ATLANTA — Dejounte Murray had 30 points and seven assists and the Atlanta Hawks won their third in a row and handed Portland its eighth straight loss, beating the Trail Blazers 120-106.
Devin Vassell, also, scored 31 points, Victor Wembanyama had 19 points and five blocks and the San Antonio Spurs ran past the Utah Jazz 118-111.
Garrison Mathews hit five 3-points and scored a season-high 21 points to help the Hawks remain 10th in the Eastern Conference and avenge a 106-102 loss in Portland on March 13. Matthews led the Atlanta backups to 41 points.
Bogdan Bogdanovic added 16 points and five assists, and Clint Capela had 16 points and 10 rebounds. “(Murray)’s efficiency tonight was just terrific,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said according to AP. “He picked his spots. He set people up. He really set the tone for us.”
Murray was questionable with back soreness before the game, but led the Hawks at both ends of the floor.
“I always try to make the right basketball play, keeping confidence in my guys,” Murray said. “They know I believe in them. I´m always looking to get them the ball and for them to be aggressive taking shots.”
Dalano Banton led Portland with a career-high 31 points off the bench. He also had nine assists and five rebounds. Toumani Camara had 17 points, and Scoot Henderson added 15 points and six assists.
“He´s becoming a real problem for defenses,” San Antonio Spurs’ Wembanyama said of Vassell. “It´s beautiful to see him evolve like this throughout the year.”
The Spurs, second in the league in assists behind Indiana, had a season-high 40 on 44 field goals. San Antonio also shot 51.8 per cent from the field and was well above.
“That´s Spurs basketball … and Pop preaches it all the time,” Vassell said of coach Gregg Popovich. “We were knocking down shots today and everybody was sharing it.”
Jeremy Sochan, Julian Champagnie and Malaki Branham all scored 17 points for San Antonio. But it was Vassell who was the catalyst.
“Get downhill, get to my spots, pick them apart. If they´re trapping me, I can hit the short roll or skip or whatever the pass is, and they´ve been knocking down shots,” said Vassell, who had his sixth 30-point game of the season along with six assists.
“He was a monster at both ends for us,” Popovich said.
Collin Sexton had 26 points and nine assists, while Lauri Markkanen scored 25 points for the Jazz, who lost their seventh in a row. The Jazz led just once and trailed by double-digits most of the game.
“I feel like we were a step slow on everything. We weren´t physical enough on offense or defense,” said Markkanen, who played the entire second half. “Once you make a mistake, they can punish you. Every mistake just adds up, so that´s how they get on a run.”
Utah got as close as 115-111 with 23.2 seconds remaining before Tre Jones sealed the win for San Antonio with two free throws and Wembanyama swatted Utah´s next attempt.
“It was a bad choice,” Wembanyama said about Taylor Hendricks trying to dunk on him at the end of the game.
Cam Thomas, meanwhile, scored 38 points, including a pair of jumpers in overtime and the Brooklyn Nets held off Washington 122-119, snapping the Wizards’ modest three-game winning streak.
Jordan Poole scored a season-high 38 points for Washington, but he missed a 3-pointer that could have tied the game late in overtime.
Dorian Finney-Smith had a chance to ice the game for Brooklyn with 4.3 seconds left, but he missed two free throws.
The Wizards, however, were out of timeouts, and after securing the rebound, Washington’s Deni Avdija lost control of the ball when he tried to dribble quickly up court. “We took a good shot every time we went down in overtime, make or miss,” Thomas said.
“So we’ll just live with that, and at the end of the day, we just got stops.”
Both teams had chances to win in regulation. With the score tied at 112, Avdija had his shot blocked by Nic Claxton. Brooklyn then came the other way without calling a timeout, and Dennis Schroder missed a last-second 3-pointer.
