Without Butler, Heat fall to Knicks
Jalen Brunson scored 30 points and keyed the run the Knicks needed just in time to get by a Heat team playing without Jimmy Butler, evening the Eastern Conference semifinals at a game apiece with a 111-105 victory at New York Tuesday night.
Julius Randle returned from a sprained left ankle that sidelined him in Game 1 with 25 points, 12 rebounds, and 8 assists, and RJ Barrett scored 24 points for the No. 5-seeded Knicks. Josh Hart finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.
But it was Brunson, who pointed the blame at himself and said he had to be better after going 0 for 7 from 3-point range in the opener, who made the biggest plays in a game the Knicks trailed much of the way.
Caleb Martin scored 22 points in place of Butler for the Heat, who host Game 3 on Saturday afternoon. They will hope to have Butler, the leading scorer in the playoffs who sat out after spraining his right ankle late in their 108-101 victory in the opener.
They almost didn’t need him.
Miami had a 6-point lead midway through the fourth quarter thanks to undrafted players Martin and Gabe Vincent before Brunson, who had been listed as questionable with a sore right ankle, took over.
He made a 3-pointer that became a four-point play when Isaiah Hartenstein was fouled on the play, and the point guard then scored to knot it at 93.
The Heat went back up, 96-93, on Vincent’s three free throws, but Hart tied it with a 3 before Brunson hit a 3 and scored again to make it 101-96 with 2:48 remaining.
Brunson went 6 of 10 behind the arc.
Embiid tops Jokic for MVP
76ers center and league scoring champion Joel Embid earned his first NBA MVP trophy, topping two-time winner Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets.
The 29-year-old from Yaoundé, Cameroon, averaged 33.1 points to win his second straight scoring title, averaged 10.2 rebounds, and tied a career high with 4.2 assists per game. Embiid played in 66 games, the second-highest total of his career, but again has been hit with injuries in the playoffs. Embiid has been sidelined with a sprained right knee that cost him one game of the playoff sweep against Brooklyn and the opening game of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Celtics, which was won by Philadelphia on Monday night.
Jokic finished runner-up and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Bucks was third. Embiid received 73 first-place votes. Jokic received 15 first-place votes, and Antetokounmpo got 12.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Embiid said. “A lot of hard work. I’ve been through a lot. I’m not just talking about basketball. I’m talking about my life. My story. Where I come from. How I got here and what it took for me to be here.”
Grizzlies have no plans to return Brooks
The Grizzlies have no plans to bring Dillon Brooks back to the team when he hits free agency this summer, a person with knowledge of the situation said.
Brooks was offered an extension last year but turned it down. The Grizzlies have since decided that he won’t be in their future plans.
Brooks just completed a three-year contract that paid him $35 million. He led the NBA with 18 technical fouls this season, earning a pair of one-game suspensions for surpassing the league threshold for technicals.
He also was fined $35,000 for shoving a camera person on the sideline while chasing a loose ball in Miami in March, which he apologized for later. He was suspended a game in February for hitting Donovan Mitchell in the groin in February, costing him $78,621 in pay, according to Spotrac.com.
The NBA fined Brooks on Sunday $25,000 for not talking to the media after some of Memphis’s losses in its first-round playoff series against the Lakers.