Memphis and Milwaukee, beaten at home in game N.1 of the 1st round of the NBA play-offs, fought back: the Bucks dominated Miami 138 to 122 and the Grizzlies beat the Lakers 103 to 93, equalizing with a victory everywhere , before going to Florida and California respectively.
In Denver, the Nuggets have signed a new success against the Minnesota Timberwolves and will go to Minneapolis, armed with a mattress of two victories. Xavier Tillman scored 22 points and grabbed 18 rebounds for Memphis in a rough game that saw Lakers Anthony Davis cut in the right eyelid and superstar LeBron James having words with Dillon Brooks.
Deprived of Ja Morant, injured in the right hand, the Grizzlies relied on defense, limiting the Lakers’ attack to 44 points at halftime, where they had a 15-point lead (59-44). Anthony Davis was thus able to register only 13 unfortunate points with a very low shooting percentage (28.6%).
LeBron James tried to shake up his team by scoring 28 points, and Japanese Rui Hachimura added 20, becoming the first player in the California franchise to score so many off the bench since Magic Johnson in 1996. In vain. “I don’t care, he’s old. I stung the bear,” Grizzlie Dillon Brooks said of his tough verbal exchange with LeBron James, which doesn’t seem to have troubled him.
In Milwaukee, the Bucks also had to do without their superstar, the Greek Giannis Antetokounmpo, who suffered a lower back injury in Game 1 on Sunday. That didn’t stop them from cooling off the Miami Heat, which they beat 138-122.
Milwaukee took Miami by the throat, to take the lead from the first minutes and never lose the lead again. The Bucks made the talk with seven players over ten points including three over 20, and stunned the Heat in the second quarter, reaching halftime with a 26-point lead: 81-55. They widened the gap again in the third, before giving up. The Bucks went all out in this one-sided game, shooting 49 three-pointers, more than half of their award-winning shots hitting the target (25 of 49).
In Colorado, Denver widened the gap in the series against the Timberwolves. But this new victory for Nikola Doncic’s teammates, who came close to the triple double with 27 points, 9 rebounds and 9 assists, was difficult to obtain, the Timberwolves, carried by Anthony Edwards (41 pts) and Rudy Gobert (19 pts , 8 rebounds) leading by two points at the start of the last quarter. Jamal Murray was particularly illustrated in this meeting in the ranks of the Nuggets, by registering 40 points with almost 60% success in shooting.
