The NBA regular season ended on Sunday evening with a Homeric duel between the Warriors of Golden State and the Clippers of Los Angeles, won in overtime by James Harden and his band.
Make way for (very) serious things. At the end of a superb meeting completed in overtime, the Los Angeles Clippers came to the end of the Golden State Warriors in the last regular NBA season game on Sunday. The strip to Stephen Curry will have to go through the dams while the Clippers will challenge Denver and the Lakers will face Minnesota.
The Clippers offer themselves an epic duel in San Francisco
Warriors against Clippers, the most important meeting of the day, which saw the 30 NBA franchises playing their last regular season game, ended last, for a perfect scenario, after a superb successful preview of the play-offs. While the suspense remained whole for places 4 to 10 in the final classification of the Western Conference, the Clippers managed to chain an 8th success (124-119) to keep their 5th place and challenge the 2023 Denver champion in the first round, winner in Houston (126-111), which was already certain to finish 2nd.
The match, tight and undecided, knew 23 leader changes, with equality 103 everywhere at 3 minutes from the end. In front of his audience, Stephen Curry (36 points, 3 rebounds, 6 assists), supported by Jimmy Butler (30 points), was monumental at the end of the game, but saw the collective of Clippers answer him. Ivica Zubac equalized a minute from the end, Kawhi Leonard (33 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists) missing a first match ball at the Siren. In overtime, two distant baskets of James Harden (39 points, 7 rebounds, 10 assists) gave a quick advantage to the Clippers, who then held.
The Warriors fell from a place in 7th position and will welcome Memphis (8th) on Tuesday for a dam whose winner will challenge Houston in the first round of the play-offs.
The Wolves will challenge the Lakers of Douteic and LeBron
Utah jazz winners (116-105), the Minnesota Timberwolves by Anthony Edwards (43 points) and Rudy Gobert (19 points, 18 rebounds) confirmed their good dynamics to climb to 6th place and challenge Los Angeles Lakers (3rd) in Lebron James and Luka in the first round. Sacramento (9th) will welcome Dallas on Wednesday (10th), who no longer really resembles the 2024 finalist, between the departure of Luka Donnic and the absence on injury of Kyrie Irving. The Oklahoma City Thunder has completed its superb season with a 68th success (14 defeats) in New Orleans (115-100), and will have the advantage of the field to a possible final thanks to the best record in the whole league.
The positions in the ranking being frozen in the east, many teams turned the workforce on Sunday, leaving the usual replacement shining. For the Hawks, the latter meeting was an opportunity to study the Magic d’Orlando more closely, beaten 117 to 105, which they will find on Tuesday in the first meeting of dams in Florida. The winner of this dry match will be propelled into a play-offs for a first round against the defending champion Boston, winner against Charlotte 93 to 86 with 34 points of Payton Pritchard. The Hawks-Magic loser will have a new opportunity on Friday to reach the play-offs against the Wednesday match winner between Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls.
Miami ended up losing Sunday against Washington 119 at 118 despite 41 points and 10 rebounds by Jaime Jaquez Jr. The Cleveland Cavaliers, who finished in the east (64 victories – 18 losses), lost two extensions against Indiana (126-118).
The Table of the NBA final stages after the last regular day of the season disputed on Sunday:
Conference
Barrages:
Orlando (7th) receives Atlanta (8th) Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. local time (01:30 Wednesday Paris time). The qualified winner in N.7 for the play-offs
Chicago (9th) receives Miami (10th) Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Local time (01.30pm Thursday Paris time). The winner faces the loser of the other meeting on Friday. The winner of this last match qualified for the Play-Offs in N.8.
Play-offs from Saturday:
Cleveland (n.1) against qualified n.8
Indiana (n.4) against Milwaukee (n.5)
New York (n.3) against Detroit (n.6)
Boston (n.2) against qualified n.7
Western conference
Barrages:
Golden State (7th) receives Memphis (8th) Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. local time (04:00 Wednesday Paris time). The qualified winner in N.7 for the play-offs
Sacramento (9th) receives Dallas (10th) Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. local time (04:00 Thursday Paris time) The winner faces the other meeting on Friday. The winner of this last match qualified for the Play-Offs in N.8.
Play-offs from Saturday:
Oklahoma City (n.1) against qualified n.8
Denver (n.4) against the Los Angeles Clippers (n.5)
Los Angeles Lakers (n.3) against Minnesota (n.6)
Houston (n.2) against qualified n.7
