Bucks sweep Heat to advance
MIAMI — There was no raucous celebration. No histrionics, no big oncourt party when the final horn sounded and Milwaukee had officially vanquished its playoff loss to Miami from last season.
Put simply, the Bucks expected to win.
And the last four games showed exactly why.
The Bucks-Heat rematch was a mismatch, and Milwaukee became the first team to advance in this season’s playoffs by beating Miami 120-103 on Saturday to complete a 4-0 first-round sweep. Brook Lopez scored 25 points, Bryn Forbes scored 22 and Giannis Antetokounmpo had a triple-double — 20 points, 12 rebounds and 15 assists — for Milwaukee.
“Obviously, it’s a great moment for us and winning 4-0, beating the team that beat us last year, feels good,” Antetokounmpo said. “But at the end of the day, we’ve got a long way to go.”
Khris Middleton had 20, Bobby Portis 13 and Jrue Holiday 11 for Milwaukee, which outscored Miami by 24 in the second half.
Bam Adebayo scored 20 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for Miami, which got 18 points from Kendrick Nunn, 14 from Tyler Herro, 13 from Goran Dragic and a triple-double — 12 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists — from Jimmy Butler.
“We tip our hat to the Bucks’ organization,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They were a great team last year and they improved on that. Whether we were a part of that improvement or not, it’s irrelevant. They took their game collectively to another level. They beat us for a reason.”
The Heat became the second team in this playoff format to go from sweeping in the first round one year to being swept in the first round the next. The only other team to endure that was the then-New Jersey Nets, who swept New York in 2004 and lost 4-0 to Miami in 2005.
Once Milwaukee grabbed the first three games, history said the result was inevitable. NBA teams with 3-0 series leads are now 141-0 all-time in those matchups, with these Bucks becoming the 88th of those teams to finish off matters with a sweep.
Their reward: a week off, at least.
The third-seeded Bucks won’t play again until at least next Saturday.
JAZZ 121, GRIZZLIES 111
Donovan Mitchell
scored 10 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, and top-seeded Utah took a 2-1 lead in the first-round series.
Mike Conley, in Memphis where he started his career, matched his regular-season and playoff career highs with seven 3-pointers and finished with 27 points.
Rudy Gobert had 15 points and 14 rebounds, Bojan Bogdanovic and Jordan Clarkson added 15 apiece, and Royce O’Neale had 12.
Ja Morant led Memphis with 28 points, and Dillon Brooks had 27 before fouling out. Grayson Allen added 17 off the bench, hitting five 3-pointers.
TRAIL BLAZERS 115 NUGGETS 95
Norman Powell matched his career playoff high with 29 points and Portland beat Denver in Game 4 to even the series.
Powell made four 3points and was 11 of 15 from the floor, and CJ McCollum added 21 points for the sixth-seeded Trail Blazers.
Nikola Jokic finished with 16 points and nine rebounds for third-seeded Denver before sitting out the final quarter.
76ERS 132, WIZARDS 103
The “M-V-P!” chants came not from the home crowd saluting Bradley Beal but rival Philadelphia fans for Joel Embiid, who put on another valuable performance with a career playoff-high 36 points to push the host Wizards to the brink of elimination. Philadelphia will go for the sweep Monday.
Russell Westbrook had 26 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists for the tripledouble for Washington after being a game-time decision.