Sunday’s bottom feeder match-up between the Boston Celtics and New Orleans Pelicans turned into an exciting up-and-down affair thanks in most part to Anthony Davis’ monster 40-point, 21-rebound performance — only the 18th time a 40/20 game has occurred since the 1985-86 season, and the first in the NBA since Dwight Howard’s 45-point, 23-rebound showing in January 2012. On the Boston side, Jeff Green lit up the scoreboard with 39 points of his own, while Kris Humphries hit a buzzer beater at the end of regulation to force overtime (Humphries’ shot immediately followed what appeared to be a Davis game-winner with 1.7 seconds left).
Davis dominated the overtime on the defensive end, grabbing big rebounds on a handful of successive possessions, which allowed the Pelicans to take the lead. With 5.7 seconds left and leading 121-120, the Pelicans had a sideline out, and assumed Boston would foul to get the ball back for a game-winning or game-tying shot. As you can see, the Celtics had no intentions of doing so. Of course, they could have avoided such a situation entirely by not taking a shot to send the game to overtime. But where’s the fun in that?
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