Pacers rally from 17 down to beat Cavs
The Indiana Pacers kept insisting this team was different.
Anyone who doubted them coming into the playoffs understands now.
On Friday, the one-year anniversary of a historic playoff collapse against Cleveland, host Indiana flipped the script by rallying from a 17-point halftime deficit and held on for a 92-90 victory over the Cavaliers to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. They can take command of the series by winning Sunday on their home court.
“Last year’s team, I don’t know if we would have gone down 17, I don’t know if we would have overcome it,” forward Thaddeus Young said. “But this team, we’ve been resilient all year. We’ve overcome adversity.”
And on Friday they did it against a Cavaliers team that was 39-0 in the regular season when leading after three quarters.
Bojan Bogdanovic scored 19 of his 30 points in the second half, finishing 7 of 9 on threepointers. Victor Oladipo added 18 points, six rebounds and seven assists.
Bogdanovic also spent most of the game defending LeBron James, who finished with 28 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists and six turnovers. He joined Michael Jordan as the only players in league history with 100 double-doubles in the postseason. Jordan had 109.
James almost single-handedly rallied his team twice from seven-point deficits in the final 3½ minutes.
The three-time defending Eastern Conference champs were outscored 52-33 over the final 24 minutes.
“We were more aggressive in the first half. We had tempo, they didn’t,” James said. “Then they were more aggressive in the second half, they had tempo, and we didn’t.” Wizards 122, Raptors 103: Bradley Beal heeded his coach’s plea to “do his job” by scoring 21 of his 28 points in the first half, his All-Star backcourt running mate John Wall delivered 28 points and 14 assists, as host Washington beat Toronto to cut its East first-round playoff series deficit to 2-1.
After the Raptors grabbed the first 2-0 series lead in franchise history, the Wizards came home and checked off every box coach Scott Brooks presented. They got Beal more involved after he made only three shots in Game 2; they led after the first quarter, 3029; and they played with enough defensive focus to force 19 turnovers by Toronto, leading to 28 points for Washington.
Add it all up and it meant a victory for Washington, which had lost seven of eight games dating to the regular season. DeMar DeRozan led Toronto with 23 points on 10-for-22 shooting one game after scoring 37, and Kyle Lowry had 19 points and eight assists.
Bucks 116, Celtics 92: Khris Middleton scored 23 points, Giannis Antetokounmpo added 19 and host Milwaukee used a dominating first half to overwhelm Boston, narrowing its deficit in the East series to 2-1.
Eric Bledsoe and Jabari Parker each added 17 for the Bucks, who held the Celtics without a field goal for nearly an 11-minute stretch of the first half.
Milwaukee found its defense after a 14-point loss in Game 2, getting contributions from up and down the roster.
Backup center Thon Maker scored 14 points and had five of the Bucks’ 12 blocks. Guard Matthew Dellavedova, a veteran of a championship run with the Cavaliers, helped hold Celtics point guard Terry Rozier to nine points on 2-of-7 shooting.
“The activity, if you take the stat sheet out of it, the activity and the energy that we brought ... as you go through the game, that’s what you need, is the energy first,” Milwaukee coach Joe Prunty said. Winslow fined: Miami’s Justise Winslow has been fined $15,000 by the NBA for attempting to damage Philadelphia center Joel Embiid’s face mask during Game 3 of their East series. Winslow intentionally stepped on Embiid’s mask after it had fallen onto the court in the 76ers’ 128-108 victory on Thursday night.
Rodgers joins Bucks: Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has joined the ownership group of the Bucks as a limited partner.