The month of April is always strange in the NBA. With several teams already not playing at all, players already thinking about vacations and coaches testing rotations, it is common to see results or statistics that would be unthinkable in other sections of the calendar. But perhaps we have gone too far.
Malachi Flynn, who was averaging 4,6 points per game this season until yesterday, decided to improve that average by scoring 50 during the Pistons' visit to the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, taking rivals, teammates, and surely himself by surprise. The point guard in fact practically doubled the best mark of his career so far, set at 27 points, signing what is possibly the game of his life. But, as it could not be otherwise, it ended in a 121-113 defeat for Detroit.
Flynn's best score this season had been 17 points, a figure he had already equaled at halftime, but it was in the third quarter when it began to become evident that tonight was going to be anything but normal. With 14 points in that period, he put his team on his back and tried to bring them back to life after Atlanta was up 22, and at that point Monty Williams decided that they were lost to the river. The point guard did not return to the bench in the entire second half, his usage percentage in the last quarter was close to 50% (48,1) and seeing him score became the only incentive for the Michigan team, who with his 19 points in the fourth quarter they even tightened the score.
Malachi thus became the tenth player to reach 50 points this season, but given that he started the match from the bench, his company is even more select. Only Nick Anderson in 1993 and Jamal Crawford in 2019 had managed to reach 50 starting as substitutes in the history of the league, a list that Flynn now joins.
Closer to 9th place
The point guard thus stole the attention from the victory of the Hawks, who managed to equal Chicago in the fight for 9th position in the Eastern Conference, although they are still behind due to having lost the tiebreaker. Both teams will face each other in the first round of the play-in, and whoever finishes ahead will have the home-court factor in their favor, so that, although it is likely that neither of the two will end up entering the playoffs, their chances may pass. largely because they are the home team in the first of the two duels they will have to win to do so.
Jalen Johnson was the great architect of the victory with a sensational triple-double of 28 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists, which was overshadowed by Flynn's performance but does not lose merit. De'Andre Hunter and Dejounte Murray, for their part, supported him with 26 and 24 points respectively, giving Atlanta its sixth victory in the last seven games.
(Cover photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)