NBA results | Sunday
Jazz 96, Pistons 86
DETROIT — Donovan Mitchell scored 13 of his 28 points in a decisive first quarter, and Utah held on for a victory over Detroit.
The Pistons were coming off an overtime win over Phoenix on Friday night in which they rallied from a 23-point deficit, but they couldn’t climb out of another big hole. Utah scored the game’s first nine points and never trailed. The Jazz went on a 17-0 run later in the first, pushing their lead to 20 before the quarter was over.
Thunder 129, Nets 116
NEW YORK — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 31 points to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a win over the Brooklyn Nets.
Gilgeous-Alexander was one of six players to finish in double-figure scoring for the Thunder, who won their third straight and beat Brooklyn for the fifth consecutive time.
Hamidou Diallo finished with 25 points, Al Horford had 22, George Hill added 14, and Lugentz Dort and Isaiah Roby had 13 each.
Nuggets 114, Knicks 89
NEW YORK — Nikola Jokic had 22 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in another short night, and the Denver Nuggets reached .500 for the first time this season with a victory over the New York Knicks.
The Nuggets opened 1-4 after reaching the Western Conference finals last season but have now answered with four wins in five games.
They jumped on the Knicks much earlier Sunday and it was never a game after halftime.
Gary Harris added 14 points for the Nuggets, who got only nine from star guard Jamal Murray.
Heat at Celtics, ppd.
COVID-19 exposure forced the postponement of Miami’s game at Boston on Sunday, a day where no fewer than 15 players around the league were officially declared unable to play for virus-related reasons.
The Celtics had seven of those players and Miami had another. But after Heat guard Avery Bradley was ruled out for Sunday — his test result was not announced, just his status — the rest of the Miami players needed their contact-tracing data analyzed to determine if they had been potentially exposed.
Timberwolves 96, Spurs 88 Raptors at Warriors, late