Australian young gun Johnny Furphy was back in double figures as the Indiana Pacers banked consecutive NBA wins for the first time in more than a month with a dominant 123-99 victory over Miami.<\/p>\n
After ending a 13-game losing streak in a confidence-boosting triumph away to Charlotte, the Pacers never trailed and broke clear with a big third quarter against the Heat in Indianapolis on Saturday night (local time).<\/p>\n
They ended the period on a 34-14 run, led by as much as 29 points and went on to snap a seven-game home losing streak in front of a sold-out crowd of 17,274 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.<\/p>\n
Andrew Nembhard top-scored with 29 points on 10-of-16 shooting, with Micah Potter (14) and Jarace Walker (13) also among the seven Pacers in double figures.<\/p>\n
Melbourne product Furphy retained his spot in the starting line-up and had 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting, including 2-of-2 from long range.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old guard scored all of his points in the first half and reached double figures for the second time this season, following a career-high 18 points in a loss to New Orleans on December 20.<\/p>\n
Furphy also finished with seven rebounds and two assists against the Heat.<\/p>\n
Miami had an extra rest day in the build-up after their game in Chicago on Thursday was postponed, and took to the floor for the first time since a loss to Minnesota.<\/p>\n
They had averaged 120 points per game, but were restricted to double figures for just the fourth time this season.<\/p>\n
Tyler Herro had 21 points, while Jaime Jaquez Jr had 16 off the bench on return, after missing two games with an ankle injury.<\/p>\n
Despite their win, Indiana (8-31) still carry the NBA’s worst record this season, while Miami (20-18) are seventh in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
The Pacers, who lost to Oklahoma City in last season’s NBA Finals, could make it three wins in a row for the first time this season when they host Boston on Tuesday night (local time).<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Eastern Conference heavyweights Detroit and Boston both suffered surprise home defeats.<\/p>\n
The short-handed Pistons were beaten 98-92 by the Los Angeles Clippers, who rallied behind Kawhi Leonard (26 points), John Collins (25) and James Harden (19).<\/p>\n
The Clippers trailed by 19 points during the first half and 14 in the final quarter, but finished on a 28-8 run as Detroit turned the ball over 12 times in the decisive period.<\/p>\n
Victor Wenbamyama scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half, including a game-sealing jumper with 19.2 seconds left, to lead San Antonio to a 100-95 victory over the Celtics.<\/p>\n
De’Aaron Fox also finished with 21 points for the Spurs, while Derrick White (29) and Jaylen Brown (27) led Boston.<\/p>\n
Six-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell shone with 28 points as Cleveland took control in the second half to end Minnesota’s four-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
Mitchell landed four triples and the Cavaliers had five players score 20-plus points for the second time in franchise history on their way to a 146-134 victory.<\/p>\n
Sam Merrill had 20 points and set a franchise record with at least five threes in four consecutive games.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian young gun Johnny Furphy was back in double figures as the Indiana Pacers banked consecutive NBA wins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-405916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}