A toast to the unexpected scripts. For the heroes that nobody counts on, for the unexpected appearances of the exceptional. This Orlando Magic-Detroit Pistons was the anonymous game of the 2021-22 regular season. Or not, for precisely the same reasons as Should be: Only on a Thursday day in which the NBA did not put a lot of effort to compete, there are battles that cannot be won, with the first really big day of the march madness academic. With a one-game schedule, and one between two of the season’s worst teams, lacked some high-profile casualties to finish the matter. There were: we were left without face to face between two of the greatest talents of the last draft: Cada Cunningham, a number 1 who is having a magnificent season, and Jalen Suggs, a 5 who is having many more problems and who has not yet shown who may be what he’s supposed to be: the Orlando Magic’s newest franchise player.
Plus: The Pistons without Cade also didn’t have Jerami Grant. And the Magic didn’t have Wendell Carter and Chuma Okeke. And they just learned that Jonathan Isaac won’t be playing this season either. Cold water everywhere in case the temperature of this game wasn’t cold enough already. In a duel between two of the three teams that still haven’t won 20 games, the Pistons (19-51) beat the Magic (18-53) (120-134). And, above all, in a game in which neither Cade nor Grant nor Suggs were present, and in which all of America was watching the university tournament, Sadiqq Bey scored 51 points that seemed to come out of nowhere. To the same Magic, moreover, who had just conceded 60 to Kyrie Irving. There had been nine NBA games of at least 50 points as of February 28. In the first 17 days of March, there are eight. In the last week alone, we’ve taken five, including two of sixty: 60 Towns and Kyrie, 53 Kevin Durant, 51 Bey and 50 LeBron James. The calendar month with the most is December 1962: nine. In the last half century, the best mark was seven.
Bey finished with 51, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals; 17/27 shooting with 10/14 on 3s and 7/10 on free throws. He is a 22-year-old forward who was number 19 in the draft in 2020 (chosen by the Nets and transferred to the motown) and finished fourth in the 2021 Rookie of the Year voting. He tries to establish himself as a forward important, shooting and defense, in a project that Cade Cunningham will lead with, starting next season, another very high draft choice. Perhaps the second number 1 in a row. Bey, who was born in Charlotte but played his years of College at Villanova and not one of North Carolina’s big colleges, he said after the game that he likes being the villain because his favorite childhood character was the Joker. This time he got to be a hero. In his second NBA season, he averaged 15.8 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.9 assists.
A personal foul by RJ Hampton in the closing seconds got him past 50 when it looked like he was going to fall short. His teammates brazenly searched for him in the last few minutes and he admitted that he was a little nervous on that visit to the personnel line. You never know if an opportunity like this will come up again. He had signed a brilliant first quarter in which he added 21 of the 30 points that reached the break. And that they were 36 at the end of the third quarter, when the resistance presented by the Wagner brothers gave way: 16 points and 5 rebounds from Mo, 26+5 from Franz, the excellent forward who was number 8 in the last draft. but he was Bey’s night, the night in which a game that nobody expected anything from left a great headline. and in which a sophomore unknown to the general public, he stayed close to the Detroit Pistons scoring record, the 57 points scored by Jerry Stackhouse in 2001. He will not complain, in any case: Saddiq Bey has his own chapter in the history of this 2021-22 season of the NBA. Which is not little.