Shai Gilgeous-Alexander enjoyed another 40-point night as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Orlando Magic 113-108 to become the first NBA team to secure a play-off berth.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Canadian went 14 from 27 from the field as he extended his record of most 20-point games in a row to 129.<\/p>\n
Chet Holmgren added 20 points and 12 rebounds as the Western Conference leaders claimed a ninth straight win to improve to 54-15 for the season.<\/p>\n
“We got off to a good start but then the car kind of came off the road for a little bit,” reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Gilgeous-Alexander said.<\/p>\n
“But that’s what great teams do – they figure out a way to get the car back on the road, they figure out a way to go into a building and win a game when the chips are stacked against you, and we did that tonight.”<\/p>\n
San Antonio Spurs remain second in the West after a comfortable 132-104 win over the Sacramento Kings, while the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Phoenix Suns 116-104.<\/p>\n
In the Eastern Conference, the Detroit Pistons handed the Washington Wizards a 13th straight loss to strengthen their position at the top.<\/p>\n
But the 130-117 triumph was marred by an injury to star point guard Cade Cunningham, who had to leave the game in the first quarter with a back issue.<\/p>\n
The New York Knicks stay third in the East after a thumping 136-110 win over the Indiana Pacers, a 14th consecutive loss leaving last year’s NBA Finals runners-up 15-54 this term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander enjoyed another 40-point night as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Orlando Magic 113-108 to become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-544155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}