Copa night in the NBA. With the excitement of the single-game playoffs, the Indiana Pacers and the Boston Celtics played this Monday for a place in the semifinals of the new American professional basketball tournament. After changes on the scoreboard, the last five minutes were entered with maximum equality. The score was tied when Tyrese Haliburton scored a triple with an extra shot with a minute and a half left. Those four points knocked out the Celtics. They failed on the next attack and the Pacers put the finishing touch with another three-pointer and a two-pointer. In the blink of an eye, a 9-0 run and goodbye to one of the big favorites for the title of the first NBA Cup.
The Celtics fought, but the distance was too much for such a short time and the score closed 122-112. Boston suffered Haliburton’s display, with his triple double: 26 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds. Buddy Hield acted as a guard with 4 of 6 triples and 7 of 11 field goals.
The Celtics took the lead in the first half, with more accurate shooting and greater rebounding power. They went into halftime with a 48-55 lead. However, they suffered a collapse in the third quarter, in which they conceded a partial deficit of 37-23. They entered the decisive stretch of the game uphill, but they tied the score (94-94) with six minutes left in the game thanks to a triple by Jaylen Brown.
The game started again. That’s where the two teams kept tabs on each other for over four minutes in an exchange of blows with no one escaping by more than two points. There was 1:33 left and the score was tied at 105 when Haliburton played the decisive three-pointer, which ended up being quadruple for Brown’s foul on the Indiana player. Two failed attacks from Boston, two more successes from Indiana and with 44 seconds left, the score read 114-105. The match was decided. Many points were still added in the Celtics’ desperate flight forward based on fouls, but the miracle that Boston was looking for did not come.
Jayson Tatum, a player of enormous talent and tremendous physical power, failed again at a decisive moment. His was the missed triple attempt on the attack after Haliburton’s four-point play. The Celtics star finished with 32 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists, but with only 2 three-pointers made in 8 attempts and, above all, with the feeling that he was not able to control the game or guide his team to victory. victory. Brown added another 30 points, but he wasn’t great at three-pointers either.
Indiana’s greater accuracy from the three-point line was decisive. The Pacers made 19 of 40 three-point attempts (47.5%), while the Celtics only made 12 of 41 (29.3%). It is a very low percentage for a team that boasts several of the best three-point shooters in the league. Boston missed their center Kristaps Porziņģis, who was injured and a good shooter.
The Pacers will face the winner of the tie between the Milwaukee Bucks and the New York Knicks this Tuesday in the semifinals, in which Giannis Antetokounmpo’s team starts as the favorite. This same Monday, the first Western Conference quarterfinal game will also be played, between the Sacramento Kings and the New Orleans Pelicans. That Tuesday will be the turn of the quarterfinal match between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Phoenix Suns for the other spot in the semifinals.
The semi-final matches will be played at the spectacular La Esfera venue in Las Vegas on December 7. A semi-final will pit the two quarter-final winners from the East and another against the two from the West. Once the Denver Nuggets and the Celtics have been eliminated, the favorites are the Milwaukee Bucks. In single-game matchups, however, anything can happen, as the Pacers have already shown.
The final will also be held in Las Vegas on December 9. It will be the only game of all those played in the cup tournament that does not simultaneously serve as a regular season NBA matchup. The organization has done a lot of work to balance the calendar without overloading it, since each of the 30 teams already plays 82 games in less than six months (between October 24 and April 14), before the playoffs begin. for the title.
The champions will inaugurate the record of a new NBA title. The new tournament has for the moment increased attention on a competition that aroused little interest until its second half, when the positions were being defined with a view to the playoffs for the title. This year, the excitement with which the decisive day of the group stage was experienced and now the fourth quarter matches shows that the NBA Cup has potential. Television audiences have grown strongly, although it is also true that a significant promotional effort has been made. The moment of truth will come with that kind of final four from Las Vegas.
In addition to the title, the players on the champion team will receive a prize of $500,000 each. The runners-up will receive $200,000 each, while those from the two losing semifinalist teams will receive $100,000 and those eliminated in the quarterfinals will receive $50,000.
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