3/26/24 Hometown Broadcasting Sports Monday
25 March 2024 Sports
Giannis Antetokounmpo had 30 points and Khris Middleton recorded his second career triple-double as the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 118-93 on Sunday.
Middleton had 11 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for his first triple-double since Jan. 20, 2018.
Milwaukee broke open a close game in the second half and Oklahoma City fell out of the Western Conference lead to the Denver Nuggets.
Oklahoma City posted its lowest point total and shot its lowest percentage of the season. Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 12 points which was the first time since Jan. 19 he was held below 20 and sat out the entire fourth quarter after the Bucks had built a lopsided lead.
This marked the first time since a Feb. 3 victory at Dallas that the Bucks had Antetokounmpo, Middleton and seven-time All-NBA guard Damian Lillard on the floor for the same game. It was the first time since a Jan. 31 loss at Portland that they had their preferred starting lineup of Antetokounmpo, Lillard, Middleton, Brook Lopez and Malik Beasley.
Middleton had missed 16 straight games with a sprained left ankle and also sat a victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday due to injury management while Lillard also had a sprained left ankle that caused him to sit out two games in early February. Antetokounmpo returned Thursday after missing two games due to an issue with his left hamstring.
Milwaukee had seven players score in double figures. Bobby Portis had 15, Lopez 14, Lillard and Pat Connaughton 11 apiece, and Jae Crowder 10.
The Bucks led 48-47 at halftime and broke open the game by outscoring Oklahoma City 18-2 in the first six-plus minutes of the third quarter and Oklahoma City didn’t make its first basket of the third period until Williams converted a layup with 5:38 left that ended a 16-0 Milwaukee spurt.
Oklahoma City’s Lu Dort appeared to take a hit to the head under the basket as Williams scored, causing the swingman to leave the game.
The Bucks ended up winning the third period 34-17 as the Thunder matched their lowest point total for any quarter all season.
Up next, the Bucks host the LA Lakers on Thursday.
Tyler Kolek had 21 points and 11 assists to help Marquette put away Colorado 81-77 on Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
In their third season under coach Shaka Smart, the second-seeded Golden Eagles reached the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013 by outlasting the 10th-seeded Buffaloes and their dynamic offense.
Kam Jones scored 18 points and David Joplin finished with 14 for Marquette, which shot 61.8% from the field but still couldn’t shake Colorado until the closing seconds. Chase Ross made a tiebreaking 3-pointer off a pass from Kolek with 2:53 left and finished with 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting.
KJ Simpson scored 20 points and Tristan da Silva had 17 for Colorado, which trailed by 11 at halftime but rallied to take a 55-54 lead just over five minutes into the second half. Kolek put the Golden Eagles back on top with a short jumper and Marquette never trailed again, but Colorado tied it twice, the last time on a 3-pointer by da Silva with 4:02 remaining.
The Buffs trailed 79-77 and had to foul three times before putting Joplin on the line for a 1-and-1. He knocked down both and set up a South Region semifinal meeting with No. 11 seed North Carolina State in Dallas on Friday.
Playing his second game since an oblique injury that sidelined him for six contests, Kolek was efficient for the Golden Eagles, shooting 10 of 14 from the floor and routinely finding open teammates.
Eddie Lampkin Jr. scored 13 points and Cody Williams had 12 for the Buffs, who had already set a program record for victories and were playing their third game in five days. They topped Boise State in the First Four and then beat Florida 102-100 in one of the most entertaining games of the first round.
The only two NCAA Division I basketball teams with winning records every year since the 1981-82 season met on the court at Reynolds Coliseum.
Tennessee, a program with eight national championships, would square off against a Green Bay program that went as far as the Sweet 16 in 2011.
Through one period of play in the opening round NCAA Tournament matchup, Green Bay hung around with Tennessee as the Phoenix, which shot 60 percent from the floor, trailed 23-21 entering the second period.
After a jumper from Green Bay junior Natalie McNeal tied the game at 23, Tennessee responded with a 21-5 run and the charge was led by senior guard Jewel Spear, who had 11 points on 4-4 shooting.
In the second period, the Phoenix went 3-of-16 from the floor and just 1-of-7 from 3-point range to trail 44-28 at halftime.
Rickea Jackson, who had a team-high 9 points for the Lady Vols in the first period, added 8 points and 4 rebounds in the third period. Tess Darby also added two 3-pointers for the Lady Vols, her second giving UT a 68-44 lead.
Green Bay’s shooting struggles continued in the third period. The Phoenix shot 31.3 percent from the floor and 33.3 percent from beyond the arc.
With a 70-44 lead to start the fourth period, Tennessee moving on to the second round was all but solidified and their largest lead of the game came in the fourth period when they were up by 35 points.
Tennessee would go on to win 92-63 while Green Bay’s first tournament bid since 2018 would end in the first round.
Maddy Schreiber was the only Phoenix to finish in double figures with 13 points while Jasmine Kondrakiewicz had 9 points in 15 minutes of play.
Jackson had a game-high 26 points and 9 rebounds for Tennessee.
Green Bay ends its season with a 27-7 overall record.
Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron turned in a steady and inspired drive to earn the NASCAR Cup Series victory from pole position in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas road course Sunday, holding off the field by less than a second but dominating the field when he needed to.
Following up on his season-opening Daytona 500 win, the 26-year-old Charlotte native becomes the first driver to win multiple races this season. This is his 12th career NASCAR Cup Series victory and gives his Hendrick team a series all-time best 28th win on NASCAR road courses.
While at times Byron made it look easy, holding a nearly three-second advantage on the field with 10 laps remaining, his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet did have to fend off a hard-charging Christopher Bell, who made up four positions in those closing laps and kept Byron honest in what was ultimately a 0.692-second margin of victory around the 20-turn, 3.41-mile circuit.
“I feel like I made a lot of mistakes in the last 10 laps, just micro-errors and Christopher was really fast there on the longer run,” Byron said. “This sport is so hard and so difficult week in and week out to show up and have fast cars. We’ve had a little bit of a rough stretch the last few weeks but put a lot of preparation in this past week and just thankful for the team I have around me and all the people back home as well.
For his part, Bell, driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and a winner at Phoenix this season, acknowledged it simply came down to a good road-course battle among good teams and talented drivers.
Just behind the pair was Bell’s 21-year-old JGR teammate Ty Gibbs, who is having a stellar sophomore season in NASCAR’s Cup Series. Gibbs ran top five for the majority of the day and was running second to Byron until Bell passed him with only two laps remaining. The third-place effort marks his fifth top-10 finish in the season’s six races.
One of the sport’s best road-course racers, AJ Allmendinger finished sixth, followed by the 2022 COTA winner, Ross Chastain. Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch and Truex rounded out the top 10.
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