NBA schedule and results: Kevin Durant returns, Thunder lose to Pelicans

The Chicago Bulls and Dallas Mavericks have established themselves as two of the better teams in the NBA. Based on their matchup Tuesday night, basketball fans may hope the Bulls and Mavericks wind up on a crash course to the NBA Finals. The teams played one of the most-thrilling games of the year, a double overtime contest with plenty of back-and-forth and star players making huge plays. Ultimately, the Mavericks prevailed, 132-129.

There was also this shot at the end of the second overtime to give the Mavericks the win.

Steph did what Steph does, down 2 with a long rebound in hand and seconds ticking off the clock:

It’s funny, because after the Warriors slashed away a late Magic lead with a flurry of threes, they rushed and bricked several consecutive deep bombs on a crunch-time possession featuring several offensive rebounds.

So ... this is an absurd shot by Derrick Rose to send the Bulls-Mavericks game into double overtime. It’s basically a one-handed floater from three-point range that banked in. Sadly for the Bulls, it didn’t matter because the Mavericks hung on to win in double OT.

The Bulls will be kicking themselves, because this is why the game went to overtime in the first place.

You can see the full video here, in which Young takes over the question-asking and directs the topics toward himself as much as possible. That’s Swaggy for you.

Postscript: Nick Young moves his head and neck exactly like a Muppet does.

You don’t often see a player deflecting passes on offense and defense on the same possession.

I don’t know what’s going on here:

They’re filming a movie at Knicks-Nets, so there’s some possibility this was staged, but people I’ve spoken to at the arena believe it really happened, and I see no cameras, and people tweeted about it as it happened:

WHY DON’T THEY MAKE THE WHOLE GAME OUT OF THE HALFTIME SHOW:

AGREED:

Never try this again, Thunder.

If you were watching the bad Nets play the very bad Knicks and wondering why you suddenly heard chanting, don’t worry, it wasn’t actually fans:

Yeah, they’re just filming a movie. Nobody actually chants that loudly at Knicks games this season.

Sure, that wasn’t the best defense, but how about that Jabari Parker finish?

This is special, even for Clyde:

MSG made a point to note “no animals were harmed” in the making of Walt Frazier’s suit for Knicks-Nets.

You rarely hear bombastic Cleveland Cavaliers TV commentator Austin Carr go nuts for the opposing team, so well done, Larry Sanders.

Durant’s return, coupled with Russell Westbrook’s recent clean bill of health, will assuredly give the Thunder a jolt. Oklahoma City has started just 5-12, mostly without both players, and there was talk that they wouldn’t return in time for the Thunder to make a playoff push in the deep Western Conference. But Oklahoma City is just 4.5 games behind Phoenix for the No. 8 seed with 65 games to make up ground.

Westbrook’s return changed the outlook of the Thunder team and led to a dominant win on Friday, and bringing the reigning MVP back should provide a similar boost as Oklahoma City tries to work its way back into playoff contention.