MILWAUKEE — Nothing could faze the Philadelphia 76ers.
Not the loss of two starters. Not an 18-point deficit late in the third quarter. Not even the fact they were facing the NBA’s hottest team on the road.
Joel Embiid made a go-ahead 3-pointer with 41.4 seconds left and the 76ers rallied to beat Milwaukee 133-130 on Saturday night, snapping the Bucks’ 16-game winning streak.
“You find something that works and you try to stick with it,” said James Harden, who had 38 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds. “We found something late, in that fourth quarter, and we just stuck with it. We got some stops and things changed for us.”
Milwaukee had the longest winning streak by any NBA team since the Phoenix Suns had 18 straight victories early last season. The streak ended because the Bucks got outscored 48-31 during a fourth quarter in which the 76ers shot 12 of 21 overall, 7 of 11 from 3-point range and 17 of 19 from the line.
“They went wherever they wanted to go, scoring from the paint, floaters, isos, offensive rebounds, free throws, 3s,” said Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had 34 points and 13 rebounds. “You name it. They were able to get everything. We’ve got to be able to play 48 minutes of good basketball, defend for 48 minutes. This is a good lesson for us.”
Philadelphia completed the comeback even though Tobias Harris didn’t play in the second half due to left calf soreness and PJ Tucker sat out the fourth quarter with back spasms. 76ers coach Doc Rivers didn’t have an immediate update on either player.
Embiid finished with 31 points, 10 assists and six rebounds. This marked the first time the 76ers had two players collect at least 30 points and 10 assists in the same game since Wilt Chamberlain and Hal Greer did it way back on Oct. 30, 1965.
Philadelphia’s MVP candidate still wasn’t satisfied. Embiid argued that he “didn’t have a good game.”
“I thought tonight I could have been better,” Embiid said. “I missed a lot of easy shots I usually make.”
Not when it mattered, though.
The 76ers trailed 125-121 before Harden hit a 3-pointer with 1:21 left. After Antetokounmpo missed a shot from around the basket, Embiid sank a 3-pointer that gave Philadelphia its first lead of the second half.
“I had to make it, being down one at that point,” Embiid said. “I had to do it.”
After Jrue Holiday missed a 3-point attempt with 25 seconds remaining, the 76ers went 6 of 6 from the line the rest of the way to seal the victory.
“I thought it was a great look,” Holiday said. “Honestly I thought it was in. I left it a little bit short.”
Tyrese Maxey added 26 points and Georges Niang had 16 for the 76ers. Maxey has scored at least 23 in four straight games.
Brook Lopez and Holiday scored 26 points apiece for Milwaukee. Grayson Allen had 20, all during the first 9 minutes, 19 seconds of the third quarter.
Allen went 6 of 6 from 3-point range during that stretch. His final 3-pointer gave Milwaukee a 95-77 lead with 2:41 left in the third.
But the 76ers came all the way back.
“In the last couple minutes, it’s a tight game, it’s just shot-making and who can get a couple of stops in a row,” Harden said. “We were the team to do that.”
LOS ANGELES — Ja Morant missed his first game Sunday after stepping away from the team in the wake of showing off a gun he had on him at a club on his Instagram Live stream.
Memphis said he would be out at least two games, but it sounds like they are leaning into more than just two.
“There’s not a definitive timeline,” Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said Sunday before his team faced the Clippers, the first public comments from the team. “I mean, we have said that it’s gonna be at least these two games, you know, we’re taking it one day at a time. I mean, this is going to be an ongoing healing process. So I can’t comment in terms of what the exact timetable is going to be because it’s really not a timetable situation.”
Jenkins would not detail what steps need to take place for Morant to rejoin the team.
“Ja is taking on the responsibility to really get the help he needs to get into a better place….” Jenkins said, then clarified more later.
“There’s two elements to this, I want to make very clear. There’s a supportive element, you know, someone that’s gotta get better, and he needs some help. And then also, there’s accountability to the team that we got to stand for.”
Morant appears to flash a gun during an Instagram Live stream while at a club Friday night/Saturday morning. That crossed a line and followed a string of incidents dating back to last summer that cumulated in the team’s decision.
The NBA is investigating the social media post, and the league did consult with the Grizzlies, however, the team also had to “handle our business,” Jenkins said.
“We love him. You know we want what’s best for him. We support him. It’s gonna be a difficult process. But you know, we’ve got a great group to get through this,” Jenkins said.
Morant released a statement over the weekend:
“I take full responsibility for my actions last night. I’m sorry to my family, teammates, coaches, fans, partners, the city of Memphis and the entire organization for letting you down. I’m going to take some time away to get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being.”
This was not a single, one-off incident that led to him stepping away. Morant is being sued for an incident last summer where he allegedly punched a 17-year-old boy more than a dozen times and then flashed a gun at him (accusations he has denied). Morant and his friends got into it with security at a Memphis area shopping mall last summer as well. During this season, Morant and friends were involved in a controversy with a member of the Pacers’ traveling party.
After each previous incident, the people close to Morant — the Grizzlies organization, his teammates, his agent — defended him publicly, even if the team had taken steps to talk with him privately. The gun incident over the weekend led to a harsher reaction from the team this time.
LOS ANGELES — Stephen Curry is back, and Sunday in L.A. he was doing Stephen Curry things.
The confidence he exudes, his gravity and the way it warps defenses, and the 19 points he scored in the fourth quarter Sunday are all things the Warriors are going to need if they are going to defend their title.
“It’s great to have him back,” Steve Kerr said, stating the obvious. “He is who he is. He strikes fear in our opponents and opens up a lot of things for his teammates.”
That was not enough Sunday as the Warriors’ road woes continued — they are now 7-24 on the season away from the Chase Center.
