NBA schedule and results: Bulls get back on track vs. Spurs

It was Boston’s third win of the month in 11 tries, and eight of those have come against playoff teams. This trip to Portland was the Celtics’ second of a six-game West Coast road trip. They play in Denver on Friday, which is likely a schedule loss when you consider the altitude and lack of rest. They face Golden State and Utah -- another back-to-back -- before wrapping up the trip against Minnesota and coming home to close out the month against Houston.

With a 3-8 record and the schedule ahead of them in mind, this was a huge win for Boston. Portland had chances to put them away all throughout the fourth and they kept hanging around. The Celtics bungled the possession horribly and basically lucked into the Turner 3-pointer from the corner, but somehow it worked. They only had that chance to start with because of an offensive rebound after Jared Sullinger had missed a shot seconds earlier.

Well, here’s a thing that happened on live TV while a Clippers trainer was just trying to do his job:

To quote Kevin Harlan, “noooo don’t do that.” Even if you’re buddies, even if you’re just messing around, even if you *aren’t* on national television, just don’t do that to somebody, especially somebody doing his medical job.

This play was totally botched, but Jared Sullinger made up for his own fumble by laying out for the loose ball and chucking it back to Evan Turner, who got the job done:

It’s funny, because most Celtics fans -- having fully accepted the team’s stripdown and move toward tanking -- were upset to see that shot fall. Evan Turner *would* spit in the tank juice. That’s so Evan Turner.

Danny Green paid tribute to late fellow UNC alum Stuart Scott with some cool sneaker decals Thursday night:

That’s STU on the left, BOOYAH, Scott’s signature catchphrase, on the right. The Tar Heels themselves honored Scott before a game earlier this month.

Damian Lillard’s crunch-time sharpshooting is well-documented, but since when did the Blazers guard start dunking like THIS all the time? It feels like a new development, even if we’ve known Dame can get up since his earliest days in the league.

The Blazers are going to need Dame now more than ever with LaMarcus Aldridge out for 6-8 weeks. So far, he’s made a career out of rising to the challenge.

When Chris Paul threw this lob, I was like “oh come on even DeAndre Jordan can’t finishOH MY GOD:

This is a solid representation of what the Clippers are doing to the Nets Thursday night.

Remember when Jason Kidd experimented with making Giannis a point guard in the preseason? Perhaps the idea behind that was to get the young 6’11 forward comfortable pushing the ball in the open court. If that’s the case, it worked out well here.

The Utah Jazz center is like a tree come to life, if that tree could jump out of the gym and spent its time swatting birds away from its branches.

The Bulls are struggling, but it hasn’t been Derrick Rose’s fault. The star guard is playing some of his best ball of the year right now, and it’s continued early against the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday night. This is just one of several impressive plays he’s made.

Bad shot? Only if it doesn’t go in.

This is 100% pure, uncut Spurs:

Not so much a give-and-go as a give-and-GODDAMN, MANU!

Gordon Hayward thought he was gonna put Ersan Ilyasova on a poster. Ersan said NO IN FACT IT IS YOU WHO GOES ON MY POSTER. A POSTER ABOUT BLOCKS:

Westbrook nearly notched a triple-double in the victory, putting up 32 points, eight rebounds and eight assists; 25 of those points came after a quiet first half in which the electric guard shot just 2-of-8 from the field as the Wizards opened up a 12-point halftime lead.

But also like Westbrook, Durant came alive in the second half. Durant had 21 points on 7-of-14 shooting in the second half and overtime, including five points in the extra frame that were just not very nice: