TOTAL CHAOS On The Final Day Of The In-Season Tournament

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Against Chicago, the Celtics went for a hack-a-Drummond while being up by almost 30.
Running up the score on a 30 point lead is insane, but Boston had a good reason for it.
You see, these were the standings on the final game of the in-season tournament group stage.
So in order for them to get that final 4th spot and advance in the quarterfinals, the Celtics needed to catch up to the +18 point differential of New York.
And this is where the chaos begins. The 2 games were played at the same time and right at this moment in the third quarter, with the Knicks up by only 1 and Boston up by 31, the Celtics caught up to the point differential and even had a 12 point advantage on New York. If the games ended like this, they would advance to the quarterfinals.
But the thing is you could see that both of these teams were playing with a sense of urgency and had the in-season tournament score in the back of their minds.
So the Knicks really ramped it up in the fourth, especially Emanuel Quickley who scored 16 in the final period and helped his team get a huge 24 point win.
These 24 plus the 18 that they had on the Celtics, meant that Boston would have to win by more than 42 points. And they actually tried and kept their starters up until the very end on a 30 point blowout, but it was just too much for them.
The chaos didn’t end there however because here are the quarterfinal matchups and you see that the Celtics actually advanced and will play against the Pacers. But the calculations about how they got there were something like this legendary clip from inside the NBA.
I’ll break down what happened with Boston at the end of this video, because now we gotta move on to another wild ending.
Playing without Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro the Heat had a 3 point lead late in the game against the Bucks. And winning it meant that they would advance in the quarterfinals potentially knocking the Bucks out of the tournament.
Bam had a monster game but maaan if Milwaukee goes out to a big night from a 37 year old Kyle Lowry and Josh Richardson who bounced around 6 different teams in the last 4 years, that would have been crazy.
But this was just as crazy:,
Moments later we got this:
And then:
So the Bucks survived and will face off against the Knicks.
In the west, Houston decided for their own destiny and with a win against Dallas who were out of it anyways, the Rockets would advance so Jalen Green and company were fired up for this one.
But so were the Mavs as they had an answer to every Rocket point.
And there was even some chippynes and trash talk.
But at the end a 41 point game from Luka capped off by this hook shot at the end, killed the dreams of this young roster for the Rockets.
However the chaos is nowhere near ending. Follow Gobert here for the entire possession at the end of the game against the Thunder. Look at his incredible defensive intensity. Rudy was so hyped that he fist pumped here in the middle of the play. And he stays with it, contesting one final time on this shot that ends up being an airball. Unbelievable defense, and the rumors are true, he is absolutely back to his defensive player of the year level from a couple of years ago.
This game also went down to the wire, but Anthony Edwards got injured and left the game so Minnesota needed another hero. And they found it in Troy Brown Jr.
OKC didn’t give up tho and played the foul game till the very end, eventually securing an opportunity to send the game into overtime.
But the Timberwolves hold on to win this game that ended up being meaningless for both teams but set up the ultimate showdown between Sacramento and Golden State.
Golden State has to win by 12 points or more to advance over Sacramento. The Kings had an 11 point cushion here but right out of the gate that was gone, as the Warriors came out swinging and quickly built a 24 point lead.
The Kings were fighting for their tournament chances first and foremost trying to get the lead down to 11, but D’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and the rest of the Kings got so hot on the comeback run, that they came all the way back and actually took over the lead.
Still, despite all that effort, Sacramento was down by 4 with 50 seconds to go and the Dubs had the ball. So then, the real madness starts unfolding.
The arena is about to explode and under that pressure, Draymond commits a turnover.
Setting the stage for this incredible play at the end.
Unbelievable! All the gotta do now is watch out for Steph Curry at the end.
The Kings win and advance to the quarterfinals while the Warriors are out of the tournament in the most improbable ending.
This is how things look in the West: Lakers vs Phoenix and Sacramento vs the Pelicans. Amazing.
Now I haven’t forgotten that I gotta explain just how the Celtics found themselves here.