A LeBron-less Lakers team jumped on a sloppy Warriors team early to get up 15 in the first, got 39 points from Anthony Davis, and held off Golden State comebacks to win 113-105. It was a quality Lakers win as they fight to make the postseason (or at least stay in that mix) while LeBron James is sitting on the bench with his foot in a boot.
The Warriors are destined for the playoffs — they sit as the No. 5 seed even after the loss — and to a man they talk about a focus on flipping the switch and finding their championship form again.
That switch was not flipped Sunday, and the loss showed the Warriors have a lot of work to do to get to that level of execution consistently.
There were stretches Sunday that the Warriors could hang their hat on, but adding Curry and Andre Iguodala into the lineup is not plug-and-play. It showed. For every good stretch of Warriors ball, there was a stretch of sloppy play that gave the Lakers opportunities and Los Angeles played well and took advantage.
“It’s a tough transition for everybody with me and Andre coming back,” Curry said. “Guys [are] just trying to find their rhythm or keep their rhythm, keep their confidence. And all that’s our challenge as a team.”
While Golden State wants to focus on itself and not the standings, it’s still watching the standings and the implications that come with them.
“It’s weird to say it, like we’re trying to win championships but we’re also trying to stay out to play-in, too,” Curry said. “So both can be true just based on what our challenge has been this year.”
That challenge has been shifting lineups and rotations all season long. The Warriors lost Otto Porter and Gary Payton II over the summer (Payton returned in a trade but is injured), James Wiseman didn’t find a fit and has been traded, Moses Moody is gone, and on top of that Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and others have battled injury.
All that instability took its toll on the Golden State defense, which was 21st in the NBA heading into the All-Star break.
Then, over their five-game winning streak coming into Sunday, the Warriors played the best defense in the NBA with a defensive rating of 100.6 — basically giving up just a point per possession.
Against the Lakers the road woes continued and that defensive rating jumped to 115.3 for the game (via Cleaning the Glass), which would be bottom 10 in the league for the season. Kerr, however, wasn’t mad about that end of the court.
“I thought we’ve defended them pretty well. They shot 44%, they made 11 threes, yeah, that’s usually enough [for us] to win,” Kerr said. “So I wasn’t disappointed in our defense at all, other than a few coverage mistakes. So it was our offense that we needed to execute a little bit better.”
Defense and road wins have been a core part of the identity of the four Warriors title teams, but this year’s squad has fallen short on those fronts. Those are the areas they need to improve in March because they will need them to advance in a wide-open West playoffs. The spotty execution on Sunday begs the question of if they can get there.
But they got Stephen Curry back, and that’s a step in the right direction.
DALLAS (AP) — Kevin Durant scored 37 points, including the tiebreaking jumper with 11 seconds to go, to lift the Phoenix Suns to a 130-126 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday in a thrilling showcase of stars for both teams.
The first meeting between Durant and Dallas’ Kyrie Irving since they were traded by Brooklyn before the deadline last month was even when Durant pulled up over Tim Hardaway Jr. and Irving for the lead.
Luka Doncic had 34 points for Dallas, but his point-blank shot for a tie rimmed out before he fouled Durant after the rebound with 3.5 seconds remaining.
After the play was over, Doncic and Devin Booker, who scored 36 points, ended up nose-to-nose and both were issued technical fouls before Durant hit two free throws to clinch the victory.
It was the 14th technical of the season for Doncic, two shy of the threshold for a one-game suspension.
Irving scored 30 points exactly four years to the day since the last time he faced Durant, when his Boston Celtics blew out Durant and his Golden State Warriors 128-95.
Phoenix’s win left the teams tied in the season series, with playoff seedings in the Western Conference wide open below top-seeded Denver.
Chris Paul scored eight of his 11 points in the fourth quarter for one of several tiebreaking or go-ahead buckets for both teams.
Phoenix two-way player Ish Wainwright, who was a role player 100 miles down the road from Dallas at Baylor before a brief stint as a tight end for the Bears, went 4 for 5 from 3-point range in the second half for 12 points.
Durant was 12 of 17 from the field and 10 of 11 from the line in his first 30-point performance in three games since joining the Suns in a blockbuster deal with the Nets that came days after the Mavs acquired Irving.
Phoenix is 3-0 with Durant, while Dallas dropped to 3-6 since Irving joined the club. The Mavs are 2-3 on a six-game homestand, their longest of the season.
WASHINGTON — Fred VanVleet made two 3-pointers in overtime and scored 25 points, and the Toronto Raptors beat the Washington Wizards 116-109 on Saturday to split their two-game series.
Gary Trent Jr. scored 26 points to lead the Raptors, who bounced back from their 119-108 loss Thursday night to move back ahead of the Wizards into ninth place in the Eastern Conference.
VanVleet added 10 assists and Pascal Siakam had 15 points and seven assists for Toronto.
Kristaps Porzingis had 22 points and 11 rebounds for the Wizards. Bradley Beal added 21 points and 10 assists, but shot just 7 for 22 and missed a jumper that could have won it in regulation.
VanVleet snapped a 107-all tie with a 3-pointer with 1:47 remaining in OT. After Kyle Kuzma made a pair of free throws to cut it to one, VanVleet knocked down another 3 that made it 113-109, and Siakam’s three-point play with 15 seconds to go put it away.
Neither team had a double-digit lead through three quarters, but Toronto appeared to be taking control when it opened a 97-84 advantage with 9:24 to play.
The Wizards charged back behind Porzingis, who had three baskets in a little more than two minutes to cut it to 105-102 with 2:21 remaining. Trent and VanVleet missed 3-pointers before Delon Wright tied it with his 3 with 30 seconds left.
VanVleet missed another 3 and Beal missed a jumper to force the extra period.
Wright had 18 points, seven assists and six rebounds.
