Friday night Kyle Lowry scored a career high 43 points including the game winning shot with 3.8 seconds left in the Toronto Raptors 99-97 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. The win was also Toronto’s 10th in a row at home tying a franchise record. Lowry was 15 of 20 from the floor. He made 11 of his 15 free throw attempts while picking up 4 steals, 5 rebounds and handing out a team high 9 assists. Lowry’s night proved to be even bigger as Toronto’s leading scorer DeMar DeRozan struggled. DeRozen scored just 6 points going 1 of 11 from the field in the game. Terrence Ross came off the bench t score 15 points. Toronto’s big man Jonas Valanciunas and Bismack Biyombo each scored 11 points. Valanciunas also grabbed a team high 9 rebounds. I’m sure if you asked any player on the Raptors or their head coach Dwayne Casey they’d tell you this was just another regular season game. You do have to wonder if getting a win over the Cavaliers the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference might give some confidence to the #2 seed in the East. The Cavaliers where led in scoring by LeBron James wit 25 points. James had a chance to win the game for Cleveland with a last second shot, but was unable to get the shot to drop. James also handed out a team high 7 assists. James was 9 of 18 from the field and made 5 of the 9 3-point shots he took. Kevin Love added 20 points for the Cavaliers while J.R. Smith had 13 points and Kyrie Irving scored 10 points. Tristan Thompson led the Cavaliers in rebounding grabbing 10 of them. With the win the Raptors improved to 39-18 just 2 games behind the Cavaliers (41-16) for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. Would the Raptors moving into that #1 seed help them in a playoff match up against the Cavaliers? I guess having home court couldn’t hurt.
Lowry wasn’t the only NBA player to score 40 points last night. Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers scored 40 points exactly in his teams 117-107 win over the Sacramento Kings. Paul also added 13 assists and grabbed 8 rebounds as well. Paul was 13 of 20 from the field going 4 of 9 from behind the 3-point line. Paul also made all 10 of his free throw attempts. There was just one 30 point scorer last night. Paul George of the Indiana Pacers put up 32 points in a losing effort as the Pacers fell 96-95 to the Charlotte Hornets. George went 13 for 26 from the field, but was just 2 of 8 from behind the 3-point line. Hopefully you had Lowry, Paul and George in your daily fantasy line up last night.
The NBA has really been doing a good job of getting marquee match ups for their nationally televised Saturday night games and tonight is no exceptions. Tonight we’ll see the Golden State Warriors (52-5) against the Oklahoma City Thunder (41-17) at Chesapeake Energy Arena. The Warriors are 9-1 in there last 10 games and are on a 4 game winning streak. The Thunder are just 6-4 in there last 10 games and dropped their last game 123-119 on Thursday to the New Orleans Pelicans. Is it possible the Thunder was looking ahead t this match up against the Warriors and got caught off guard by the Pelicans?
Golden State is led by Stephen Curry and his 30.4 points per game average, but Curry is also grabbing 5.3 rebounds per game and averages 6.7 assists per game. Klay Thompson is scoring an average of 21.6 points per game and then there’s the all around game of Draymond Green. Green averages 14 points per game along with 9.6 rebounds and 7.3 assists per game as well. You have to wonder though if Oklahoma City is the team that can match the Golden State offense. Kevin Durant leads Oklahoma City in scoring at 27.7 points per game, but I bet a lot of people don’t know that he’s also the teams leading rebounder grabbing an average of 8 boards a game. Russell Westbrook can go for a triple-double at any time. Westbrook averages 24.3 points per game, 10.2 assists per game and 7.5 rebounds per game. Oklahoma City’s big men Serge Ibaka and Enes Kanter add to the offense as well. Ibaka averages 12.8 points per game, 6.7 rebounds per game and is the tam leader in blocked shots with an average of 2.1 per game. Kanter scores an average of 11.8 points per game and grabs and average of 7.6 rebounds per game. The difficult part for Oklahoma City is Kanter is ineffective against the Golden State small ball line up. While Ibaka will have to be able to handle Green on defense to give Oklahoma City a chance to win. When Oklahoma City has the basketball Thompson will have to be able to keep Westbrook in check and Green will have to help out on Durant. It should be big time NBA offense with a lot of 3-point shots being taken.
The NHL has another Stadium Series game tonight as the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche will play outside at Coors Field. The Red Wings have 71 points and the Avalanche have 68 points. Both teams are hanging out to Wild Card playoff spots right now. The Red Wings are in the 7th spot in the Eastern Conference 3 points ahead of the 8th place Pittsburgh Penguins. The Avalanche currently hold the 8th and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Colorado is 3 points behind the 7th place Nashville Predators and has a 4 point lead on the 9th place Minnesota Wild.
On Sunday we may be seeing a preview of the Stanley Cup finals as the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks host the best team in the NHL this season the Washington Capitals. Washington has 94 points in just 60 games this season and is running away with the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference. The Blackhawks have 81 points and are just 1 point behind the Dallas Stars for 1st place in the Central division of the Western Conference. Patrick Kane is the NHL’s scoring leader and has a 14 point lead over Jamie Benn of Dallas, but Washington’s Alexander Overchkin has 5 more goals (40) than Kane has (35) this season. We should also get to see the Branden Holtby and Corey Crawford in goal for their respective teams. Holtby leads all goaltenders in wins with 39 wins while Crawford is 2nd with 32 wins. It’s incredibly difficult to repeat as champion in the NHL; so will the Blackhawks even get the Stanley Cup finals. The NHL playoffs also feature quite a few upsets; so the Capitals have to be careful just to get to the finals themselves.
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