New York’s Jalen Brunson scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half and the Knicks erased an 18-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Houston Rockets 108-106 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the NBA’s Eastern Conference-leading Detroit Pistons<\/a> romped to a fifth straight win, and the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> kept the pressure on West leaders Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> with an eighth straight triumph.<\/p>\n The Knicks<\/a>‘ victory was a rebound from a humbling loss to Detroit with a gutsy victory<\/a> that put them back into a tie for third place in the East.<\/p>\n “Just found a way,” Brunson<\/a> said. “Kept chipping away. Got some stops, made some shots and there it is.”<\/p>\n Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> scored 25 points and OG Anunoby<\/a> added 20 for New York, who led by as many as 13 points in the first half but trailed 75-93 with 10:53 left to play.<\/p>\n Brunson’s layup — after teammate Jose Alvarado<\/a>‘s second steal in 20 seconds — knotted it at 103-103 with 1:26 remaining and Brunson put the Knicks up for good, 105-103, with 29 seconds left.<\/p>\n Kevin Durant<\/a> scored a game-high 30 points for the Rockets<\/a>, but 20 Houston turnovers leading to 30 Knicks points proved too much to overcome.<\/p>\n The Pistons shook off a sluggish start to roll to a 126-110<\/a> victory over the slumping Bulls<\/a> in Chicago.<\/p>\n Detroit out-scored the Bulls 44-26 in the third quarter to seize control, leading by as many as 28 as they pushed their record to 42-13.<\/p>\n Jalen Duren<\/a> led the way, returning from a two-game suspension for his role in a February 9th brawl at Charlotte<\/a> to score 26 points and grab 13 rebounds.<\/p>\n Star guard Cade Cunningham<\/a> added 18 points and 13 assists and Tobias Harris<\/a> chipped in another 18 points for the Pistons, who are six games clear of the Boston Celtics<\/a> atop the East with the Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> both a further game back.<\/p>\n Aussie guard Josh Giddey<\/a> scored 27 points to lead the Bulls, but Chicago have dropped eight in a row.<\/p>\n San Antonio also took advantage of a struggling opponent, beating the reeling Sacramento Kings<\/a> 139-122<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sacramento suffered a franchise record 16th straight defeat.<\/p>\n Spurs’ French superstar Victor Wembanyama<\/a> scored 28 points and pulled down 15 rebounds. He added a steal and four blocked shots — three of them within the first two minutes.<\/p>\n Starters De’Aaron Fox<\/a> and Stephon Castle<\/a> and reserve Keldon Johnson<\/a> scored 18 points apiece for the Spurs, who fended off a third-quarter Sacramento charge that saw the Kings cut the deficit to one before San Antonio pulled away again.<\/p>\n Green delivers<\/p>\n In Phoenix<\/a>, Jalen Green<\/a> drilled a buzzer-beating three-pointer from the corner to lift the Suns to a 113-110<\/a> double-overtime victory over the Orlando Magic<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jevon Carter<\/a> had tied it for the Magic with 1.1 seconds left in the second extra period before Green swished the game-winner.<\/p>\n It was just Green’s sixth basket on 26 attempts on a tough shooting night.<\/p>\n He finished with 16 points for the Suns, who were led by Grayson Allen<\/a>‘s 27 points off the bench in his return from a four-game injury absence.<\/p>\n Orlando’s Desmond Bane<\/a> led all scorers with 34 points but fouled out early in the first overtime.<\/p>\n Phoenix’s celebrations were tempered by a hand injury to Dillon Brooks<\/a>, who departed in the first quarter and didn’t return. They were already without Devin Booker<\/a>, who has a right hip strain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York’s Jalen Brunson scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half and the Knicks erased…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-496394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496394","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=496394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}