Jimmy Butler scored 35 points and the Miami Heat capitalized on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s early exit to beat the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks 130-117 on Sunday in an Eastern Conference playoff opener featuring two notable injuries.
The top-seeded Bucks lost Antetokounmpo to a lower back bruise early in the second quarter. Miami’s Tyler Herro broke his right hand later in the period.
No 8 seed Miami had built a 68-55 halftime advantage before Herro’s departure and stayed ahead by shooting 59.5% (50 of 84) from the floor. The Heat were 15 of 25 and the Bucks 11 of 45 from three-point range.
Antetokounmpo was driving to the basket with 4:13 left in the first quarter when he got fouled by Kevin Love and landed hard on his backside. The two-time MVP got up slowly, stayed in the game to take his free throws and then headed to the locker room about two and a half minutes later after picking up his second foul.
Although he returned to the game with 9:56 remaining in the second quarter, Antetokounmpo went to the locker room again with 8:33 left in the half and was ruled out for the rest of the game shortly afterward.
Herro appeared to hurt his hand while diving for a loose ball late in the first half. He was in obvious pain while standing in front of Miami bench during the final minute of the second period, and the Heat disclosed the severity of his injury at halftime.
Herro had scored 12 points before his injury. Antetokounmpo ended up with six points and three rebounds in 11 minutes.
Bam Adebayo had 22 points, nine rebounds and seven assists for the Heat. Butler had 11 assists. Love had 18 points and eight rebounds off the bench.
Khris Middleton led the Bucks with 33 points and nine rebounds. Bobby Portis had 21 points. Jrue Holiday added 16 points and 16 assists, though he shot 6 of 18.
Miami seized control of the game before Antetokounmpo’s injury as the Bucks appeared disjointed after a long layoff. None of the Bucks’ starters had played since at least 5 April, when they won at Chicago to clinch the NBA’s best regular-season record and top playoff seed.
The Heat led by as many as 14 in the first half. Antetokounmpo left the game for good during a 9-0 Bucks run that cut Miami’s lead to 43-42, but the Heat answered with a 12-2 spurt and remained in front the rest of the way.
Los Angeles Lakers 128-112 Memphis Grizzlies
Rui Hachimura, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers made an early statement in the wide-open Western Conference playoffs.
Hachimura scored a playoff career-best 29 points, including 21 in the second half, and James added 21 points and 11 rebounds as the seventh-seeded Lakers beat the No 2 seed Memphis Grizzlies 128-112 on Sunday in the opening game of their series.
Memphis had the NBA’s best home record at 35-6 but no longer has home-court advantage against LA. Game 2 is Wednesday at FedExForum, and the Grizzlies have major concerns about star Ja Morant, who aggravated a right hand injury.
“We didn’t execute the priorities of the game plan,” Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said. “Get back. Execute half-court defense and get rebounds.”
Austin Reaves added 23 points, including nine straight in the closing minutes as the Lakers pulled away. Anthony Davis had 22 points and 12 rebounds, and D’Angelo Russell, who scored only two points in the Lakers’ play-in win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, finished with 19 points.
Hachimura missed only one of his nine shots in the second half, including making all five of his three-point attempts.
“The second half, we were in a good rhythm,” Hachimura said. “We were sharing the ball and all the shots just came to me.”
Reaves added: “Rui was huge (Sunday). His skillset is crazy. For us to get him with all the talent we have, it just brings another aspect to our team.”
Jaren Jackson Jr led Memphis with 31 points, while Desmond Bane scored 22. Morant had 18 points before leaving in the fourth quarter with the hand injury. The Grizzlies’ leading scorer’s availability for Game 2 is uncertain.
“I’m in a good bit of pain,” Morant said. “My main focus was to be out there for my guys. Another incident where, you know, that’s pretty much in jeopardy.”
It was Hachimura from Japan who provided Los Angeles some breathing room in the third quarter, connecting on all four of his three-point attempts. Hachimura’s only previous playoff experience was in 2021 with Washington, which lost a first-round series to Philadelphia. The Lakers acquired him from the Wizards in a midseason trade.
“He’s multifaceted,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said of Hachiumura. “He’s strong. He has great hands. He can get out and run, go up top. Very, very athletic and can really put the ball in the hole as you saw today. Just encouraging him to be assertive, aggressive.”
Los Angeles had to get through the play-in tournament this year after missing the playoffs in 2022. The Lakers were eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns a year earlier.
Memphis finished with 51 wins, its second straight 50-victory season.
After the Grizzlies used a second-quarter burst to take a 65-59 lead into the break, the teams swapped leads through much of the second half, and Memphis still held a 101-100 advantage with 8:36 left.
But Hachimura made a 13-foot jumper, and Reaves nailed a three-pointer as the shot clock was expiring. Then, as Memphis got close again with about three minutes left, Reaves went on his individual scoring spree, and the Lakers closed out the game with the final 15 points.
“It’s one game,” Bane said. “It’s the first of four games for a reason. You want to win every game, but most of the time that doesn’t happen.
“We obviously wanted to start it off with a win, but whey won, and we get another opportunity on Wednesday.”
Los Angeles Clippers 115-110 Phoenix Suns
Kawhi Leonard had a great shooting night while Russell Westbrook had a horrible one.
Both players nonetheless had a huge impact for the Los Angeles Clippers in their 115-110 win over the Phoenix Suns in the teams’ Western Conference playoff series opener on Sunday.
