Scoreboard
- Trail Blazers 125, Heat 122
- Knicks 106, Wizards 102
- Clippers 98, Spurs 85
- Kings 141, Warriors 119
- Sixers 109, Lakers 101
What went down
Down by as much as 17 late in the third quarter, the New York Knicks mounted a fourth quarter comeback against the Washington Wizards. It started with the Knicks bench as Alec Burks, Immanuel Quickley, and Taj Gibson controlled the pace. Burks keyed the run, scoring 15 of his 27 points in the final period with Quickley eventually giving the Knicks the lead, 94-91, with a triple with 4:12 left.
From there, the Knicks' All-Star Julius Randle capped the game with what he undoubtedly picked up from Kobe. He hit two fadeaway jumpers falling out of bounds, the second of which gave the Knicks a six-point lead with less than a minute to go.
Unstoppable 🔥 pic.twitter.com/sXlMLu75Bn
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) March 26, 2021
The Knicks continue their spectacular season, clinging to the fifth seed in the East. There were a lot of other great basketball games played today, but the games took a backseat to the spectacle of the trade deadline. It was one of the wilder trade deadlines the league has had in the last five years. A lot of deals were made, which we collated here, but these are the highlights:
- The Orlando Magic put on a sale that rivaled Shopee and Lazada’s monthly blowouts, and many teams were ready to add to cart. They sent All-Star veteran Nikola Vucevic to the Chicago Bulls for young Wendell Carter, Otto Porter Jr.’s expiring deal, and a first-round pick. They shipped Aaron Gordon to the Denver Nuggets for RJ Hampton, Gary Harris and a first-round pick. Finally, they swapped Evan Fournier for two second-round picks. From a constant playoff team to bonafide youth movement, the Magic may not be good for a while.
- The Miami Heat got a lot better, bringing in Victor Oladipo and sending Kelly Olynyk, Avery Bradley, and a 2022 pick swap to the Houston Rockets, who surprisingly didn't get back a pick. Houston has been hoarding picks since moving on from Russell Westbrook and James Harden.
- The Heat and Nuggets have both been inconsistent this year and made subsequent moves to help them in this year's playoffs. The Bulls got another star to put next to Zach LaVine and are all-in on making a deep run this year. That's three contenders that got much better in a span of four hours.
Big-time baller
De'Aaron Fox saw a short-handed Golden State Warriors team and chose greatness. The Sacramento Kings point guard torched the Curry-less Warriors for a career-high 44 points on 16-for-22 shooting.
🦊 Career-high 44 PTS (16-22 FGM)
— NBA (@NBA) March 26, 2021
🦊 2nd straight game with 35+
🦊 Kings win 3rd consecutive game@swipathefox x @SacramentoKings pic.twitter.com/tYtgFdkvfP
With the implementation of the play-in tournament, no team is truly out of the playoffs hunt until the last two weeks of the season. The Kings are 3.5 games behind for the last play-in seed and they’re going to need more performances like this from Fox to close the gap.
What he said
An unforeseen boon to the Magic yard sale was Terrence Ross’ Twitter game.
The Magic's former bench gunner is now arguably their best player. It's sad to lose long-time teammates, but it's going to feel awesome to go for more shot attempts.
— Terrence Ross (@TerrenceRoss) March 25, 2021
Did you see that?
Thanks to this reddit thread, we got a moment of levity in a chaotic deadline. Every NBA player named Gary was traded today.
Garry Harris went to Orlando, Gary Trent Jr. was traded to the Toronto Raptors while Gary Clark landed on the Nuggets. There are several arbitrary milestones created to make any day in the league seem special, but this truly feels like a divine coincidence.
