We told you yesterday why we are all Bucks fans — each and every person who loves basketball and loves rivalries. And yes, that includes you, Celtics Nation. We want to see your boys go up against the Miami Heat in the first round.
Well, how about a little premature rejoicing?
Milwaukee won easily Tuesday night behind a career-best game from Larry Sanders, Boston traveled to the land of Pekovic and got beat up by a “monster,” and the Bucks moved a game closer to tying the Celtics in the standings and landing the No. 7 seed that would facilitate a Heat-Celtics first round series.
In case you missed it, here are about a million reasons why we need Heat-Celtics in the first round.
With 15 days left in the regular season, we get a treat tonight — one game with enormous playoff qualification implications, another with enormous psychological ramifications.
Those games are Mavericks-Lakers and Knicks-Heat, with Dallas trying to continue its late-season surge for a playoff spot, and New York trying to clinch the season series 3-1 against Miami and improve its winning streak to nine games.
Here is a look around the league at Tuesday night’s goings-on:
- Memphis defeated San Antonio to reach 50 victories and notch their 12th straight home win. The Grizzlies now are 21-8 since trading for Prince, Ed Davis and Austin Daye on Jan. 30. The Spurs left Kawhi Leonard and Tim Duncan at home with sore knees after both played in Sunday night’s 88-86 loss to Miami. Manu Ginobili is out at least three weeks with a strained right hamstring, and the West looks more wide open than it has all season. The Spurs now have had five straight games decided by a single possession, three of them losses.
- Sanders had a career-high 24 points and 13 rebounds in a 131-102 victory over Charlotte. Milwaukee had its highest point total in more than four years. Monta Ellis had 19 points, a career-high 14 assists and six steals to help Milwaukee pull 1 1/2 games behind seventh-place Boston in the Eastern Conference playoff race. More here on why we are all Bucks Nation.
- Nikola Pekovic beat up the overmatched Boston front line for 29 points to lead the Timberwolves to a 110-100 victory over Boston, which was without Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. ”We had no one that could deal with that big monster they had down there,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. Andrei Kirilenko had 17 points, nine rebounds and five assists, and Dante Cunningham scored 19 points off the bench for the Wolves, who delivered coach Rick Adelman his 998th career victory.
- Roy Hibbert scored 26 points, DeAndre Jordan had a goose egg for the Clippers, and the Indiana Pacers finished 4-0 on their final Western swing to strengthen their hold on the No. 2 spot in the East. The Clips failed in their third attempt at their 50th victory, which would break the franchise record set by the 1974-75 Buffalo Braves.
- Jeremy Lin had 19 points and 11 assists, most of them to Omer Asik, who shot 11 of 13 in a 111-103 victory over Orlando. The Rockets have a firm hold on seventh place and are just a game behind the Warriors for sixth. But we don’t want them sixth. We want them seventh so we can have a Thunder-Rockets first round series.