Blazers clinch final playoff spot in NBA bubble
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA.
A fourth consecutive down-to-the-wire finish, a fourth consecutive win for the Portland Trail Blazers.
They needed all that just to get into the playoffs.
Damian Lillard scored 31 points, CJ McCollum had 14 of his 29 in the fourth quarter — including a pair of big jumpers over Ja Morant late — and the Blazers clinched the NBA’s final playoff spot by beating the Memphis Grizzlies 126-122 on Saturday.
Portland’s reward: a matchup with the topseeded Los Angeles Lakers, starting Tuesday. Jusuf Nurkic had 22 points and 21 rebounds for the winners, who got 21 points from Carmelo Anthony.
Morant scored 35 for Memphis, which got a 22-point, 16-rebound day from Jonas Valanciunas and 20 points apiece from Dillon Brooks and Brandon Clarke.
It was the start, and the end, of the Western Conference play-in series — a wrinkle the NBA added to the restarted season because the coronavirus pandemic meant no team would play its allotted 82 games. Portland finished eighth in the West, Memphis was ninth, and the Grizzlies needed to sweep a two-game matchup to advance.
They had a chance, up eight in the final quarter, before Portland did what Portland does in the bubble — find a way at the end. The Blazers’ last four wins have come by a combined 11 points.
Nurkic, playing with a heavy heart because of his grandmother’s death, grabbed an offensive rebound and wound up converting a three-point play with 2:39 left to put Portland on top for good.
ELSEWHERE
Pelicans: New Orleans is looking for a new coach to oversee the still nascent Zion Williamson era. The Pelicans fired 65-year-old coach Alvin Gentry on Saturday after the club missed the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.
New Orleans went 30-42 this season, finishing with just two victories in its final eight games despite the presence of top overall draft choice Zion Williamson and first-time All-Star Brandon Ingram in the lineup until the club was eliminated from playoff contention with two games to play.
Bubble MVP: Lillard has been unanimously selected as the top player of the NBA’s seeding games at Walt Disney World, after averaging a league-best 37.6 points in the eight games. Phoenix’s Monty Williams, who led the Suns to a perfect 8-0 record in the bubble, was chosen as the top coach of the seeding-game schedule.
Joining Lillard on the first team for games played at Disney between July 30 and Friday’s end of the seeding-game season was Phoenix’s Devin Booker, Indiana’s T.J. Warren, Dallas’ Luka Doncic and Houston’s James Harden.
Booker was second in the Bubble MVP race, with Warren third.
Second-team selections were Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard, Brooklyn’s Caris LeVert, Denver’s Michael Porter Jr. and Dallas’ Kristaps Porzingis.