As the season winds down with the playoffs set to begin one week from tomorrow, players and teams are starting to feel more tension and desperation.
It showed on a Thursday night that featured 11 technical fouls, five flagrant fouls and three ejections in three games with teams jockeying for playoff positioning.
We start with the Miami Heat, who extended their winning streak to five games as they beat the league-leading Chicago Bulls 83-72.
Despite missing Chris Bosh and Derrick Rose, the game still had plenty of playoff atmosphere as things got chippy when James Jones was called for a flagrant-2 foul for an automatic ejection after giving a cheap shot to Joakim Noah.
Things did not ease up either, with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade each picking up their own flagrant fouls.
At the end of the night, it was a needed quality win that kept Miami within striking distance of the best record in the league.
From Joseph Goodman of Miami Herald: “You could almost taste the playoffs. In a physical, final regular-season meeting between the Eastern Conference’s two best teams, the Heat defeated the Bulls 83-72 on Thursday at American Airlines Arena. If it wasn’t a preview of the playoffs, it was certainly a signal that a possible rematch between Miami and Chicago in the East finals will be a fight for every possession and struggle for every field goal. With one of its most inspired efforts since the All-Star break, the Heat held the Bulls to 35.7 percent shooting from the field and 12.5 percent from three-point range… LeBron James has carried the Heat over the last two weeks and Thursday was no different. He finished with 27 points on 8-of-18 shooting to go along with 11 rebounds and six assists. He was 10 of 12 from the free-throw line. After missing the Heat’s last two games, Dwyane Wade returned to the lineup and scored 18 points. He was a bit sluggish at the beginning, starting the game 1 of 7 from the field, but found his form during the physical third quarter. Mario Chalmers had 16 points in his best game against the Bulls this season. Udonis Haslem, starting for an injured Chris Bosh, had six points and 10 rebounds. The Heat out-rebounded the Bulls 45-40.”
The Heat have won five consecutive games since their loss to the Bulls back on April 12, and James has taken over the team and the race for this season’s MVP.
The Bulls are now facing the possibility of losing grip on the best record in the league after holding that title for much of the season, and a loss to the Wizards a couple of games ago hurt them a lot more than this loss to Miami.From Michael Wilbon of ESPN: “It was impossible to imagine just a week ago, in the euphoria of beating Miami to take a three-game lead at the top of the Eastern Conference standings, that the Chicago Bulls would be in a bit of trouble going into the playoffs. But they are. It’s not the loss Thursday night in Miami that has suddenly put the Bulls in peril. The Miami Heat, playing at home, should have beaten the Bulls with or without Derrick Rose, particularly with the top seed in the East still out there to be claimed. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with splitting four regular-season games with Miami, especially since Rose didn’t play in two of them and didn’t produce much of anything in a third. It’s losing to the unspeakably bad Washington Wizards on Monday, at home no less, that put the Bulls unexpectedly in the spot they’re in now. Had the Bulls beaten the Wizards, the team with the second-worst record in the NBA, they’d have essentially secured the No. 1 seed in the East.”
Meanwhile, the Suns got back into the ever-tight playoff race in the Western Conference by defeating the Clippers for the 10th consecutive time at home.
After allowing 100 points or more in 10 consecutive games, the Suns finally let their defense do the talking, led by the unlikely reserve guard Sebastian Telfair.
More from Coro: “That included the staff’s deft move to bring in Sebastian Telfair to harass Chris Paul on the game’s final possessions. Paul scored the Clippers’ final six points but he also missed a jumper with good help from Marcin Gortat and had Telfair recover on a drive to block another. It was just enough to allow the Suns’ free throws at the other end to cause separation… But the Suns did more than control Paul. They never allowed Griffin to make another field goal after his seven-for-13 first quarter… The Suns needed a Dudley 3 and a Nash scoop over Griffin to tie the game at 86 and 88. Telfair bothered Paul’s dribble on the next play until he missed a jumper against Gortat’s help. After one Gortat free throw and an exchange of two free throws by Paul and Steve Nash, the Suns led 91-90 when Paul got by Telfair but Telfair swatted his shot from behind. With no timeouts, the Clippers inbounded with five seconds on the shot clock and Mo Williams missed a long 3. Frye converted two free throws for a 93-90 lead with two seconds, when Griffin caught a full-court heave and missed a 3.”
The Clippers had a chance to go into a virtual tie with the division-rival Lakers, but now trail them by one game.
After the game, they had trouble shaking off the flagrant-2 foul that got Suns center Robin Lopez ejected from the game. He will likely face a fine or suspension for the hard foul.
