NBA notebook: Hawks cut into Wizards’ lead

ATLANTA— The Hawks are back in the series, and the bad blood with the Washington Wizards shows no signs of letting up.

Paul Millsap scored 29 points, Dennis Schroder had 27 and Atlanta delivered an early knockout blow in a 116-98 victory Saturday, slicing the Wizards’ lead to 2-1 in the openinground playoff matchup.

After two tight losses in Washington exposed plenty of ill feelings between the teams, Millsap and Washington’s Markieff Morris continued to go at it in Game 3.

“He’s a crybaby,” Morris said afterward. “You get all the calls when you’re a crybaby. That’s how it went tonight.”

Those comments were quickly relayed to Millsap at the post-game news conference.

“It definitely got personal now,” he replied, before offering some unsolicited advice to Morris: “Take his loss and go back to the hotel, be ready for the next game.”

Cheered on by a raucous home crowd, the Hawks built a 25-point lead by late in the first quarter and were never seriously challenged by the Wizards.

John Wall kept up his dazzling play in the series, scoring 29 points, but he was essentially a one-man team. The other Washington starters combined to score 30 points on 14-of-45 shooting.

Beal, in particular, had a miserable night after averaging 26.5 points in the first two games. He was held to 12 points on 6-of-20 shooting, missing all six of his attempts beyond the arc.

CLIPPERS LOSE GRIFFIN: Chris Paul and his Los Angeles Clippers teammates were more concerned with supporting Blake Griffin than worrying about Game 4 against the Utah Jazz. They will focus on that game later.

Griffin was ruled out for the remainder of the playoffs after injuring his big toe during Friday night’s win against the Jazz.

“It’s tough . . . as much as me and big fella have been together,” Paul said. “You just hate for dumb stuff like this to happen when you know how hard somebody works.”

The team announced Saturday that the five-time all-star was diagnosed with an injury to the plantar plate of his right big toe. Griffin left Game 3 with 3:18 remaining in the second quarter after landing awkwardly following a transition layup. The team said at the time the injury was a bruised toe. X-rays at the arena were negative, but he was re-evaluated after the game.

Griffin averaged 25 points in the first two games.

Clippers coach Doc Rivers said the injury actually happened on the play before the layup and added Griffin knew immediately that it was bad.