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It’s been a pretty wild first “official” slate of the 2020-21 NBA season. We’ve had bank shots at the buzzer and now we’ve got wild tip-in’s at the buzzer. Sacramento Kings guard Buddy Hield finished a wild sequence with a last-second tip-in to give the Kings a 124-122 win over the Denver Nuggets in OT in the season opener on Wednesday night.
After Harrison Barnes forced a turnover on an inbounds play to Nikola Jokic, the Kings forward went in on a breakaway, missing a dunk. Not to worry, Hield was right there to pick up the pieces and give the Kings the W to start the season. Check out the video here courtesy of Bleacher Report:
BUDDY HIELD GAME-WINNING PUTBACK IN OT pic.twitter.com/TjMPu0mQnm
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 24, 2020
Hield finished with a team-high 22 points for the Kings, who were as many as 8.5-point underdogs heading into the game. The Nuggets did not play well on defense and Jamal Murray had a miserable game, going for 9 points on 1-of-9 shooting and 0-of-5 from beyond the arc. Jokic had a monster 29-15-14 triple-double and Michael Porter Jr. backed him up with 24 points. The big difference in the game was on the glass. Sac Town outrebounded the Nuggets 53-45, including 17-10 on the offensive glass.