Seven players and coaches were ejected on Monday after a wild altercation between the Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves in the second quarter.
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Tensions had been building between the two teams after a series of physical plays earlier in the game and eventually they bubbled to the surface as a fight broke out between Minnesota’s Naz Reid and Detroit’s Ron Holland.
It came after Holland fouled Reid as he attempted a layup, prompting the Timberwolves big man to share a few words with the Pistons forward.
Reid then pointed at Holland’s face as emotions spilled over, seeing both teams come together.
Holland stared down Reid before Donte Divincenzo escalated the matter, wrestling him to the ground as the action spilled into the stands.
Divincenzo, for example, ended up in the second row of the stands with Pistons forward Isaiah Stewart on top of him.
It resulted in seven players and coaches being ejected. Holland, Stewart, Marcus Sasser and head coach J.B. Bickerstaff were tossed for Detroit while Reid, Divincenzo and assistant Pablo Prigioni from the Wolves were ejected.
CLIPPERS MAY HAVE FOUND BEN ‘BREAKTHROUGH’ DESPITE LOSS
Donovan Mitchell led from the front as the Cleveland Cavaliers bagged their 60th win of the NBA season with a 127-122 victory over the in-form Los Angeles Clippers.
Cleveland talisman Mitchell finished with 24 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in what Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson later described as his best performance of the season.
Monday’s victory means Cleveland have reached 60 wins in a season for the first time since the 2009-2010 campaign, and for only the third time in franchise history.
More significantly, the win leaves Cleveland 4.5 games clear of NBA champions Boston in the race for the No.1 seeding in the Eastern Conference playoffs with just seven regular season fixtures remaining.
Mitchell received offensive support from Jarrett Allen with 25 points, while Evan Mobley added 22 and Darius Garland 19.
But Atkinson reserved special praise for Mitchell, who was immense at both ends of the court for Cleveland, with four steals in addition to his points tally.
“He’s at that kind of maturity and mental level where he can manipulate the game how he wants it,” Atkinson said of the 28-year-old six-time NBA All-Star.
“I would argue that this was probably his best all around game all year. He did everything tonight and showed great leadership.”
While Monday’s game ended in defeat for the Clippers, beat writer Justin Russo wrote on X that the team may have “found a breakthrough” with the Ben Simmons and Ivica Zubac combination.
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Previously Simmons had been primarily replacing Zubac as the point centre in small-ball line-ups and while he had shared the court with the Clippers’ starting big man before, the team hadn’t had much success.
That changed on Monday and while it is obviously an incredibly small sample size, with the two sharing the court for 13 minutes in the Cavaliers game, the numbers speak for themselves.
Zubac-Simmons line-ups before Monday had an offensive rating of 114.4 and defensive rating of 118.1 compared to 146.2 and 96.3 in this one-game sample size.
Again, it is far too early to suggest the Clippers have definitely made it work with Simmons and Zubac sharing the court given the obvious spacing concerns, but Monday was a step in the right direction.
Simmons finished the game with four points, six rebounds, five assists and a steal while Zubac had 14 points, 13 rebounds, two assists and a pair of blocks.
The defeat left the Clippers in eighth position in the Western Conference, where they are locked in a ferocious dog-fight with Golden State and Minnesota for an automatic ticket into the playoffs.
The Clippers are on 42-32 — the same record as the seventh-placed Timberwolves — with the Warriors sixth on 42-31 heading into the final two weeks of the season.
The top six teams in the Western Conference advance to the playoffs while teams ranked from seventh to 10th play a mini-tournament to determine the final two playoff slots.
KNICKS RALLY FOR COMEBACK WIN AGAINST TRAIL BLAZERS
The wings again showed why the Knicks have kept afloat without Jalen Brunson.
OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges carried a second-half comeback for the Knicks, who toppled the Blazers, 110-93, after trailing by double-digits in the third quarter.
Bridges dropped 21 of his 28 points in the second half, finishing 12-for-22 from the field.
Anunoby followed his 31-point effort Friday with 28 on Monday. He’s scored at least 23 in the last six games.
Their offense made up for an off night from Karl-Anthony Towns, who shot just 4 for 13 with 10 points.
Anunoby and Bridges were also making up for the continued absence of Jalen Brunson, who missed his 12th straight with a sprained ankle but revealed Monday he’s resumed “basketball activities” with a goal of returning before the playoffs.
The Knicks (47-27), who clinched a playoff spot and moved closer to locking up the third seed, improved to 7-5 without Brunson.
Josh Hart flirted with a triple-double again with 14 points, nine assists and eight rebounds.
The Knicks turned the tide in the third quarter, launching a 22-7 run to take a 1-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
The end of the first half was a struggle for the Knicks.
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After leading by 10 with about five minutes remaining in the second quarter, they allowed Portland to go on a 20-3 run and went into the break with an eight-point deficit.
That hit 14 in the third quarter.
Before that, the Knicks were rolling.
Their highlight sequence was an early second-quarter rejection from Towns, which Achiuwa flicked up in the air over the defender to lead a self-breakaway for a finger roll and seven-point advantage.
The Knicks were again running makeshift at point guard. Jalen Brunson, Miles McBride and Cam Payne were all out with injuries.
Delon Wright (7 points, 35 minutes) made his second straight start, as a result, with Tyler Kolek (0 points, 14 minutes) as the back up.
The Knicks last played the Blazers just a couple weeks prior in Portland, where Bridges hit the biggest shot of his New York career – a buzzer-beating game-winning trey in overtime.
That contest was also played without Brunson, who spoke to the media Monday for the first time since spraining his ankle and revealed he’s been cleared for “basketball activities.”
The Blazers (32-43) are still in the race for a play-in spot but, for all intents and purposes, are looking again at the draft lottery. Anunoby and Bridges sent them further down that road Monday.
— Stefan Bondy, New York Post
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