From Broderick Turner of Los Angeles Times: “The Clippers were more irate about the physical attack on Blake Griffin by Suns reserve center Robin Lopez than they were about their 93-90 loss to Phoenix Thursday night at US Airways Center. The Clippers were upset by the flagrant two foul called on Lopez for his neck-tying of Griffin in the fourth quarter than they were by having their five-game winning streak ended. The Clippers were more angry about the strained neck Griffin suffered because of the play that got Lopez ejected than they were about not being able to execute late in the game. “You can push all the way up to that line. The line is pretty fine,” Griffin said after scoring 16 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. “Once it gets crossed, it becomes real dangerous, I guess. But that’s the way it’s been going.” The play in question began when Mo Williams threw a pass to Griffin on the fastbreak. Lopez chased Griffin down and hooked the Clippers forward around his neck, pushing him to the court with 6:14 left in the fourth quarter. Williams and Nick Young went after Lopez, Williams getting called for a technical foul. Lopez was thrown out of the game.”
Moving onto a team that no one is talking about, the Pacers extended the current best winning streak in the league to seven games as they continued to solidify themselves as the third seed in the Eastern Conference with a 3 1/2 game lead over the Hawks.
From Mike Wells of Indianapolis Star: “The Indiana Pacers began the season simply wanting to move up a spot or two in the Eastern Conference standings after getting a brief taste of the playoffs last season. They’ve accomplished that and much more. The latest turn in the Pacers’ best season in eight years happened Thursday when they secured home court in the first round of the NBA playoffs by beating the Milwaukee Bucks 118-109 in a testy game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. “It’s tremendous the step that we’ve taken in one season,” Pacers forward Danny Granger said. “How we’ve had a complete turnaround. Now we’re one of the best teams in the NBA. It’s really fun to win like this.” The Pacers (41-22) will finish as the third or fifth seed. They would host Games 1 and 2 as the fifth seed because they’ll finish with a better record than Boston, which is currently the fourth seed. The playoffs open the weekend of April 28. The Pacers can lock in the third seed with a victory over Philadelphia at the fieldhouse Saturday. They’re on a seven-game winning streak, their longest since the 2003-04 season.”
The story hasn’t been quite the same for the Bucks, whose hopes of making the playoffs dimmed considerably after their third consecutive loss and fifth loss in six games, pushing them three games behind the Sixers for the eighth seed with four games remaining in their schedule.
Along the way, tempers flared yet again as another player got ejected.
From Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel: “Everything started spinning out of control in the fourth quarter Thursday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Milwaukee Bucks forward Larry Sanders picked up two technical fouls in a 20-second span, fouled out and was ejected, nearly setting off a melee between the Bucks and Indiana Pacers. And the Pacers continued to send Bucks guard Mike Dunleavy Jr., a former Indiana player, crashing to the floor with hard fouls. This time it was Leandro Barbosa picking up a flagrant-1 foul for hitting Dunleavy on a Bucks fast break… The 76ers’ magic number to clinch a berth dropped to two – any combination of Bucks losses and 76ers victories totaling two will eliminate Milwaukee. “We’re on the outside looking in,” Dunleavy said. “We’ve got to do something extraordinary right now.” Again the Bucks defense had few answers against the Pacers, who were led by Danny Granger’s 29 points, and 21 points and 14 rebounds from power forward David West. George Hill continued to excel at point guard with 22 points, eight assists and five rebounds as Indiana (41-22) swept the season series from the Bucks and clinched home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
And finally, the Rockets continued their free fall as they lost for the sixth consecutive time and fell a full game behind Phoenix and Utah for the eighth seed.
This time, it came against the Hornets, who have been playing the spoiler role as of late, winning five of their last six games, with three of those victories coming against teams with playoff aspirations.
From Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: “The missed shots and the losses began piling up with the pressure mounting along with the stakes placed on every must-win game. There had been a time that the Rockets had prided themselves on their ability to handle adversity, citing some of the season’s best wins. But with their postseason aspirations in sight but shaky, to be determined in the season’s final weeks, the Rockets crumbled, with the latest collapse making the meltdown complete. Just as their season spiraled down the drain from the heights of a four-game road trip sweep to a late-season fold, the Rockets went from a 13-point lead to a 105-99 overtime loss to the New Orleans Hornets on Thursday, filling the night with missed free throws, a bungled offense and a broken defense. The loss sent the losing streak to a season-long six games and all but ended the hopes for a return to the playoffs, the goal Kevin McHale had declared as a plan on the day he was introduced as Rockets coach. With the game and the season on the line, the Rockets’ offense – like the final days of their playoff hopes – had been reduced to desperate long-shot hopes that failed. They took and made as many 3-pointers as in any game this season, going 11-of-31. But after a 6-of-8 start, they never stopped firing away no matter how many treys clanged the rims.”
The Hornets have won six of eight games when Eric Gordon, who led all scorers with 27 points, is in the lineup. Things are looking up for the team that finally has a new owner. They are finishing the season on a strong note despite having the worst record in the Western Conference in a forgettable season.
There was one more game in the Association, with no playoff implications.
- Minnesota finally won a game in April, their first in almost three full seasons, and snapped an 11-game losing streak as they beat the Pistons 91-80. Nikola Pekovic led all scorers with 23 points while grabbing nine rebounds and J.J. Barea had 13 points, six rebounds and 12 assists.
James Park is a regular contributor to Sheridanhoops.com. You can follow him on twitter @NBAtupark.