LOS ANGELES, United States —
Ja Morant scored 29 points as the red-hot
Memphis Grizzlies won their
10th-straight game with a 116-108 victory over the
Golden State Warriors on
Tuesday night.
اضافة اعلان
Morant seized control in the late stages of
the fourth quarter, scoring five points in the final minute as the third-place
Grizzlies closed the gap on the second-place Warriors in the Western Conference
standings.
"I felt like I was aggressive. I got
going very early," said Morant. "I made them change their scheme up.
If you blitz me I feel like I have a lot of guys who can score the
basketball.
"Pretty much cat and mouse, we just had
to take what their defense gave us."
The Grizzlies are now within 2 1/2 games of
the Warriors after having been eight games back on November 29.
Ziaire Williams and
Tyus Jones had 17 points each for Memphis in front of a crowd of 17,800 at
FedExForum arena.
Jones keyed a fourth-quarter rally that put
the Grizzlies ahead for good. He connected on all five of his three-point
attempts.
Stephen Curry led the Warriors with 27
points, while Klay Thompson finished with 14 points. Andrew
Wiggins and Gary Payton II scored 13 each.
Morant, the 2020 rookie of the year, is just
a week removed from a sprained knee that sidelined him for 12 games.
He has consistently been able to elevate his
game against the best teams in the league, scoring 30 or more points against
the Phoenix Suns, Brooklyn Nets, and Los Angeles Lakers during the 10-game
streak.
The Warriors were missing Draymond
Green, who was out with a sore left calf.
In Los Angeles,
Amir Coffey scored 18 points
as the Los Angeles Clippers rallied from a 25-point second half deficit for a
stunning 87-85 victory over the
Denver Nuggets.
The Clippers scored just 28 points in the
first half before finding themselves down by 25 in the third quarter. They
scratched and clawed their way back to take an 83-81 lead on Coffey's
three-pointer with 2:30 remaining. Coffey also had seven assists and four
steals.
Reggie Jackson and
Terance Mann added 13
points apiece for Los Angeles. Marcus Morris had 12 points and Eric Bledsoe
tallied 11 as the Clippers won for just the fifth time in the past 14 games.
Aaron Gordon scored a season-high 30 points
and 12 rebounds and Nikola Jokic added 21 points, 13 rebounds in the loss. Jeff
Green had 12 points and Monte Morris tallied 11 for the Nuggets.
Elsewhere, Jae Crowder scored 19 points and
Chris Paul finished with 15 points and 12 assists as the Phoenix snapped
Toronto's six-game winning streak with a 99-95 victory in Toronto.
Devin Booker provided the late-game heroics
for the Suns, nailing the go-ahead jump shot with 62 seconds remaining and then
adding two free throws with six seconds left before fouling out. Booker
finished with 16 points.
Booker shot four for 13 from the field and
two of seven from three-point range.
'Hard hat'
"It was a fight all night," he
said. "They beat us up a little bit, but down the stretch we picked it up
a little bit and did what we had to do."
Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges scored 12
points in the win at Scotiabank Arena.
"That's one of those games you've got
to put your hard hat on," Paul said.
In Chicago, Nikola Vucevic scored 22 points
and DeMar DeRozan delivered 20 points and 12 rebounds as the Chicago Bulls
clobbered the Detroit Pistons 133-87 to win their 10th game in the last 11.
Read more Sports
.jpg)
.jpg)
