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Butler and Miami win Game 1 against Milwaukee, 115-104
CHRIS PAUL scored 28 points and led the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 104-100 victory over the Houston Rockets on Monday near Orlando, forcing a decisive seventh game in the Los Angeles Western Conference first-round playoff series. teams.
Game 7 is scheduled for Wednesday at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, with the winner advancing to face the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference semifinals.
Paul scored 15 points in the fourth quarter and made consecutive 3s that tied the Thunder at 98-98 with 2:57 to play. His two free throws with 13.1 seconds to go provided the margin of victory for the Thunder.
Paul added seven rebounds, three assists and three steals in 40 minutes without turnovers. The Rockets, by contrast, committed 22 turnovers, including seven by Russell Westbrook, whose errant pass after Paul’s free throws sealed the loss for the error-prone Rockets.
James Harden led the Rockets with 32 points and also had eight rebounds and seven assists, but committed five turnovers. Robert Covington added 18 points, five steals and three blocks for Houston, but was the defender on both of Paul’s 3s and committed the foul that put Paul on the line late.
There were 14 leadership changes and 11 ties. The Thunder returned to the fight with a 16-3 streak that bridged the final two periods, pushing an 85-78 lead in the process.
Danilo Gallinari contributed 25 points for Oklahoma City and Luguentz Dort, who was 0 of nine from behind the arc in Game 5, hit two 3-pointers as part of the race that brought the Thunder back into contention in the third.
Westbrook scored 17 points, while Eric Gordon missed nine of 12 shots and had nine points for Houston.
The Rockets and Thunder combined for 10 turnovers and five of 22 3-pointers in what was an uneven first quarter, but Harden gave the Rockets some stability in the second. He amassed 17 points, four rebounds and four assists before intermission, and his pass across the court to Gordon resulted in a 3-pointer that gave Houston a 51-48 lead at halftime.
HEAT TAKE GAME 1 VS BUCKS
Jimmy Butler hit three straight hoops down the stretch to cap a career-high 40-point performance in the postseason on Monday night when the fifth-seeded Miami Heat upset the Milwaukee Bucks 115- 104 in the first seed of his Eastern Conference semifinal series the NBA bubble near Orlando.
Goran Dragic contributed 27 points and Bam Adebayo accumulated a double-double with 12 points and 17 rebounds, the most of the game, when the Heat, which won the season series 2-1 against the Bucks, took the jump in the best of – Seven.
Giannis Antetokounmpo was limited to 18 points in the loss, which was Milwaukee’s second in a row in an opening game. The Bucks dropped Game 1 to Orlando in the first round before bouncing back with four straight decisive wins. Reuters
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