SHAI GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER IS STILL THE.MVP 🔥

 

SHAI GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER HITS THE GAME WINNER VS. NUGGETS 🔥

KYRIE IRVING AND LUKA DONCIC HELP MAVS HOLD OFF THUNDER AGAIN FOR 2-1 LEAD IN WEST SEMIS

AP Photo 

 DALLAS (AP) — Luka Doncic already had a balky right knee and an achy left ankle when he fell hard on his back while battling his primary defender, Lu Dort, for a loose ball.

Not only did Doncic win the ensuing jump ball, the NBA scoring champion tracked down the loose ball that followed with his Dallas Mavericks clinging to a late lead.

“Everything,” Doncic said when asked what hurt, a few minutes after walking gingerly to the locker room with Dallas having beaten Oklahoma City 105-101 on Saturday to secure a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference semifinals. “I'm just battling out there.”

The same could be said for plenty of others.

Kyrie Irving scored 22 points, including a running left-hander in the lane in the final minute to help the Mavs hold on.

Doncic also had 22 points to go with 15 rebounds, and P.J. Washington Jr. scored 27, just two shy of his playoff high from Dallas' Game 2 victory.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 31 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks, but was called for a charge with Doncic defending on a drive with 29 seconds left and the Thunder trailing by five.

Chet Holmgren, who scored 13 points, also had four blocks as Oklahoma City finished with 10. But the Thunder were outrebounded 16-5 on the offensive glass by the scrappy Mavs, who had a 16-9 edge in second-chance points.

Top-seeded Oklahoma City has lost consecutive games after starting 5-0 in the playoffs. Game 4 is Monday night in Dallas.

“It's extremely competitive,” Holmgren said. “Both teams really want it. If you take the result out of it, it's everything that you want to be going through in a basketball game.”

Irving bounced back from just the third single-digit scoring game of his lengthy playoff career with 14 points in the second half, including six consecutive Dallas points in the fourth quarter that helped the Mavs to their biggest lead of the final period at nine.

AP Photo 

The Dallas lead was three after a missed 3-pointer from Gilgeous-Alexander when Irving drove across the lane and hit a runner for a 104-99 lead with 39 seconds to go.

The eight-time All-Star, coming off just eight shots and nine points when Dallas evened the series in Oklahoma City, was 10 of 17 from the field and had seven assists to lead the team for the second game in a row.

“One of my coaches just came up to me and said I waited too long, so obviously I’ve got to be better on my end,” said Irving, who made all four of his fourth-quarter shots. “We’re going against a young team. So we just want to continue to do the things that get us these W's, and it starts on the defensive end.”

Washington had a 19-point first half for the second consecutive game, once again finishing three points shy of the combined total before the break for Irving and Doncic. Washington was 3 of 6 from 3-point range in the first half and 5 of 12 for the game.

“He's hooping,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We've got to turn that water off if we want to win this series, for sure.”

Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault decided to foul Dereck Lively II intentionally in the fourth quarter, and the rookie center missed three of the first four free throws. But he hit the next four in a row, the last putting Dallas up 100-95 with 3:06 to go.

Lively, who shot 51% from the line in the regular season and came in 11 of 21 in the playoffs, finished 8 of 12 on free throws and had 12 points and eight rebounds.

Mavericks center Daniel Gafford, who dealt with a dislocated pinkie finger in Game 2, exited in the second quarter after injuring his left shoulder in an inadvertent collision with Josh Giddey.

Gafford returned to the court for the second half with the shoulder in a large wrap, but took it off and was still in the starting lineup. He was limited to six minutes after the break, finishing with eight points.

Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams stayed down for almost 30 seconds of live action in the third quarter, ending in a 3-pointer by Irving, after injuring his left ankle. Williams went the locker room briefly but returned early in the fourth quarter and finished with 16 points and eight assists.

Isaiah Joe had his playoff career best for a game with 10 points before halftime, hitting a 3 just before the buzzer to give Oklahoma City a 52-51 lead at the break. Joe finished with 13.

- SCHUYLER DIXON

OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER SECURE SWEEP OVER NEW ORLEANS PELICANS

 NEW ORLEANS -- Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault took the postgame podium on Monday night with his hair a bit more damp than usual.

