Balanced Heat too much for Magic
Jimmy Butler scored 24 points and rookie Tyler Herro came off the bench with 23 on Saturday night to lead the Miami Heat to a 102-89 victory over the Orlando Magic.
Meyers Leonard had 18 points and 14 rebounds for the Heat before going to the bench with five fouls with 5:49 left in the game. Herro and Leonard combined for 10-of-19 shooting from 3-point range.
Aaron Gordon scored 24 for the Magic, who lost their fifth straight. Nikola Vucevic added 21 points and nine rebounds.
Miami led 57-49 at halftime despite a big first half by Gordon, who was 4 of 6 on 3s and scored 16 points.
Herro, bumped out of the starting lineup by the return of fellow rookie Kendrick Nunn, hit three 3-pointers and scored 12 points in the first half.
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Leonard stretched Miami’s lead to double digits early in the second half, and the Heat led 73-60 when Butler converted a threepoint play late in the third quarter. After the Magic closed the gap to six early in the fourth, Herro hit two more 3-pointers for an 86-74 lead, and the Magic never threatened again.
Wizards 113, Nets 107 — Bradley Beal scored 34 points, Thomas Bryant added 17 points and 10 rebounds for Washington and the Nets lost Kyrie Irving to a sprained right knee in the fourth quarter. He was held to a season-low 11 points, a night after scoring a seasonbest 54. It was the second straight victory for the Wizards, just their third winning streak of the season.
Spencer Dinwiddie, who scored 12 straight points for Brooklyn late in the third quarter and early in the fourth, led the Nets with 26 points. Joe Harris had 22 and Jarrett Allen had 13 points and 15 rebounds.
Clippers 118, Timberwolves 106 — Kawhi Leonard scored 31 points, his ninth straight game with at least that many.
Karl-Anthony Towns countered with 32 points and 12 rebounds for the Timberwolves, his fourth consecutive game with 30 or more points, but it wasn’t enough to keep Minnesota from losing its 11th in a row, matching the team’s skid from December.
Paul George added 21 points in 26 minutes and Lou Williams had 17 for the Clippers, who have won seven of nine. The Clippers’ bench outscored the Wolves’ reserves, 46-33.
Leonard is two games from tying World B. Free’s streak of 11 straight games with 30 or more points set from Jan. 2-23, 1980. Leonard’s streak is the longest in his career and is the longest such streak in the NBA this season.
Warriors 131, Cavaliers 112 — Glenn Robinson III scored 22 points, Draymond Green tied a career high with 16 assists and the Warriors dominated the second half in a matchup between teams at the bottom of the NBA standings.
Golden State (11-39) has the NBA’s worst record while Cleveland (13-37) has the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference.
The matchup bore little resemblance to when the teams met in the NBA Finals every year from 2015-18. The Warriors won three times while the Cavaliers broke the city’s 52-year championship drought in 2016.
Knicks 92, Pacers 85 — Marcus Morris scored 28 points to lead the Knicks.
Julius Randle had 16 points and a season-best 18 rebounds, and Taj Gibson added 10 points and seven rebounds to lead the Knicks (14-36), who snapped a twogame skid and won in the series after losing seven straight.
Domantas Sabonis had 25 points and eight rebounds, Myles Turner had 12 points and six rebounds, and Jeremy Lamb added nine points for the Pacers (31-18), who have lost two of three games.
After Sabonis made a free throw to tie the game at 80 with 6:11 remaining, New York scored eight straight to go ahead 88-80 after Morris’ jumper with 1:54 to go.
The Knicks put together a 9-0 run in the first quarter and a 9-2 run in the second to build an early lead. Kevin Knox II made a layup at the end of a 7-0 run in the second quarter to put New York ahead 33-16 with 9:06 to play in the first half.