San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
POWELL RECEIVES STAR TREATMENT
Usually the chants in Portland are for star Damian Lillard. On Saturday Norman Powell was treated to the crowd’s adulation.
Powell matched his career playoff high with 29 points and the Trail Blazers beat the Denver Nuggets 115-95 on Saturday in Game 4 to even the first-round series.
“I love these types of games, these kinds of moments. It’s the moment where nothing else matters,” Powell said. “You get caught up in the course of the season with stats sometimes, this-that-and-the-other, road trips, but when you get into the playoffs, the only thing that matters is winning.”
Powell made four 3-pointers and was 11 of 15 from the floor. When he left the floor with the game well in hand, fans chanted “Nor-man Powell! Nor-man Pow-ell!”
“I thought it was really dope,” he said. “At first I didn’t know what they were saying when I was sitting there, and then the guys on the bench were chanting as well so that got a little smile out of me.”
Trail Blazers 115, Nuggets 95
CJ Mccollum added 21 points for the sixth-seeded Trail Blazers.
Jazz 121, Grizzlies 111: Donovan Mitchell scored 10 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter and top-seeded Utah beat host Memphis to take a 2-1 lead in the firstround 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.
76ers 132, Wizards 103: Joel Embiid set a career playoff high with 36 points and Philadelphia routed host Washington to take a 3-0 series lead.
Russell Westbrook had 26 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists for a triple-double for Washington after being a game-time decision because of a sprained right ankle.
Bucks 120, Heat 103: Brook Lopez scored 25 points, Giannis Antetokounmpo had a triple-double — 20 points, 12 rebounds and 15 assists — and visiting Milwaukee became the first team to advance in this year’s playoffs, finishing off a first-round sweep over last season’s Eastern Conference champions.