|
Geregistreerd op: 03 Jun 2018
Berichten: 151
|
Removed from the turbulence that marked his previous seasons in New Orleans Ahkello Witherspoon Jersey , Jrue Holiday is in a good place – and it shows.
Holiday had a career playoff-high 33 points as the Pelicans took a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers with a 111-102 victory on Tuesday night. The series shifts to New Orleans on Thursday.
Holiday struggled at times with injuries after coming to the Pelicans in 2013. Then in early 2016 he took a leave of absence when doctors discovered that his wife, former U.S. national soccer team player Lauren Holiday, had a brain tumor while she was pregnant with the couple’s first child.
”He’s been through some tough times, the first year he’s injured, he’s on minute restrictions through the greater part of the season, and then everybody’s familiar with the situation with his wife and what they had to go through there,” coach Alvin Gentry said. ”Everybody’s healthy and in a good place now so I think mentally he’s in a good place.”
Holiday played Tuesday night with emotion he did not often show earlier in his career. He agreed that it felt a weight has been lifted.
”My family’s the most important thing to me, and with them being OK I can come back to the team freely and be able to help them out now,” Holiday said. ”It’s been fun. I feel like my teammates and the organization definitely helped me out coming back from things with my family, and even the injuries, with being able to play and being able to perform at the peak I’m performing.”
Holiday also had nine assists for the Pelicans, while Rajon Rondo came close to his 11th postseason triple-double with had 16 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. Anthony Davis added 22 points and 13 rebounds.
CJ McCollum Chase Allen Jersey , who struggled with backcourt teammate Damian Lillard in the opener, rebounded with 22 points to lead the Blazers.
Portland trailed by as many as 11 points in the third quarter but Lillard hit a 3-pointer and added a free throw to tie the game at 93 with 7:31 left. Holiday’s pull-up jumper and Rondo’s driving layup kept the Blazers from pulling ahead.
Maurice Harkless dunked and Al-Farouq Aminu had a layup to re-tie the game at 97. After Holiday’s hook shot, Harkless made a 3-pointer to give Portland a 100-99 lead.
Nikola Mirotic and Holiday each hit 3-pointers to put the Pelicans back in front 105-100 with 1:35 remaining and Portland couldn’t catch up. Fans at the Moda Center booed at the final buzzer.
Lillard finished with 17 points for the Blazers, who were hurt in the third quarter when starters Jusuf Nurkic (left leg) and Evan Turner (right toe) left the game.
The third-seeded Blazers, in the playoffs for the fifth straight year, dropped the first game against the Pelicans 97-95, becoming the highest seed to lose at the start of the opening round.
Davis had 35 points and Rondo had 17 assists to tie the franchise record. Lillard and McCollum combined to shoot just 13 for 41 in the opener.
Lillard said he expected more out of himself.
”Coming into the playoffs, you know teams are going to lock in and they’re going to try to make the game hard for you,” he said.
Portland got a boost in Game 2 with the return of Harkless for first time since he had a minor procedure on his left knee in late March. He missed 11 games.
McCollum shook off the Game 1 struggles, hitting four of eight from the floor in the opening quarter. His layup tied the game at 21 and then he dished to Harkless for the dunk to put the Blazer in front.
Portland led 35-30 after rookie Zach Collin’s bank shot and the Blazers led by as many as nine points before taking a 59-54 lead into halftime.
Davis made a short jumper from out front to give the Pelicans a 65-64 lead. Portland was hurt a short time later when Nurkic limped off the court and into the locker room. When he returned to the bench, he was flexing his left leg. He iced his leg the rest of the game.
TIP INS:
Pelicans: Holiday had 12 points in the first quarter alone. … Davis had scored 25 or more in his first five post-season games. He came up a game shy tying LeBron James for the second-longest streak to begin a career, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 14 straight, according to Elias.
Trail Blazers: The third seed in the West has won its first-round series for the past four seasons. … Portland had home-court advantage in the playoffs for the first time since 2009. … Fans at the Moda Center were clearly upset with the officiating Malcolm Mitchell Jersey , taunting the refs with a chant in the final quarter.
QUOTABLE: ”We’ve still got two more games to win, so we’re not celebrating anything,” Gentry said.
Jimmy Butler needed about two quarters to look like his old self.
