LAMELO BREAKS ANKLE
LaMelo Ball made six 3pointers before breaking his right ankle in the third quarter, and the Charlotte Hornets held on to beat the visiting Detroit Pistons 117-106 on Monday night for their fifth straight victory.
Terry Rozier scored 22 points, Gordon Hayward had 19 points and rookie Mark Williams added 15 points and 11 rebounds for Charlotte, which is still second-to-last in the Eastern Conference standings — ahead of only Detroit.
Ball finished with 18 points on 6-of-7 shooting from 3-point range, his fifth straight game making at least five 3s. He was hurt on a non-contact play, and the Hornets announced after the game that he had fractured his right ankle.
“It sucks,” Hayward said, shaking his head. “Injuries are the worst part of the game.”
Ball has already missed 27 games this season after he sprained his left ankle on three separate occasions, beginning in the preseason.
Hamidou Diallo scored 23 points, and James Wiseman had his best game since coming to Detroit from Golden State as part of a four-team trade, finishing with 23 points on 9-of-11 shooting. Marvin Bagley added 21 points and 12 rebounds off
Hornets 117, Pistons 106
the bench for Detroit, which has lost five straight.
Knicks 109, Celtics 94: Julius Randle and Immanuel Quickley each scored 23 points, and surging New York won its sixth straight and knocked visiting Boston from the top spot in the NBA.
Celtics All-Star Jayson Tatum struggled through a 6-for-18 shooting performance and was ejected in the fourth quarter after picking up his second technical foul. He finished with 14 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.
Jalen Brunson added 17 points for the Knicks (36-27), who inched ahead of Brooklyn into fifth place in the Eastern Conference.
Malcolm Brogdon scored 22 for the Celtics (44-18). They slipped percentage points behind Milwaukee (43-17), which has won 14 straight games and now owns the NBA’s best record.
Marcus Smart added 19 points but Boston missed 20 of its first 22 attempts from 3point range and had its three-game winning streak snapped.
Heat 101, 76ers 99: Jimmy Butler hit an acrobatic reverse layup in the final minutes and finished with 23 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists as Miami edged host Philadelphia.
James Harden had a chance to win the game for the 76ers, but his 3-point try at the buzzer bounced off the back of the rim.
Gabe Vincent scored 14 points and Bam Adebayo added 13 as the Heat snapped a four-game skid.
Joel Embiid had 27 points and 12 rebounds. Harden finished with 20 points and 12 assists.
Magic 101, Pelicans 93:
Paolo Banchero capped a 29point performance with three clutch mid-range jumpers in the closing minutes, and visiting Orlando beat New Orleans.
The first two of Banchero’s big shots broke ties before he hit another to make it 97-93. Franz Wagner, who had 11 points, added a 10-foot floater from the baseline with 25 seconds left and Orlando held on from there. New Orleans lost its fourth straight.
Markelle Fultz and Moritz Wagner each scored 14 points for Orlando.
Brandon Ingram scored 25 points for New Orleans, which is clinging to the 10th and final Western Conference play-in spot by percentage points over Portland.
Life sans James LeBron James
of the Lakers may miss multiple weeks with an injury to his right foot, a person familiar with the situation said Monday
night.
The full extent of the injury is not yet known and more test results were pending.
The Lakers had already ruled James — the NBA’s alltime leading scorer — out for today’s game at Memphis with what they called right foot soreness.
James played 37 minutes in the Lakers’ 111-108 win at Dallas on Sunday, helping Los Angeles rally from a 27point deficit. But he left the arena with a pronounced limp, with video from The Dallas Morning News showing how much the foot was bothering him.
Notable
Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam agreed to purchase Marc Lasry’s 25 percent stake of the Milwaukee Bucks in a deal that puts the value of the NBA franchise at $3.5 billion, two people with knowledge of the negotiations said Monday.
Those numbers, if finalized, would mean the Haslams plan to spend about $875 million for Lasry’s stake of the team.
It would be the secondhighest valuation in NBA history, behind the $4 billion valuation for the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury when acquired them in a deal that closed earlier this month.