An NBA Special + NCAA Closeout

Whoa, can’t believe its Friday already! We’ve had some great NBA games all week and we’re looking forward to more basketball and hockey this weekend.

Let’s dig into what happened last night on the court, what we can see in college this weekend and check out what’s going on in the ice rink.

Here we go.

Celtics Leave Room For Questions

🏀 In a probable NBA Finals matchup, the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets met in the Mile High City last night. The Nuggets outlasted a Boston Celtics team 115-109 in a game that Jayson Tatum didn’t show up for. It was Jaylen Brown who scored 41 and Kristaps Porzinigs who scored 24 to keep Boston in the game. Tatum only scored 15 points on 13 shots. Who will the Celtics be in the playoffs if Tatum can’t show up in the clutch? Hopefully, they won’t be a disappointment.

🏀 Check this, the Nuggets got a triple-double from Nikola Jokic, who had 32 points, 12 rebounds, and 11 assists. Jamal Murray scored 19, and Aaron Gordon scored 16.

👉️ Here’s the scary thing. Denver shot 19% from 3 and 50% from the field and still won this matchup. This is what they are built for. Even on “off” nights, they can still get a W. Something else that helped the Nuggets and not the Celtics? Free throws. Denver was 21 of 22 from the charity line, and Boston struggled, going 16 of 25.

📽️ We need to throw this highlight out there because this play by Aaron Gordon was nasty

Warriors Lose To Bulls

🏀 The Golden State Warriors were flying high after whooping the Bucks on Wednesday night but last night was a different story. This was basically the story of the game…The Bulls would get a lead, start to separate, Golden State would come back, maybe take a lead, maybe not, and then repeat that until about 5 minutes were left in the game. It was lead change after lead change in the final minutes of play, and Klay Thompson almost put a dagger in the Bulls with a 28-foot three-pointer with 40 seconds left, but DeMar DeRozan would hit a jumper to take the lead again, and the Warriors couldn’t hit on their final attempts and had to foul a few times to get more attempts.

👉️ Bulls win 125-122

Suns Are Shining

🌞The Suns are feeling good after winning 2 in a row, and they should feel good because they’ve got a tough few games ahead of them. Over the next five games, they play Boston twice and also play the Cavs and the Bucks. The Suns better take the wins when they can get them.

👉️ Phoenix actually started a game out pretty fast and got themselves a 14 point first quarter leard, avoiding the need to make a comeback down 20 midway through the 2nd. Maybe they could do that going forward? Anyways, Phoenix beat the Toronot Raptors 120-113 and KD finished with 35 points. Grayson Allen was 8 for 14 from 3 points land and finished with 26.

👀 The Raptors played a decent game in the final three quarters and outscored the Suns by five during the final 36 minutes. It’s too little too late, but for a team that made some trades this year and is sort of rebuilding, it looks good. Gary Trent Jr. finished with 30 points, RJ Barrett had 23, and Immanuel Quickley had 21.

Dallas Finishes Strong Against Miami

👀 It was another triple-double for Luka Doncic, who finished with 35 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists in a Mavs 114-108 win over the Heat. The Mavs were down eight after the first quarter and outscored Miami 63-47 in the 2nd and the 3rd.

👉️ Kyrie finished with 23 points on the night to help the Mavs’ scoring effort. It was an all-around effort for Miami, who ultimately fell short as they had 27 from Terry Rozier, 19 from Duncan Robinson, and 14 from both Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.

⁉️ Could Luka be the MVP this season? I don’t think it’s a stretch at this point.

This Ending In Indiana

We were going to do a thing on Karl Anthony Towns and his injury. KAT will be out for at least a month with his meniscus injury. There, we did it. Hopefully he’s ready to go for playoffs, if not, I don’t know what to expect from the Timberwolves.

BUT LAST NIGHT HAD A WILD ENDING.

The Minnesota Timberwolves were playing against the Indiana Pacers. Anthony Edwards was a dawg and had 44 points, but none of those points were more important than his second block on his stat line because it was a game-sealing block, where Anthony literally hit his head on the backboard.

👀 Open your eyes and click the damn link, people.

College Basketball Regular Season Finale

We’ve got some great games with major conferences finishing up their regular season schedule this weekend. You know what’s about to happen? Someone’s senior day is going to get royally screwed up!

Let’s check out the schedule as we inch closer to all the madness. We’re looking at ranked vs ranked games, but if you want to check out all the games for Saturday, check this out.

Ranked vs Ranked on Saturday

🏀 #14 Kansas @ #1 Houston, 4 pm ET on ESPN

🏀 #15 Kentucky @ #4 Tennessee, 4 pm ET on CBS

🏀 #7 UNC @ #9 Duke, 6:30 pm ET on ESPN

NHL Trade Deadline

The NHL trade deadline ends at 3 pm ET today. Here’s what’s happened the last few days.

👉️ The Hurricanes acquired LW Jake Guentzel and defenseman Ty Smith for LW Michael Bunting, RW Ville Koivunen, C Vasili Ponomarev, RW Cruz Lucius, 2024 conditional second-round pick and 2024 conditional fifth-round pick. The Penguins are retaining 25% of Guentzel's salary.

👉️The Lightning acquired LW Anthony Duclair and a 2025 seventh-round pick for prospect D Jack Thompson and a 2024 third-round pick.

👉️ The Avalanche acquired LW Yakov Trenin and D Graham Sward from the Predators for D Jeremy Hanzel and a 2025 third-round pick. Colorado also acquired LW Brandon Duhaime from the Wild, in exchange for a 2026 third-round pick. Colorado also acquired C Casey Mittelstadt from the Sabres in exchange for D Bowen Byram. The deal is one-for-one. Finally, the Avs acquired D Sean Walker and a 2026 fifth-round pick from the Flyers in exchange for Ryan Johansen and a conditional 2025 first-round pick. Johansen was subsequently placed on waivers.

👉️The Oilers acquired D Troy Stecher and a 2024 seventh-round pick from the Coyotes, in exchange for a 2027 fourth-round pick.

👉️The Predators acquired LW Anthony Beauvillier from the Blackhawks in exchange for a 2024 fifth-round pick.

👉️The Maple Leafs acquired D Joel Edmundson from the Capitals, in exchange for a 2024 third-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick.

👉️The Golden Knights acquired D Noah Hanifin from the Flames for D Daniil Miromanov, a first-round pick and a conditional third-round pick.

👉️The Rangers acquired C Alexander Wennberg from the Kraken for a 2024 second-round draft pick and a 2025 fourth-round pick.

👉️The Panthers acquired RW Vladimir Tarasenko from the Senators in exchange for a conditional 2024 fourth-round pick and a 2025 third-round pick.

👂️ We’ll keep an ear out for any more news coming down the pipe.

What Else Is on Tonight and Tomorrow?

You know what to look for the college basketball, let’s look at the schedule for the NBA and NHL and then get you on your way.

NBA

Friday

🏀 Minnesota @ Cleveland, 7:30 pm ET on ESPN

🏀 Milwaukee @ LA Lakers, 10 pm ET on ESPN

Saturday

🏀 Chicago @ LA Clippers, 4 pm ET on NBA TV

🏀 Boston @ Phoenix Suns, 8:30 pm ET on ABC

NHL

Friday

🏒 Minnesota @ Colorado, 9 pm ET on NHL Network

Saturday

🏒 Carolina @ New Jersey, 12:30 pm ET on ABC

🏒 Pittsburgh @ Boston, 3 pm ET on ABC

Have a great Friday and a great start to the weekend! We’ll see you Sunday morning!

-The Daily Breakroom