Once he did, the Minnesota Timberwolves looked good again, too.
Butler scored 18 points in his return from right knee surgery, Jeff Teague had 25 points and eight assists, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 113-96 on Friday night.
”It feels like Jimmy’s that one piece that helps everybody be where their supposed to be at,” Wolves forward Taj Gibson said. ”I felt defensively it helps us a lot. But it’s good to get back to the old ways.”
Butler played 22 1/2 minutes and was 7 for 10 from the field in his first game since getting hurt against Houston on Feb. 23. He had surgery two days later for a cartilage injury and missed 17 games.
He made a difficult turnaround jumper to start the second half. He finished an acrobatic layup after receiving a lob pass from Teague. He even reached into his bag of defensive tricks with a steal that led to a breakaway dunk.
”He looked good,” Andrew Wiggins said. ”He got to his spots, he scored when he wanted to score. He was just playing his game out there.”
Minnesota moved into sole possession of eighth place in the Western Conference.
Gibson also scored 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, while Karl-Anthony Towns had 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who were on the second night of a back-to-back. They lost to the Denver Nuggets on Thursday.
Julius Randle scored 20 points and added 10 rebounds for the Lakers, who have lost nine of 13. Josh Hart tallied 20 points and 11 rebounds off the bench Mark Clayton Jersey , and Brook Lopez had 18 points and six rebounds.
Minnesota started the third quarter with a 16-6 run and took a 67-64 lead on a basket Butler. Teague, Wiggins and Towns all made 3-pointers to give the Timberwolves an eight-point lead with 3:25 remaining in the period.
Towns capped an 11-2 run with a put-back layup to give Minnesota a 78-68 advantage with 2:12 remaining in the third. Josh Hart made a 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer and the Lakers trailed 80-73.
Los Angeles went on a 9-0 run after trailing 36-32 in the second quarter. An 11-0 run four minutes later gave the Lakers a 52-40 lead with 3:08 remaining in the first half.
Gibson’s basket cut Minnesota’s deficit to 56-50. The Timberwolves trailed 58-51 at halftime. Despite shooting only 29 percent from the field, the Lakers outscored the Timberwolves 32-21 in the second quarter.
Lopez scored the first 15 points for the Lakers, outscoring Minnesota by himself over the first six minutes of the game. The rest of the team, however, scored only 11 points the rest of the quarter.
TIP-INS
Timberwolves: Outscored the Lakers 62-44 in the paint. . All five starters scored in double figures.
Lakers: Channing Frye was assessed a flagrant 1 foul in the opening minutes of the second quarter. . Kuzma left the game in the third quarter with a mild left ankle sprain and did not return. . Luke Walton was assessed a technical foul in the fourth quarter.
TURNOVER TROUBLE
The Lakers committed 21 turnovers, which the Timberwolves turned into 30 points. Minnesota, on the other hand, had only five turnovers.
”They got 100 shots up tonight, we got 79 because of turnovers and offensive rebounds,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said. ”We talked about it after the game. It’s something that we’re going to have to continue to work on. We want to consistently be a good team. We have to get our turnover numbers down.”
Hart said Los Angeles and some lackadaisical passes, which contributed to the high turnover numbers.
”We’re young, but we’ve got to realize that each and every possession matters Ted Ginn Jr Jersey ,” Hart said.
TALE OF TWO HALVES
The Timberwolves broke the game open to start the second half and never looked back. They outscored the Lakers 62-38 and built a 21-point lead.
”First half, we just let them run free,” Wiggins said. ”Second half, I feel like we got into them more, we were the aggressor and we got out there on the boards also.”
A LOTTA LOPEZ
Lopez scored the first 15 points for the Lakers. He outscored the Timberwolves by himself, 15-14, through the first six minutes of the game.
”That’s how I need to be most nights,” Lopez said. ”I just need to be better for more games.”
Walton said he liked the way Lopez started the game.
”I knew that they would come out and try to knock us out, coming off that loss they had last night,” Walton said. ”I thought Brook did a really nice job kind of going blow-by-blow with them on the offensive side.”
UP NEXT
Timberwolves: Host the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday.
Lakers: Host the Utah Jazz on Sunday.
Adidas Jack Eichel Jersey |
|
|
