The eagerly anticipated NBA conflict between compatriots Ben Simmons and Josh Giddey hasn’t eventuated in New York.
Brooklyn’s Simmons missed Sunday evening’s contest with Oklahoma City as a consequence of again soreness – the Nets asserting 22 minutes earlier than tip-off that the 26-year-old was out.
But Giddey made positive Thunder and Australian NBA followers basically nonetheless loved the competition at Barclays Center by scoring his season-high and an equal game-high 28 factors, on 12 of 21 taking pictures from the sphere, within the 112-102 win.
The 20-year-old Melbournian fell simply shy of his seventh triple-double, including 9 rebounds and 9 assists as OKC earned a 3rd straight win to wrap up an east coast street journey and improved to 21-23 and twelfth within the Western Conference standings.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander additionally scored 28 factors for Oklahoma City, whereas Luguentz Dort drained 5 of his seven triples for 22 factors.
The Thunder used a 15-6 spurt over the primary 4 minutes of the ultimate quarter to take a 90-86 lead, with Giddey scoring 9 factors to spearhead their push.
Seth Curry led Brooklyn (27-15), who had been additionally lacking Kevin Durant (knee), with 23 factors.
Nic Claxton recorded his team-best twelfth double-double of the season with 17 factors and 12 rebounds, Kyrie Irving had 14 factors and Boomers skipper Patty Mills six on 2-of-3 from three-point vary.
Simmons had missed 10 video games this season earlier than this contest. He sat out 5 video games with left knee soreness, 4 with a calf pressure, and one with knee-and-calf damage administration.
This season, Simmons is averaging 7.5 factors, 6.7 rebounds, and 6.2 assists in 27.2 minutes per recreation.
Elsewhere, Chicago beat Golden State for the primary time since 2017, successful 132-118. Nikola Vucevic matched a profession excessive with 43 factors because the Bulls snapped an 11-game shedding streak towards the defending champion Warriors.
Klay Thompson scored 26 factors and Stephen Curry added 20 for Golden State (21-22), who’ve dropped 4 of their final 5 video games.
The Clippers had been 121-100 winners Los Angeles over the Houston Rockets and the New York Knicks defeated the Detroit Pistons 117-104 .
With AP.
