There always seems to be one or two absurd, marathon-esque games in the NBA every year. These are the ones that can’t be decided in two overtimes, so they just drag on and on and one team eventually comes out on top.
We got one of those games on Sunday afternoon between Atlanta and New York. The game featured two crazy things: this dunk by Kristaps Porzingis, and four overtimes. In the end, the Hawks came out on top, 142-139, in what was the only four overtime game that we’ve had in the NBA this year.
Like all games that go this long, there were a bunch of fun tidbits out of the box score that were completely absurd. Here are ten of our favorites:
- Five players fouled out, four of them are on the Knicks. Porzingis, Carmelo Anthony, Joakim Noah, and Kyle O’Quinn all picked up six fouls, as did Dwight Howard. Two of those players didn’t play more than 30 minutes, as Porzingis played 30 on the nose while O’Quinn played 26.
- As you can guess, Melo put up a ton of shots. In 46 minutes, Anthony scored 45 points on 18-for-36 shooting. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see him play as many minutes as Paul Millsap. He might have shot the ball 70 times.
- Hey, speaking of Millsap, the 2017 All-Star played a hair over 60 (!!!) minutes. His stat line: 37 points, 19 rebounds, 7 assists. He played basketball for an hour! Millsap, according to ESPN, became the 16th player since 1983 to play 60 or more minutes in a game.
- In other “the Hawks played players a ton”: Tim Hardaway Jr. played 58 minutes, Dennis Schröder played 55, and Kent Bazemore played 50. Thankfully, Atlanta doesn’t play until Wednesday.
- For the Knicks, two guys played more than 50 minutes. One was Brandon Jennings (53 minutes). The other was Courtney Lee (52 minutes). Both of them combined for 31 shots, or in other words, they combined for fewer shots in 105 minutes than Melo took in 46.
- Four players recorded double-doubles. Three Hawks players (Millsap, Howard, and Schröder) and one Knick (Jennings) got to that mark. We almost had two New York players get there, but Lee and Justin Holiday both came one rebound short.
- Speaking of Holiday, he took 15 shots. Thirteen of them were threes. He made five shots, each one came from behind the three point line. No other player took more than nine threes, let alone had 87 percent of their shot attempts come from behind the three point line.
- The two teams took a combined 247 shots. For reference, the Cavaliers and the Thunder combined to take 192 combined shots earlier in the day.
- I have no idea why, but this seems like it actually had to happen: https://twitter.com/PhilipsArena/status/825853054176075779
- Six players – Maurice Daly Ndour, Marshall Plumlee, Sasha Vujacic, Mike Scott, DeAndre Bembry, and Lamar Patterson – earned “Did Not Play–Coaches Decisions” in the box score.
This game was completely ridiculous. We need more four overtime games in the NBA. Not only because they’re fun, but because they give us ludicrous box scores like the one we got in Hawks vs. Knicks.