When the NBA's Coach of the Year walked into the locker room following a 97-89 win to clinch the sweep over the New Orleans Pelicans, he was met by players dousing him with water because there was a lot to celebrate.

The win meant the Thunder became the youngest team in NBA history to win a playoff series and they did it in a sweep as the top seed in the Western conference.

Daigneault said there's a difference between a young team and a mature team, and his Thunder are a mature group.

"We have a committed team," Daigneault said. "I think a lot of times the age of the team, you can make assumptions about the stage that the players are in their careers, but I've said all along, we have an uncommon group of people and players and I think that's a huge reason why we're able to accomplish some of these things. They deserve all the credit."

Oklahoma City's average age when weighted by playing time is 23 years, 343 days. The previous youngest team to win a playoff series were the 2011 Thunder (24-149). But Jalen Williams says the team doesn't look at how young they are because they all just want to win games.

"It's just that's another thing for us to not think about," Williams said. "So, it's kind of been brought up. It's just something that everybody needs to talk about and we kind of just leave it out there in the day. It's just basketball and we're coming to compete regardless of how old we are and things like that."

While both teams struggled to get going offensively early, the Thunder answered in a big way in the fourth quarter to take control of the game.

Up 80-75 with just over eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Pelicans had a chance to push the lead to seven after Jose Alvarado poked the ball away as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander attempted a shot in the lane. The ball went straight to CJ McCollum who took off towards the basket.

With Naji Marshall to his right and Jalen Williams between them -- and Gilgeous-Alexander trailing -- McCollum went up for a layup but Williams' contest was good enough to force a missed layup.

The Thunder took control from there. Chet Holmgren got a putback attempt on the next possession to fall and then, after a Pelicans' turnover, a Josh Giddey 3-pointer drew a timeout from the Pelicans. After the break, another Giddey triple gave the Thunder the lead for good.

It was an 18-2 run in total and the Pelicans only had one basket between the 8:19 and 2:51 mark of the fourth quarter.

Giddey hit four 3-pointers overall which matched his total from Game 3. It's only the third time in his career -- regular season and playoffs combined -- where he's hit at least four threes in back-to-back games.

"Anytime the ball's going in, it's easy to be confident," Giddey said. "I thought on defense when we started getting stops, we made them take a lot of tough shots. They weren't hitting them and we were getting our transition, we were getting what we wanted and forced them to call the time out early in that fourth.

"Once a guy sees the ball through the hoop a couple of times they started to build confidence and that's contagious for the whole team."

New Orleans turned the ball over 19 time on Monday, the third straight game they had at least 18 turnovers. Throughout the series, the Thunder feasted off Pelicans mistakes outscoring New Orleans 79-37 on points off turnovers.

"They capitalized on some turnovers and honestly some baskets that we just missed that led to transition opportunities for them, and that's the difference in the game," Pelicans coach Willie Green said. "Our margin for error is small. This is a team that turns you over. The last few games we turned the ball over and they capitalized on it."

According to ESPN Stats & Information research, the Thunder received 99.5% of their points from players aged 25 or younger in this series. That is the highest percentage by any team in a playoff series in NBA history. The previous-highest mark was 96.4% by the Chicago Stags against the Baltimore Bullets in the 1948 semifinals. The only player older than 25 to score for the Thunder was Kenrich Williams with 2 points.

The win was the Thunder's first series victory since the 2016 Western Conference semifinals. They had lost their previous five series before sweeping New Orleans. It's also just the third best-of-7 sweep in franchise history and only the second since the team moved to Oklahoma City.

The key factor throughout the series was the Thunder's defense. They held New Orleans to an average of 89.5 points, the fewest the franchise has ever allowed in a best-of-7 series.

While Luguentz Dort's defense on Brandon Ingram was key the entire series, the Pelicans couldn't seem to get anything going at the rim when Chet Holmgren was there. New Orleans was 9-of-35 on shots within five feet of the basket when Holmgren was the closest defender.

Now the attention shifts to the winner of the Dallas Mavericks-LA Clippers series which is tied 2-2. The Thunder are in the same position they were last week, waiting around to see who their next opponent will be.

"I think we were well rested for this series," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "And I would say keep the same mindset. Do whatever it takes to win. Every series is going to look different. Every game is going to look different. Teams make adjustments. You play different teams. Just try to win at all costs and that's what matters in the NBA."

- Andrew Lopez, ESPN