Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – Quentin Grimes scored a career-high 44 points as the Philadelphia 76ers shocked the Golden State Warriors 126-119 to snap their nine-game NBA skid on Saturday — a day after confirming superstar center Joel Embiid would miss the rest of the season. The Sixers brought Stephen Curry and the Warriors back to earth with a thud two days after Curry drilled a dozen three-pointers on the way to 56 points in a win at Orlando. Curry finished with 29 points and a season-high 13 assists, but the Warriors missed the offensive spark of Jimmy Butler, who was a late scratch with back spasms.
Philadelphia seized control with a 37-point second quarter that propelled them to a 67-55 halftime lead. Golden State pulled level at 116-116 with 2:01 remaining, but Grimes drove for a layup and Guerschon Yabusele drilled a three-pointer, and the 76ers held on for the win. Despite the loss of Embiid to a lingering knee injury — the most notable of a string of injury setbacks for the Sixers — Grimes was bullish on their chances of making the post-season. “We’ve still got a lot of games and a chance to make the play-in,” he said.
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Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 29 points with nine rebounds and nine assists, and Damian Lillard added 28 points for the Bucks in a 132-117 victory over the Mavericks in Dallas. Milwaukee closed the first half on a 15-4 scoring run to take a 71-63 lead at halftime, and Kyrie Irving, who led Dallas with 31 points, was limited to four points in the third quarter as the Bucks pulled away in the second half.
One day after Detroit’s eight-game winning streak — their longest in 17 years — ended with a loss to Denver, the Pistons bounced back with a 115-94 victory over the Brooklyn Nets. Tobias Harris, Jalen Duren, and Malik Beasley scored 18 points apiece to lead six Pistons players to score in double figures — Beasley making six of his 10 shot attempts before he was ejected midway through the fourth quarter after receiving his second technical foul. Duren added 11 rebounds and six of the Pistons’ 15 blocked shots. Cade Cunningham scored nine of his 15 points in the fourth quarter and handed out nine assists for the Pistons, whose sloppy third quarter had seen their 23-point halftime lead sliced to six going into the final period.
– Spurs edge Grizzlies – San Antonio’s De’Aaron Fox drained the game-winning basket with 2.6 seconds remaining as the Spurs snapped a four-game skid with a 130-128 victory over the Grizzlies in Memphis. The Spurs led by as many as 22 against a Grizzlies team missing injured stars Ja Morant and Desmond Bane. But the Grizzlies tied it up twice in the final minute — first on Jaren Jackson Jr.’s driving basket with 49.8 seconds left and again on Jackson’s step-back three-pointer that made it 128-128 with 23.4 seconds to play. Jackson led all scorers with 42 points. Fox and Devin Vassell scored 20 points each to lead the Spurs starters, and the Spurs reserves — led by 24 points from rookie Stephon Castle — out-scored the Memphis bench 71-41. It was a morale-boosting win for San Antonio, who announced last month that second-year star Victor Wembanyama would miss the rest of the regular season with a blood clot in his shoulder and confirmed on Thursday that iconic coach Gregg Popovich wouldn’t return this season as he continues to recover from a stroke suffered in November.
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