LAKERS ROLL THROUGH DEFENDING CHAMPION
LeBron James had 30 points, nine rebounds and nine assists and the Los Angeles Lakers eliminated the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors with a 122-101 victory Friday night in Game 6 of the second-round series.
The seventh-seeded Lakers will face Nikola Jokic and the top-seeded Nuggets in the Western Conference finals starting Tuesday night in Denver.
Anthony Davis had 17 points and 20 rebounds for the Lakers, who never trailed in a closeout victory that punctuated their increasingly incredible late-season surge.
Austin Reaves scored 23 points, highlighted by a 54footer from midcourt at the halftime buzzer for the Lakers. They improved to 7-0 at home since the regular season ended with three wins in seven days over the Warriors. Los Angeles also snapped Golden State’s streak of 28 playoff series with at least one road victory — an NBArecord run encompassing Stephen Curry’s entire career.
Davis said he attributes the Lakers’ late-season roll to “togetherness. We want to shock the world.”
James, Davis and the Lakers are the first team since 2014 to eliminate Curry’s Warriors from the playoffs before the NBA Finals. Golden State has played in six of the last eight NBA Finals, missing the playoffs entirely in the other two seasons.
Curry scored 32 points while missing 10 of his 14 3point
Lakers 122, Warriors 101
attempts for the sixthseeded Warriors, whose pursuit of their fifth championship in nine seasons ended with three straight road losses and an inept offensive performance by Curry’s teammates in Game 6, including a 3-of-19 effort by Klay Thompson, who missed 10 of his 12 3-point attempts.
The Splash Brothers were far too dry when it mattered against the Lakers: Thompson went 10 for 36 on 3-pointers in the series’ final four games, while Curry was 14 for 49.
Donte DiVincenzo had a playoff-high 16 points for the Warriors, but Curry was their only starter in double figures, with the other four shooting 11 for 38.
The Lakers immediately took charge in the first quarter, survived the Warriors’ few rallies and blew it open in the fourth quarter with a balanced effort led by the 38year-old James, a four-time NBA champion. The 20-year veteran can still assert his will as forcefully as almost any elite player, and he quarterbacked the Lakers’ offensive effort while Davis played another standout defensive game.
D’Angelo Russell scored 19 points as the Lakers capably survived the third-quarter ejection of Dennis Schröder, the sparkplug guard and primary defender on Curry. Schröder was tossed after receiving his second technical foul of the night from an exchange with Draymond Green, but his absence scarcely seemed to help the Warriors, who couldn’t make their open shots far too often.
The Lakers haven’t lost back-to-back games since March 17, and they’ve lost just once at home since March 26. On a 27-12 roll since bolstering their supporting cast around James and Davis at the trade deadline, Los Angeles is headed to the conference finals for the second time in the superstars’ four-year partnership.
After knocking off the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies in six games in the first round, the Lakers followed that series’ exact win-loss pattern against the champs: Steal Game 1 on the road, and then coolly capitalize on their homecourt advantage to seal the series with three straight wins in front of their frenzied, celebrity-studded crowds.
Heat 96, Knicks 92: Jimmy Butler scored 24 points, Bam Adebayo added 23 and host Miami beat New York in Game 6 to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the 10th time overall and the third time in the last four years.
Miami became the second No. 8 seed in NBA history to make the conference finals — joining the Knicks, who pulled it off in 1999. The Heat will visit Boston or Philadelphia in Game 1 on Wednesday. The Celtics and 76ers play Game 7 of their series Sunday.
Jalen Brunson was spectacular for New York, scoring 41 points on 14-for-22 shooting. But his teammates combined for only 51 points — Julius Randle had 15 and RJ Barrett 11 on 1-for-10 shooting.