As Sportstips.com does every day, we’ve watched 3 of the biggest games last night and our key takeaways from them!
Washington Wizards vs Denver Nuggets
The Wizards desperately needed a win last night to help them in the playoff race and unfortunately for them, the juggernaut of the Nuggets were too big of task for them. They kept it close all game but the lack of real star power and defensive prowess lead to their downfall.
The story of the game here was that Denver Nuggets were able to play great defense that they’ll sorely need to play in the playoffs to win a series or two. They locked down Jabari Parker who’s been hot lately scoring 28 and 19 points in his last two games to a mere 6 points last night.Paul Millsap was everywhere on the defensive end getting 3 steals and a block to finish the game.
The Wizards starters played great other than Jabari, Portis the recent pick up from the bulls filled in the scoring that Jabari could not do. The Nuggets bench were just too good though with 3 of their 4 bench players scoring double digits.
Nuggets Win 113 – 108
Top Scorer: Bradley Beal – 25 Points
Top Assists: Tomas Satoransky – 10 Assists
Top Rebounds: Miles Plumlee – 11 Rebounds
Utah Jazz vs Atlanta Hawks
The Hawks young core did it again, they pulled an upset over one of the big western conference boys in the Jazz and their future just looks immensely bright. Donovan Mitchell has been put on a James Harden like role but it wasn’t enough unfortunately for them to get the win over the Hawks core.
Trae Young continues his great play scoring 23 points but the most impressive stat he accumulated for the game was his 11 assists. While he couldn’t get going from down town like he usually does, he was able to give his team mates easy points with the double team defense being played on him. DeWayne Dedmon got easy rolls going 6-8 and 3-3 from down town finishing the game with 18 points, he was the X-Factor for this game.
The Jazz need to decide if they can afford to play Jae Crowder in the playoffs as he was a liability all game. Ending the game with a negative 17 in the plus/minus box score, he was black hole on the offensive end jacking shots and not moving the ball leading to some real sloppy play.
Hawks Win 117 – 114
Top Scorer: Donovan Mitchell – 34 Points
Top Assists: Trae Young – 11 Assists
Top Rebounds: Derrick Favors – 15 Rebounds
Golden State Warriors vs Indiana Pacers
Unfortunately, our game of the night was a disappointment at the end as the Warriors blew the Pacers out of the building in 2nd and 3rd quarter. The game started with some heavy news that Kevin Durant’s adopted brother and one of Quinn Cook’s great friend, Clifford Dixon was shot and killed in Atlanta. Emotions were running high for the team as they looked to basketball as their escape and saving grace from the unfortunate news that occurred.
The Warriors defense seems to be back in action as they locked another team to below 90 points. They did the same the offensive juggernaut in the Thunder not long ago as well. Durant who was playing high on emotions was blocking shots left and center, finishing the game with 3 blocks. It was an efficient and team play all around as the famous golden state warriors starting 5 all scored in double digits with the shots being spread evenly.
Wesley Matthews was locked down all game and so did Bogdanovic the usual scorers for the Pacers as Oladipo is out. Despite some great effort by Tyreke Evans scoring 20 from the bench, it just wasn’t enough for the pacers to compete when the best team in the league actually starts to try.
Warriors Win 110 – 88
Top Scorer: Tyreke Evans – 20 Points
Top Assists: Stephen Curry – 7 Assists
Top Rebounds: DeMarcus Cousins – 11 Rebounds
Other Games
Charlotte Hornets Defeat the Minnesota Timberwolves 113 – 106
Top Scorer: Kemba Walker 31 Points, Karl Anthony Towns – 21 Points
Detroit Pistons defeat the Phoenix Suns 118 – 98
Top Scorer: Wayne Ellington 23 Points, Devin Booker 26 Points
Sacramento Kings defeat the Dallas Mavericks 116 – 100
Top Scorer: Buddy Hield 29 Points, Justin Jackson 19 Points.
Player of the Night: Kevin Durant
Best team performance: Atlanta Hawks
Most disappointing: Utah Jazz
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