowd is murmuring: Ant's knee hast foresaken them. Why the pain? Can't say I blame 'em. This is an Epic Collapse. A 20 point swing in the last five minutes, most of it due to HOU's defense. It's 11-0 HOU in overtime. Donte misses a 3, Sengun gets the rebound. It really looks over, though there's 3:15 left. KD has the ball at the arc, dishes over to Sengun who drives straight to the rack uncontested and throws down a monster slam: HOU up 13. Where was the defense? That was pathetic! This has gotten pug-fugly. Okay: now dig this: MIN works the ball around the arc and Conley hits a corner 3: HOU by 10. KD milks the clock, Jabari Smith is wide open in the corner: misses the 3, MIN gets the board and runs. Conley dishes to Julius, whose running layup missed, but Slo-Mo gets the board and put it back and gets the harm: HOU by 8. He hits the FT: HOU by 7. 2:18 left. Heavy backcourt pressure from MIN, Sengun has it, wearing Julius...Sengun fails to get it over halfcourt in 8 secs! Udoka looks pissed and has a look on his face like a killer out for vengeance. I wonder how difficult it is to be on his team. Slo-Mo holds the ball, hits Donte driving to the hoop for a layup! HOU by 5. The crowd sounds like it's coming back to life in MIN. With 2:02 left, HOU is up 5 and Udoka takes a timeout. Thompson hit Sengun down low with a pass, Julius is on him, Sengun tries to bank it from the baseline, 3 feet away, it...misses. Julius rebounds, MIN runs, Bones to Julius, driving to the rim: layup: HOU by 3 with 94 secs left. HOU started the OT with 13 straight; now MIN has gone on a 10-0 run. KD dishes to Thompson in the paint, who tries a floater from 4 feet...and who knows WTF happened, but he managed to miss the rim. Scramble for the ball: out of bounds: HOU's ball. 74 secs left and HOU is up 3. 14 secs to shoot. Slo-Mo almost steals the in-bounds pass to KD, but KD gets it, dribbles with his Durantula body across out to the arc, is doubled, dishes to Sengun, it gets knocked away, Sengun falls or is knocked down, Donte dives for it, loses it, get it back throws it to a teammate before they tie him up, the ball gets knocked away again, guys diving all over the court, out of bounds: MIN ball. This game is everything you want. Donte hits a rainbow 3 from straight away: tie game! HOU goes on a 13-0 run to start OT; MIN answers with a 13-0 run! I have never seen anything like this. I see lots of expensive seats that are empty: they lost faith when HOU went on that 13-0 run, but they will tell their friends they stayed to the end. Sengun has the ball near midcourt; he's got Julius on him, he works his way toward the paint, both guys are bumping and it's very physical; Sengun forces up a 7 foot shot in the paint: misses. MIN gets the rebound, crowd is going bonkers. There's 29 secs left. Bones to Julius, who drives to the lane, stops, pops, hits: MIN up 2 with 8.8 left. Timeout HOU. MIN is on a 15-0 run. KD gets it, drives to his right, then cuts toward the paint, two defenders meet him, he throws up a hanging scoop from 3 feet that misses, but...FOUL! No challenges or timeouts left for either team. HOU is 23 for 23 from the line tonight and now KD goes to the line to tie it up with 3.3 left. He MISSES the first! It barely hit the front of the rim! No ice water at all! The crowd is thunderous. That means KD has to try a Hail Mary/Austin Reaves miss-on-purpose. KD does a hard bankshot-type FT, it hits the rim and caroms out, MIN goes for the wild board: out of bounds to HOU with 1.1 left. The inbounds pass is deflected: game over. MIN wins 110-108. This is why I'm a lifelong fan of the NBA. Just another NBA game. (Not)
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2026/03/players-union-has-own-anti-tanking-proposals.html this was interesting, this in particular: i can see the issues with it, but the players endorsing it means something, right? the players really do want to win, by and large, which is why even shameful tanking measures sometimes yield wins. if money was on the line, there would be pressure from both sides on coaches/gms to just try to win games as best they can. on the other hand, i do understand the logic in short-term tanks. i just want the league to end long-term tanks a la "the process". that s*** sucks. it's ok to be in different phases of team building, but "we're gonna lose a long time and hope for lotto luck" is terrible for everyone. hate it hate it.
