David Villafranca
Los Angeles (USA), 24 Feb. The Sacramento Kings soured on Russell Westbrook’s debut at the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday and won a wild and surreal game of furious and voracious attacks against both teams, which was resolved after two overtime and ended resulted in the second-highest combined score in the league. NBA History (175-176).
The 351 points between the two teams in this thrilling duel only dropped behind the all-time league record still held by the 1983 Detroit Pistons-Denver Nuggets who finished 186-184 after three overtimes (370 points between both). .
A former Los Angeles Lakers like Malik Monk dazzled in Sacramento with 45 points and 6 hat-tricks off the bench while De’Aaron Fox excelled with 42 points and 12 assists.
Kawhi Leonard, on the other hand, had a tremendous performance with 44 points (including an impressive 16 of 22 shooting and 6 of 9 from 3-point range) and Paul George backed him up with 34 points (including 5 from three-pointers) and 10 rebounds.
The Angelenos shot a whopping 60.2% from the field and an equally impressive 57.8% on triples (26 of 45) but they crashed with 25 turnovers against a Kings who were not far behind in terms of accuracy (58.6% efficiency).
After leaving the Lakers’ back door after a stormy year and a half, Westbrook made his debut for neighbors and rivals of those in purple and gold and added 17 points (7 of 13 shooting), 5 rebounds and 14 assists but lost 7 balls. .
ATTACK AND MORE ATTACK
Clippers (fourth in the West, 33-29) and Kings (third, 34-25) got the game off to a fast start.
Fox and Kevin Huerter started their fire early for the visitors and Domantas Sabonis showed quality inside while Kawhi and George replied at home.
Westbrook started out wanting to please his new fans and more interested in ball distribution than the rim.
With a relentless back and forth, the Clippers muscled in with an 11-0 run from their second unit, the Kings responded with a two plus one from Trey Lyles and Kawhi, fabulous with 13 points and 5 of 5 in the shooting, closed with a basket at the buzzer a very entertaining first quarter (40-40).
With no word on either team’s defenses, the Clippers continued their 3-point idyll in the second period to 12 of 21 in the first half.
Sacramento was unafraid and held on to an unstoppable Sabonis for an inside spin from their rivals diminished by the absence of Ivica Zubac.
However, the Lithuanian giant had to go to the bench with his fourth foul 3 minutes from the end of the first half.
The game ended with a bulky 80-76 and with both teams in the environment with 60% accuracy in shots.
Three straight 3-pointers between Kawhi and George made it threatening 89-78 with just two minutes of the third quarter played.
Also, Sabonis got his fifth personal after a foul in attack but Mike Brown, who received a technical protesting the decision, decided to continue on the track.
The big protagonist of the third period was Kawhi, titanic with 21 points in this quarter alone with an immaculate 8 of 8 shooting from the field (5 of 5 on triples).
With Sabonis playing with fire, Fox put the team on their backs and Sacramento took advantage of countless Clippers turnovers to reach the result with options (117-110).
The nonsense in attack of this match continued to join the names: Nico Batum was lethal from the hat-trick and Monk imposed himself in the second unit of the Kings.
The Clippers went on to win by 14 in the final period, but three straight turnovers left the score in a very narrow margin (147-146 with 1.22 remaining).
George got a +3 on free throws but Monk, fascinating with 16 points in the last quarter, forced overtime with a three-pointer with one second left (153-153)
Monk was started and continued to be the protagonist and the Kings, despite Sabonis being eliminated due to fouls, reached second overtime after George missed the winning shot (164-164).
In the second overtime it seemed that the Clippers had finally secured victory (+6 with three minutes remaining), but the endless turnovers condemned them definitively and the Fox-Monk duo, with astonishing serenity in the final stretch, offered to the Kings a historic victory. EFE
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