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The playoffs reached a pivotal moment, and last night superstars turned into superheroes in a bunch of wild games.
We gotta start off in Dallas where the Clippers and especially Paul George came out like a hurricane.
PG was unstoppable, with 26 points in the first half, and he hit the PJ Washington pose from last game, to let him know who’s who.
Thing is, we got vintage Harden as well as he dissected the Mavericks defense, got the matchups he wanted, and from there he started cooking.
And on the other end Terrance Mann hounded Luka all over the court. This suffocating defense limited Doncic to 12 points on 4 for 12 shooting in the first half.
Everything was going the Clippers way. 14 threes on a blistering 67% shooting in a half is unreal. So their lead skyrocketed to 31 points and the arena was stunned.
You could see however that they believed their team could come back, as the crowd erupted during a mini run by the Mavs to cut the lead down to 22.
I’ve never seen this type of atmosphere during a 20 point deficit.
So, led by this, Dallas clawed their way back to a 17 point game at the half.
And things got wild in the third quarter as this run got them all the way back in the game.
This set us up for an insane back and forth battle where Dallas really put the pressure on the Clippers, and they actually took the lead.
All they had to do now, is stop the Clippers on defense, but Harden was unstoppable…
And with the game on the line, PG who was quiet in the second half, did the impossible…
What a hero shot from behind the backboard, to give the Clippers the lead, allowing the beard, to seal the deal in the subsequent possessions as the Mavs did not have any answer for him and his 15 points in the 4th quarter for a total of 33 in the game.
The Clippers won an absolute shootout of a game which I rated an 8.8 on rategame, the app that I’m a part of. I’m on there every gameday and we’re growing rapidly so you can join me by downloading from the link in the description.
Moving on to Philly where I hate to say this, but Joel Embiid showed us that he’s a dirty player, and all those accidents from the previous games were not inadvertent.
But the cheap shots would not scare the Knicks away as Brunson exploded for 47 points, a Knicks franchise high in the playoffs
and Hart had the best 4 point game that you’ll ever see. 0 for 7 from the field but he did this…
He had 5 offensive rebounds and 17 total in this game.
But when it mattered the most, with the game on the line, you know who the Knicks would turn to.
This was a tight game but an ugly one, with sort of an anticlimactic ending with both teams missing a whole lot of shots in the 4th.
The Knicks went 6 for 21 in the final period and the Sixers shot 6 for 24.
And Embiid was 0 for 5 in the last 12 minutes as Philadelphia loses a crucial game at home.
For all the drama that happened in this game I gave it an 8.7 and it seems that I was too generous, but hey, my Knicks won so I felt good about it.
I do agree with Nico however that the rebounding won them the game.
Minnesota went for the sweep against Phoenix, so Edwards and Towns knew that they’d need to come out with their A-game in order to close out this series.
And that’s exactly what they did.
But unlike the previous 3 games, there wasn’t a blowout third quarter run for the Timberwolves and we finally got a thriller in the 4th.
Edwards went crazy in the 4th with 16 points in the 4th quarter and 40 overall.
And then in the clutch, just look at this championship level defense here by the Timberwolves.
Minnesota absolutely clamped down on the Suns and allowed them just 1 field goal in the final 3 minutes of the game.
And meanwhile, Edwards wanted to drop the hammer and put an end to this series.
Wooow, what a player, Ant had a combined 31 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists on 51% from the field and 43% from downtown in 4 games, absolutely dominating this series and completely outplaying the Suns big 3.
Despite the sweep however it wasn’t all fun and games for Minnesota, as he suffered some friendly fire and went down with an injury. The reports are that he may have ruptured his patella tendon, and I don’t know if he’d be able to be on the sidelines for game 1 of the second round.
I totally agree with Chickenmans that even tho it was a close game, I thought that the Wolves always had control.
Speaking of that, I kinda had a feeling that Indiana would have control of the game just by looking at the starting lineups. With Giannis and Dame injured, the Pacers were the favorites at home, but Milwaukee were ready to fight, and I mean literally.
Portis throws a punch and is immediately ejected, making the Bucks roster even weaker for this game.
And the Pacers saw the opportunity and immediately jumped on it.