Luka Doncic had 28 points and 13 assists on Friday, while Kyrie Irving scored 28 of his 30 points after halftime as the Dallas Mavericks finished off the Los Angeles Clippers with a 114-101 victory.
Doncic struggled with his shot again thanks to his ailing right knee and Irving spent a bunch of energy playing defense.
Through all that, the Mavericks stars tag-teamed for a second-half surge that sent Dallas to the second round in their first post-season together.
Photo: Jerome Miron-USA Today
With Irving alongside him this time, Doncic did what the Slovenian superstar could not three years earlier — close out the Clippers in Dallas in Game 6 of a first-round playoff series.
The fifth-seeded Mavericks beat the Clippers for the first time in three first-round tries over the past five seasons and are to open the Western Conference semi-finals against top seeds the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday.
“We’re pushing each other off the court to be better, and then when we get on the court it’s just like synchronicity,” Irving said. “It feels good.”
Photo: AP
Paul George had 18 points and 11 rebounds for the Clippers, who won the first two times they played without Kawhi Leonard in the series, but did not have enough scoring punch in the last two, when he was sidelined by right knee inflammation.
James Harden had 16 points and 13 assists, but was just five-of-16 from the field and missed all six of his three-point attempts as LA were eliminated in the first round for the second consecutive season despite the early-season trade for the 10-time All-Star.
“A lot of emotions and things going through my mind right now,” Harden said.
Irving, added at the trade deadline last year for the kind of playoff run the Mavs hope they just started, spent plenty of time guarding Harden in the first half, when he had two points on just six shots.
The eight-time All-Star opened the second half with a layup to break a 52-52 tie, then Doncic hit a three-pointer after going none-for-seven from deep in the first half.
Following an LA turnover, Irving hit a three for an eight-point lead after Dallas had lost a 13-point advantage in the second quarter.
The Mavs outscored the Clippers 35-20 in the third quarter — the same quarter that fueled the Game 5 win in Los Angeles for a chance to clinch — and pushed the lead to 20 early in the fourth.
Irving gave Dallas their biggest lead with a flashy four-point play when he hit a leaning three-pointer as he was bumped by P.J. Tucker and made the free throw for a 106-82 lead.
The Clippers answered with an 11-2 run to get within 13, but never seriously threatened a big comeback in the final minutes after George, Harden and Ivica Zubac each played at least 22 minutes in the first half to get LA back in the game.
“It caught up with us, and you saw that in the third quarter and into the fourth,” coach Tyronn Lue said. “We just ran out of gas.”
Doncic, who has also dealt with illness in addition to a sore knee, was nine-of-26 from the field and just one-of-10 from three-point range while going nine-of-11 on free throws. Irving was 10-of-13 from the field after halftime.
“Terrible, man. I need some rest,” Doncic said before walking away from a TV interview — and into a three-day break.
In Orlando, Florida, Paolo Banchero scored 10 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter, helping the Magic overcome Donovan Mitchell’s 50 points and hold off the Cleveland Cavaliers 103-96 to force a decisive Game 7.
Franz Wagner had 26 points, while Jalen Suggs made six three-pointers and finished with 22 for the Magic, who pulled away in the closing minutes.
Mitchell was magnificent for Cleveland, scoring all of his team’s 18 points in the fourth quarter. Darius Garland finished with 21, but ultimately the Cavs were unable to overcome poor three-point shooting (seven-of-28).
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei and her Latvian partner, Jelena Ostapenko, advanced to the Wimbledon women’s doubles final on Friday, defeating top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in straight sets. The fourth-seeded duo bounced back quickly after losing their opening service game, capitalizing on frequent unforced errors by their opponents to take the first set 7-5. Maintaining their momentum in the second set, Hsieh and Ostapenko broke serve early and held their lead to close out the match 6-4. They are set to face the eighth-seeded pair of Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens
Outside Anfield, the red sea of tributes to Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, has continued to grow this week, along with questions over whether Liverpool could play at Preston today, their first game since the brothers’ tragic loss. Inside Anfield, and specifically a grieving Liverpool dressing room, there was no major debate over the pre-season friendly. The English Premier League champions intend to honor their teammate in the best way they know how. It would be only 10 days since the deaths of Jota and Silva when Liverpool appear at Deepdale Stadium for what is certain to be a hugely
ON A KNEE: In the MLB’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shoot-out, the game was decided by three batters from each side taking three swings each off coaches Kyle Schwarber was nervous. He had played in Game 7 of the MLB World Series and homered for the US in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), but he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off. No one had. “That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shoot-out,” Schwarber said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after
RSS