Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Griffin, Pistons end Boston’s 8-game run
Blake Griffin scored 27 points and Andre Drummond added 19 points and 20 rebounds to help the Detroit Pistons beat Boston 113-104 on Saturday night, snapping the Celtics’ eightgame winning streak.
Detroit also ended its own six-game skid with a solid 48-minute effort. The Pistons took control with a 13-0 run in the third quarter and played well at the start of the fourth as well.
Kyrie Irving led Boston with 26 points.
Both teams shot over 60 percent from the field in the first quarter, and the game was still tight at halftime, with Detroit up 57-56. Drummond punctuated his team’s 13-point run in the third with a dunk that put the Pistons ahead 76-66.
Boston closed the quarter strong and trailed by just seven after three, but a 10-1 run to start the fourth put Detroit up 95-79.
The Celtics missed their first seven shots from the floor in the final quarter and went over seven minutes before making a field goal. Drummond fired up the crowd late in the fourth when he blocked Jayson Tatum’s attempt at a onehanded dunk.
James Harden had 32 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists for his second consecutive triple-double, and the Houston Rockets held off a fourth-quarter burst to beat the Memphis Grizzlies.
Harden, who had 50 points in a triple-double in the Rockets’ victory over the Lakers on Thursday, was 9 of 14 from the field, including 3 of 7 from outside the arc as Houston won its third straight.
Clint Capela finished with 26 points and 10 rebounds, while Gerald Green scored 17 points.
Mike Conley led Memphis with 22 points and six assists, while Marc Gasol added 17 points and nine rebounds. JaMychal Green had 13 points.
The Rockets appeared to be coasting in the fourth, holding a 15-point lead with about 7 minutes remaining, but Memphis clicked off a 14-5 run to cut it to 97-91. But the Grizzlies could get no closer in losing their second straight.
Memphis put an immediate dent in the Rockets’ 21-point halftime lead with 11 straight points to open the third period. But Houston countered the rally with a trio of 3-pointers, two of them from Gerald Green.
Green would connect on a third 3-pointer, as he collected 12 points in the third, helping Houston maintain the double-digit advantage. That helped the Rockets take a 79-65 lead in the fourth. Luke Walton was surprised to hear that LeBron James and Lonzo Ball were only the second Lakers teammates to record a tripledouble in the same game.
“I know it’s not easy. There have been a lot of good players in Lakers history and I figured Walton and Kobe (Bryant) would have done it a few times,” joked Walton, a former small forward with the Lakers.
James had 24 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists, while Ball had 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists as Los Angeles routed the Charlotte Hornets 128-100 on Saturday night. The only other Lakers to accomplish the feat in the same game were Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Jan. 22, 1982.
James continued his dominance over Charlotte, improving to 27-1 in his last 28 games against Michael Jordan’s franchise.
He was unstoppable throughout on penetration, helping the Lakers outscore the Hornets 40-17 in the third quarter and build a 30-point lead with his second triple-double of the season and 75th of his career. He did not need to play in the fourth quarter.
Evan Fournier scored 24 points, Terrence Ross came off the bench to add 10 of his 19 in the fourth quarter, and the Orlando Magic rallied from an 11-point deficit to beat the Utah Jazz and sweep their two-game homestand in Mexico City.
Ross shot 8 of 9 from the field and Nikola Vucevic added 15 points and a season-high 19 rebounds for the Magic (13-15), who beat the Chicago Bulls 97-91 on Thursday.
Orlando won despite 22 turnovers, 15 in the first half, and is in second place in the Southeast Division behind the Charlotte Hornets.
Donovan Mitchell scored 24 points and Derrick Favors added 21 for the struggling Jazz (14-15), who lost for the third time in their last four games.