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Cavs top Pacers, Jazz stun Clips
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THE NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers escaped with a 109-108 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Saturday in the opening game of the 2017 playoffs.
Indiana’s C Miles missed a wide-open jump shot at the buzzer after the Cavaliers, as they often did in the waning stages of the regular-season, let the game get complicated toward the end.
“It doesn’t matter how you get a win in the playoffs. We’re 1-up,” said Cavs superstar LeBron James, who led all scorers with 32 points and also handed out 13 assists and pulled down six rebounds.
In the other Eastern Conference playoff, Giannis Antetokounmpo tallied 28 points and 8 rebounds as the Milwaukee Bucks manhandled the Toronto Raptors 97-83 to open their series.
Elsewhere, Kawhi Leonard equalled his career playoff high with 32 points as the San Antonio Spurs seized control in the 3rd quarter en route to a 111-82 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference series while Joe Johnson hit the clutch winner as time expired, lifting the Utah Jazz to a 97-95 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center.
In Cleveland, James has now won 18 playoff openers, but he and the Cavs cut it close in this one.
James missed a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left and the Pacers had the ball coming out of a timeout.
Miles got loose, but his effort bounced off the rim.
Pacers star Paul George finished with 29 points. His 3-pointer with 4 seconds left had cut the Cavs’ lead to 1 point, setting the stage for Miles’s attempt at a game-winner.
George complained after the game that he should have been the one to attempt the game winner.
“Situations like that, I gotta get the last shot,” George said.
Kyrie Irving scored 23 points and Kevin Love added 17 for Cleveland, which led by 12 points late in the 3rd quarter and was up by 10 with 9:04 remaining before the Pacers rallied.
In San Antonio, the Spurs led 74-64 with just under 2 minutes to play in the 3rd quarter but closed the quarter on a 10-0 run. The Spurs added the first 9 points of the 4th quarter to compile 93-64 lead.
Leonard seized control in the third, pumping in 15 points — the same amount as the entire Memphis team — before sitting out the 4th with the game already in hand.
In Los Angeles, Jazz star center Rudy Gobert went down clutching his left knee less than 20 seconds into the contest after bumping knees with Clippers forward Luc Mbah a Moute.
Gobert, who had to be helped off the court and carried into the locker room, is expected to undergo a magnetic resonance imaging scan on Saturday night to determine the severity of the injury.
In Toronto, Malcolm Brogdon delivered 16 points for the Bucks, Greg Monroe finished with 14 points and 15 rebounds, Tony Snell and Matthew Dellavedova added 11 points each for Milwaukee.
DeMar DeRozan led the Raptors with 27 points and grabbed 9 rebounds, Serge Ibaka added 19 points and 14 rebounds, and Jonas Valanciunas had 9 points and 9 rebounds.
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