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7 games were played in the NBA on Saturday and a few shocks were had:

First up in Indiana the Pacers carried on their good end of season form by beating the Detroit Pistons, 106-102. This win took the Pacers to 9th spot in the Eastern Conference and even though they can’t make the play-offs they will be delighted that they’ve saved face after a season when at one point they were second bottom in the Eastern Conference. In this game Danny Granger came through with 24 points while Brandon Rush had 21.

In New Jersey the Nets improved to 33-47 after a good win against the Orlando Magic. The Nets won this one 103-93 after stopping Dwight Howard from his nearly inevitable double double. Howard only managed 7 points and 8 rebounds in 26 minutes and the rest of his team didn’t do much better. On the other side Vince Carter led New Jersey with 27 points and 9 assists while Brook Lopez had 13 points and 11 rebounds for a double double. With this loss Orlando are now not able to catch the Boston Celtics for 2nd seed in the East and so will have to play either Philadelphia, Miami or Chicago in 6th spot.

Phoenix aimed to end their disappointing season on a high and went a step towards that goal with a road win at Minnesota, 110-97. Phoenix, who dropped out of play-off contention last week had major help from their bench; Leandro Barbosa, Jared Dudley and Alando Tucker all came off the bench to score double figures for the Suns while Grant Hill led the starters with 19. Shaq also had a double double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Chicago enabled Indiana to jump ahead of the Bobcats by beating them at the United Center, 113-106. A major part in their win was Ben Gordon who scored 39 points, shooting 13 of 25 from the field while Joakim Noah had a double double (11-10rebounds). This win also means Chicago have a chance at grabbing 6th spot from Philadelphia, a mean feat considering a month ago they were in 9th place.

There wasn’t a 23rd win for Oklahoma as they went down 115-98 in Milwaukee. Both teams are just playing out the rest of the season, Oklahoma never had anything to play for but Milwaukee blew their play-off chances after the All Star break, going on a terrible run which means they’ll probably end the season 4th from bottom in the East. In this game Richard Jefferson led the Bucks with 35 points while Luke Ridnour had 18 points and 8 assists to see the Bucks to an easy home victory.

Utah dropped to a new low when they lost to an injury ravaged Golden State at home, 118-108. Despite Corey Maggette, Jamal Crawford, Monta Ellis and Brandan Wright all not play the Warriors still managed to win in Salt Lake, where before the game the Jazz had only lost 7 times all season. They did this by limiting the Jazz to only 20 2nd quarter points while scoring 36 of their own to go into the half leading by 13, a lead they didn’t let go of. C.J Watson had 38 points and 9 assist while Rob Kurz came off the bench to score 21 points. Any Jazz fans watching last night would have been despairing at how their team are going to pose any threat to their play-off opponents if they cannot beat the Warriors, a team that had only won 7 away from home before the game. Utah are now a game behind 7th placed Dallas with 2 to play and if they aren’t able to catch them then it will be the Lakers in the first round.

Finally in Los Angeles the Trail Blazers beat the Clippers in a grinding, defensive performance, 87-72. As you can tell from the scoreline this wasn’t a free scoring game and with the game tied at 17 after the 1st quarter Portland ultimately won the game with a 2nd quarter performance where they outscored the Clips by 15 points to grab the game by the scruff of the neck. LaMarcus Aldridge had 21 points and 9 rebounds while Joel Przybilla had a double double (10-14rebounds). This win leaves Portland tied for 3rd place with Houston in the Western Conference with both teams having two to play.

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Tags: basketball picks, bet on sports, NBA picks

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 1:38 am and is filed under NBA Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.