NBA Previews

The New Orleans Pelicans have won eight of their last 10 games, putting themselves in position to avoid the Western Conference play-in tournament. They’ll get an optimal opponent against which to try and fatten their record while wrapping up a four-game road trip on Sunday afternoon. Coming off a solid victory at Miami on Friday night, the Pelicans visit the banged-up, floundering Detroit Pistons. Detroit will carry a five-game losing streak into the contest. New

The Phoenix Suns have to make hay while they can in a bid to move up the standings, beginning Saturday with the first of two games in three nights against the host San Antonio Spurs. The Suns (41-29) are in a virtual tie with the Dallas Mavericks for sixth place in the Western Conference with 12 games to play. Phoenix would lose the tiebreaker with Dallas and has the toughest remaining schedule in the West,

The Boston Celtics will seek their ninth consecutive victory when they visit the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night. It will be the third meeting between Boston and Chicago this season. Boston won 124-97 at home on Nov. 28 and 129-112 at Chicago on Feb. 22. The Celtics (56-14) were missing leading scorer Jayson Tatum (ankle), Jrue Holiday (dead arm) and Al Horford (toe) but extended their road winning streak to five games by beating the

The surging Denver Nuggets will continue their pursuit of the Western Conference lead when they visit the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday night. The Nuggets (49-21) have won 13 of their past 15 games and stand a half-game behind the first-place Oklahoma City Thunder. The reigning champions appear to be in top gear for the final few weeks of the season while the Trail Blazers (19-51) have the second-worst record in the West. Portland has

The Toronto Raptors will look to end their nine-game losing streak on Saturday night when they visit the Washington Wizards. Toronto (23-47) continued its losing ways on Friday with a 123-103 setback against the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder. The Raptors surrendered a 22-7 run in the fourth quarter that turned a competitive game into a blowout and Toronto’s fourth consecutive double-digit defeat. A host of Raptors missed Friday’s contest, with 17.7-points-per-game scorer Immanuel Quickley

The Sacramento Kings look to bounce back from one of their most surprising losses of the season when they visit the Orlando Magic on Saturday. Orlando (42-28) enters on a five-game winning streak and has won 18 of its last 23 to move into fourth place in the Eastern Conference with 12 games to play. The Magic continue their season-long, eight-game homestand against a Sacramento team that lost 109-102 on Thursday to the host Washington

The Atlanta Hawks will try to improve their situation in the Eastern Conference playoff race when they host the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday. The Hawks, still playing without All-Star guard Trae Young, stand as the No. 10 seed and hold a 4 1/2-game lead over the Brooklyn Nets for the final spot in the league’s play-inournament. They trail the No. 9 Chicago Bulls by 3 1/2 games with 13 games remaining. The Hawks (30-39) have

For the first time this season, the Brooklyn Nets will take the 6-mile trip across the East River to face their longtime rivals, the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden on Saturday. For the free-falling Nets (26-44), the matchup will be more about pride than anything with just 12 games left in the season. Following Thursday’s 115-108 road loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn has dropped five games in a row and seven of

All of a sudden, Bam Adebayo has a 3-point shot. The Miami Heat center made just nine 3-pointers in his first 472 NBA games. But, over the past four games, Adebayo is 5-for-5 from deep, sinking at least one 3-pointer in each contest. On Friday night, Adebayo will try to keep that streak going as Miami (38-31) hosts the New Orleans Pelicans (42-27). Miami ranks 27th out of the 30 NBA teams in scoring (109.7