The Oklahoma City Thunder and Chicago Bulls won their respective games last night, and both will fight for a playoff spot. The Oklahoma franchise will do it this Friday against the Minnesota Timberwolves while those from Chicago will face the Miami Heat next Friday.
After reaching tenth in the West and leaving the Dallas Mavericks without a postseason, the Thunder achieved a 123-118 victory this Wednesday against Willy Hernangómez's New Orleans Pelicans in the first round of the play-in. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Oklahomans with 32 points, 25 of them in the second half, and young Josh Giddey was close to a triple double with 31 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists.
The Thunder, the second youngest team in the NBA, ended the season of some Pelicans who could not count on Zion Williamson, who has been out since January 2 due to injury.
For the Pelicans, Brandon Ingram contributed 30 points, Trey Murphy signed 21 with four triples and Lithuanian Jonas Valanciunas scored 16 points and 18 rebounds. However, these performances were not enough to defeat the Oklahoma team, who will travel to Minnesota this Friday to face the Wolves, defeated this Tuesday by the Los Angeles Lakers. The winner of this game will face the Denver Nuggets, leaders of the West in the regular season.
For the Pelicans the season closed, with the Spanish Willy Hernangómez who once again had no minutes in Willie Green's rotations.
The Bulls, for their part, will dispute the last place in the playoffs against the Miami Heat next Friday by beating the Raptors in Toronto 105-109 this Wednesday in a game in which Chicago lost 19 points at the beginning of the third quarter.
The game's top scorer was Bulls guard Zach LaVine who added 39 points. His teammate Nikola Vucevic had a double-double with 14 points and 13 rebounds while DeMar DeRozan had 23 points.
For the Raptors, the top scorer was Pascal Siakam, with 32 points, but he only made five of his 11 free throws, missing two crucial ones in the final seconds of the game that could have forced overtime.
The Bulls got their only win this season at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto when it counted the most, in the play-in. The Chicago team had lost the previous two games they had played in the Canadian city during the regular season.
Everything seemed to indicate that this Wednesday they would add their third and last defeat until the Raptors, who had comfortably dominated the game until the start of the third period, began to chain error after error. In just over three crucial minutes of the fourth period, the Torontonians accumulated six turnovers and went from 87-82 to 93-96.
The Raptors, who until then had only trailed at the start of the second quarter by one point, never regained the lead.
The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Chicago Bulls will seek a ticket to the playoffs, where LeBron James' Lakers have already secured a place after defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday.