Leonard poured in 38 points, including two late three-pointers, while Westbrook was a menace everywhere except the scoring column. The veteran guard shot just 3 of 19 from the field, but finished with nine points, 10 rebounds, eight assists, three blocks and two steals.
“My whole career, I pride myself every season on doing everything,” Westbrook said. “Whatever is needed of me to win the game, I’ll do it.”
That’s exactly what happened in the final 30 seconds. Westbrook made a pair of free throws with 17.7 seconds left for a three-point lead, then blocked Devin Booker’s layup attempt at the other end and swatted the ball off Booker to give the Clippers the ball with 10.1 seconds remaining.
Eric Gordon added 19 points and hit a late three that kept the Clippers ahead.
Kevin Durant scored 27 points for the Suns, who lost for the first time with him on the floor. Phoenix acquired the two-time NBA finals MVP from Brooklyn in February, and injuries limited him to eight games – all Suns wins.
Devin Booker added 26 points for Phoenix, which will try to avoid falling into a 2-0 hole at home on Tuesday.
The Suns trailed 109-103 with 1:33 remaining but scored the next five points. The Clippers grabbed multiple offensive rebounds on the ensuing possession before Westbrook made his critical free throws.
“Making winning plays, getting deflections on balls, offensive rebounding, getting us into our sets – that is playoff basketball,” Leonard said. “You might not have the best night shooting, but you’ve got to impact the game some type of way and he did that tonight.”
Los Angeles led for much of the game until midway through the third quarter. Torrey Craig made back-to-back buckets, including one on a powerful fast-break dunk, to push Phoenix ahead 70-68, part of a 15-0 run that concluded with a 77-68 Suns lead.
The Clippers, led by Leonard’s 12 points in the third, recovered to tie the game at 81-all heading into the fourth.
“They’re going to make a run at home, we understood that,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “We built a lead, they made a run, and now we’ve got to keep our composure and be ready to fight back. I thought everyone who played tonight was great.”
Leonard – a two-time finals MVP playing his first playoff game since 14 June 2021 – did much of his damage from the mid-range, but moved behind the three-point arc in the game’s late moments. He hit a three with 2:36 left and another at the two-minute mark, finishing 13 of 24 shooting from the field.
The Clippers were missing one of their best players in eight-time All-Star Paul George. He sprained his right knee last month and it’s unclear if he’ll be able to play in this series.
Gordon scored 12 points as the Clippers jumped to a 30-18 lead after one quarter. The Suns shot just 31.8% from the field in the first quarter and Durant was held scoreless.
“We definitely would like to have better starts but sometimes that happens,” Durant said. “It is all about how you bounce back from it.”
Durant missed his first five shots from the field before finally connecting on a mid-range jumper early in the second quarter. That seemed to shake the nerves and the 34-year-old poured in 17 points before the break, helping cut the Clippers’ lead to 59-54.
The Suns had their six-game winning streak in playoff Game 1s snapped.
“We understand it is not going to be easy,” Booker said. “It gets harder from here. Thinking back to my first (playoffs), every loss is the worst thing ever and every win you are going to win the rest of them. That’s just how the playoffs go.”
Minnesota Timberwolves 80-109 Denver Nuggets
Jamal Murray scored 24 points and dished out eight assists in his first playoff game since the 2020 NBA bubble and the top-seeded Denver Nuggets routed the Minnesota Timberwolves 109-80 Sunday night.
Nikola Jokic added 13 points, 14 rebounds and a half dozen assists in 28 minutes and Michael Porter Jr scored 18 points as Denver snapped a five-game skid in playoff openers.
Anthony Edwards led Minnesota with 18 points. Karl-Anthony Towns, who was rounding into form this month after missing 52 games with a bad calf, missed 10 of his first 12 shots and finished with 11 points.
The Timberwolves hadn’t been held to so few points since 19 November 2016.
Jokic said during the Nuggets’ week off that he was eager to see how they’d do do with Murray and Porter back in the lineup with him after injuries and surgeries waylaid Denver’s Big Three each of the last two postseasons.
The answer was emphatic: the trio combined for 55 points, 33 rebounds and 16 assists – with just two combined turnovers – as all five of Denver’s starters scored in double figures as did reserve Bruce Brown, who chipped in 14.
The Nuggets were the only one of four home teams to win Sunday as the Bucks, Grizzlies and Suns all surrendered homecourt advantage to lower seeds in the first round.
The opener marked Murray’s first playoff appearance since his breakout performance in the 2020 NBA bubble, when he twice put up 50 points on the Jazz in helping the Nuggets reach the Western Conference Finals where they lost to LeBron James and the Lakers. Murray tore his left ACL eight months later and missed the Nuggets’ last two playoff runs.
“It is kind of wild to think it’s been that long,” Denver coach Michael Malone said before tip-off. “I’m just so happy for him, proud of him. It has not been an easy journey for him, but I think this year, we’ve seen Jamal have moments where that’s the Jamal Murray that we all love and remember.
“I think he’s just really excited to get back out there, play, and remind people of what he’s capable of. We know how important he is to us. I’m just very, very thankful that, we as a team, are healthy going into the postseason.”
That includes Porter, who sat out a year ago following back surgery.
The Timberwolves were without starting forward Jaden McDaniels, their best perimeter defender, who broke his right hand punching a wall in Minnesota’s final regular season game.