Heat sweep Pacers away, likely will see Bucks next
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Bam Adebayo got his first playoff series win, but the big man wasn’t planning on celebrating for too long.
He planned to give himself about 2½ hours to enjoy the Miami Heat’s victory over the Indiana Pacers before turning his attention to the Eastern Conference semifinals and a possible date with the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks.
“One hundred percent I think we can get to another gear,” Adebayo said. “And that’s everybody here. This next series might be different. We might need to have different schemes.”
Goran Dragic scored 23 points, Adebayo had 14 points and 19 rebounds and the fifthseeded Heat completed a firstround sweep, beating the Pacers 99-87 on Monday night. Tyler Herro had 16 points for the Heat, who made it out of the first round for the first time since 2016.
Victor Oladipo had 25 points and Myles Turner added 22 points and 14 rebounds for the Pacers, who have been bounced in the first round of the playoffs in five straight seasons.
“The playoffs are unpredictable and you never know how they can go,“Adebayo said. “The thing I took from this is you have to leave it all on the floor.”
Miami’s bench outscored Indiana’s depleted reserves 38-3.
LAKERS 135, TRAIL BLAZERS 115
The Los Angeles Lakers jumped out to an apt 24-8 lead on Kobe Bryant Day and dominated Portland the rest of the way, taking a 3-1 advantage in their playoff series.
LeBron James had 30 points and 10 assists in 28 minutes before heading to the bench late in the third quarter. The Lakers led by as many as 38 points for their third straight win in the opening-round series, the team’s first postseason since 2013.
The Trail Blazers won the opener but have appeared gassed in the past two games. Damian Lillard, the MVP of the seeding games in the NBA bubble, had 11 points before leaving with a right knee injury in the third. Jusuf Nurkic had 20 points and 13 rebounds.
Anthony Davis added 18 points in 18 minutes for the Lakers before leaving the game midway through the third with back spasms.
76ERS FIRE COACH AFTER SWEEP
The Philadelphia 76ers fired coach Brett Brown a day after his seventh season ended in a first-round sweep.
The 76ers were 43-30 this season and had woefully underachieved in a year when they were expected to be contenders in the Eastern Conference.
Instead, they weren’t close, and the move was expected after the sixth-seeded Sixers were swept by the Boston Celtics.
Brown finished 221-344, though his record was never going to be pretty because the Sixers weren’t trying to win when he was hired.
BUCKS 121, MAGIC 106
Giannis Antetokounmpo had 31 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists, Khris Middleton finally came alive with a huge fourth quarter and Milwaukee beat Orlando to take a 3-1 lead in their first-round series.
Middleton scored 18 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter and finished with 10 rebounds after being held to one field goal in the first three quarters on 1-of-9 shooting.