It had gotten to the point this season where the game was starting to become a little bit too easy and a little bit too comfortable. We were in the midst of a 14-game (and counting) win streak and hadn't really been challenged in any of the games. I think the average margin of victory has been around 20-25 and our closest game was something like an nine point win in a game that only got that close in the final couple of minutes when the CPU went into ultimate cheese mode and started draining three after three, and forcing turnover after turnover, to cut what was once a 22 point lead to the final margin of nine. Still, the game was never in doubt.
So, even when I got the cut-scene with Jackson Ellis that got a little physical with some pushing and shoving, and the wager ended up being "whoever wins", I really wasn't that worried. In the other 13 games during the win streak I had a 15+ point lead going into the fourth quarter. Guess I should've known better.
The Pistons came out firing, got hot, and stayed hot. They ended up shooting an eye-popping 20/36 from three, and 65% overall from the floor. I knew late in the second quarter, when I usually start to build a bit of a cushion heading into halftime, I was going to have to go into takeover mode and shoot and score as often as possible. It was a back-and-forth game until I hit a three (pictured above) to put us up 5 with 13 seconds to go. Of course the Pistons dribbled the length of the court (no timeouts left) and hit a three to pull within two with 7 seconds to go. Fortunately I was able to get the inbound pass and drain two FT's to ice the game. Finished with a career high 83 points. Had well below my season average of 15 assists with "only" 8, but we still won a high scoring game, 136-132.