Trail Blazers 126 (26-35), Thunder 121 (35-28)
Despite Russell Westbrook’s career-high 58 points, OKC absorbed their fourth straight loss. Portland outscored the Thunder 38-25 in the third quarter, and Westbrook cooled off in the fourth (6-of-15 shooting in the final period), helping the Trail Blazers improve to within 1.5 games of the eighth seed. Deadline acquisition Jusuf Nurkic came up huge for Terry Stotts, scoring six clutch points within the game’s final minute.
https://youtu.be/OFLOsj3ZSH4
Mavericks 122 (26-36), Lakers 111 (19-44)
Dirk Nowitzki scored his 30,000th career point as only he could; hitting a perfect fadeaway over Larry Nance Jr.
THE SHOT HEARD AROUND THE AAC! CONGRATS ON 30K DIRK!! 🔥🐐 pic.twitter.com/r8QoozVmxZ
— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) March 8, 2017
What a moment for Dirk, who now joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players in league history to reach the 30K mark. While Nowitzki’s 25 points came in the first half, Seth Curry added 18 (including four from beyond the arc) and Yogi Ferrell scored 16 to give Dallas their third straight W. Dirk received props from several fellow NBA players on Twitter, but this one had to feel nice:
Congrats @swish41 you are a true great #fadelikedirk
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) March 8, 2017
Wizards 131 (37-24), Suns 127 (21-42)
In a game with some bad blood, the Wizards held off Phoenix, improving to 1.5 games ahead of Toronto for the third seed. It was hardly an easy W for Scott Brooks’ squad- Brandon Jennings was ejected in the first half and the Wizards squandered a 22-point lead- but John Wall was stellar over 37 minutes, and Bojan Bogdanovic scored 29 points off the bench.
Brooks summarized the game well:
“That was a wild game. That was like an old ABA game,” Brooks said. “Crazy.”
