The Cleveland Cavaliers lost their second game in a row to the Atlanta Hawks, and the Boston Celtics beat Chicago to stay in contention for the NBA Cup on Friday.
The day after Thanksgiving, the NBA schedules games throughout the day, counting down to the regular season and the NBA Cup.
Atlanta, Cleveland’s bete noire
The best team to start the season, with a 15-game winning streak to start, the Cleveland Cavaliers lost their second game in a row, once again against Atlanta (117-101), after losing to the Hawks on Wednesday.
So Cleveland has 17 wins and 3 losses and remains at the top of the Eastern Conference ahead of champion Boston, where Atlanta remains 9th (9-11).
Faced with 29 points from Darius Garland, interior De’Andre Hunter was valuable for the Hawks (23 points), which gave them qualification for the quarter-finals of the NBA Cup.
In the same group, the champion of Boston defeated Chicago (138-129) and can still hope to win a ticket reserved for the 2nd in the group.
Jayson Tatum had a solid game again (35 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists), assisted by Payton Pritchard, author of 19 of his 29 points at the start of the 4th quarter, while the score was still close.
New York will challenge Orlando
The New York Knicks struggled to defeat the Charlotte Hornets (99-98), although they were deprived of LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges.
Jalen Brunson (31 points) allowed the Knicks to achieve the third success in as many games in their NBA Cup group. New York will therefore play a final decisive meeting on Tuesday against Orlando, which has the same record after its success in Brooklyn (123-100).
Despite being without star Paolo Banchero for several weeks, Franz Wagner’s Magic (29 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists) have won 11 of their last 12 games.
The wolves turned orange
After the rant made on Wednesday by Anthony Edwards, the Minnesota Timberwolves recovered with a resounding success against the Los Angeles Clippers (93-92), despite once again a chaotic ending to the game.
“I played really bad tonight but we defended! Everyone played + hard + tonight, that’s what we needed”, appreciated Edwards (21 points on 7 of 21 shooting, 4 rebounds).
The Lakers in red
The winners of the first edition of the NBA Cup last year, the Los Angeles Lakers of LeBron James (12 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists) lost against the Oklahoma City Thunder (101-93) and almost had no chance to advance to the quarter – finals.
With two wins and two losses, the Lakers can no longer finish at the top of their group and only an impossible scenario could give them a qualification this Tuesday as the best 2nd in one of the three groups in the West.
“OKC” remained at the top of the Western Conference for the regular season, thanks to their Canadian leader Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (36 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists).
With AFP