Morant’s dazzling 47-point performance leads Grizzlies to victory over Warriors to even series

Ja Morant scored 47 points to match his postseason high and carry the Memphis Grizzlies into a tie in the Western Conference semifinals with a 106-101 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night.

The NBA’s Most Improved Player, who also had 47 in Game 2 against Utah last year, became only the third player in league history to have multiple 45-point games in the postseason before turning 23. The other two? LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

Ziaire William hit four threes and finished with 14 points off the bench. Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 12 points before fouling out for the third time in eight games this postseason. Brandon Clarke added 10 points.

Now the youngest team to reach the semifinal round in the last 25 years heads to San Francisco for Game 3 on Saturday night knowing the series will return to Memphis for Game 5.

Stephen Curry finished with 27 points on 3-of-11 shooting outside the arc. Jordan Poole added 20 off the bench but was 1-of-6 from three. Andrew Wiggins had 16, going 1-of-7 from three. Klay Thompson finished with 12 points and was 2-of-12 from three. The Warriors shot just 7-of-38 from three-point range.

The Warriors, in the semifinals for the seventh time in 10 years, had their chances. Trailing 104-101, Curry passed to Green, who tossed it to Thompson, who traveled with 17 seconds left. Morant hit two free throws for the final margin.

The Grizzlies are coming off the franchise’s first series win in seven years. But a team that was the NBA’s second-youngest squad during the regular season is trying to take Memphis past the second round, something this franchise has done only once back in 2013.

It didn’t get easier when Dillon Brooks, averaging 15 points this postseason and whose job was defending Curry, was ejected with 9:08 left in the first quarter after a hard foul on Warriors guard Gary Payton II. Payton went to the locker room for X-rays on his left elbow. He didn’t return.

Green, ejected from Game 1 for his own Flagrant 2, went down a couple minutes after Brooks’ ejection. He went to the locker room, flashing the middle digit on each hand at the fans. He returned for the second quarter after getting stitches for a cut at his right eye that was nearly swollen shut by halftime.

The Grizzlies led 56-51 at halftime with Morant scoring the final four points of the second for Memphis, giving him 23.

Curry and Poole fuelled a big third quarter in Game 1 combining for 23 points. This time, Curry scored four points and Poole had six, but Golden State finished the third on a 13-3 run to tie it up at 77. Morant was hit in the face in the final seconds and went to the bench saying he couldn’t see out of his left eye.

Golden State took its first lead of the game within the opening minute of the fourth on a layup by Poole, and the Warriors led by as much as 81-77. Memphis answered with a 9-2 run capped by back-to-back threes from Williams, who missed the last two playoff games with a sore right knee.

Celtics dominate in bounce-back win over Bucks

Jaylen Brown scored 25 of his 30 points in the first half, and the Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks 109-86 on Tuesday night to even their second-round playoff at one game apiece.

The series doesn’t resume until Game 3 on Saturday in Milwaukee.

Boston finished 20-of-43 from beyond the arc. The Celtics played without point guard Marcus Smart after he was ruled out before the game with a bruised right thigh he sustained in Game 1. Derrick White took his place in the starting lineup, making his first start in a playoff game since 2019 when he was with San Antonio.

The Celtics clamped down on Giannis Antetokounmpo after his triple-double in the series opener, limiting him to 28 points — mostly in the third quarter — nine rebounds and seven assists. Jrue Holiday added 19 points and seven assists. Bobby Portis chipped in 13 points and eight rebounds.

The Bucks cut into what had been a 26-point Celtics lead in the third quarter. Antetokounmpo keyed the charge with 18 points in the period. A 10-0 Milwaukee run, aided by a more than five-minute Celtics scoring drought, trimmed Boston’s lead to 72-56 late in the third quarter.

But Boston outscored the Bucks 11-10 the rest of the period to take an 83-66 advantage into the fourth.

Milwaukee kept nibbling away and got it down it to 94-82 on a pair of free throws by Antetokounmpo, followed by a three by Tatum.

The lead was back up to 101-86 when Antetokounmpo was stripped underneath the basket, leading to another three from Tatum.

Holiday missed a three on the other end and Grant Williams dropped his own on the ensuing fast break to make it 107-86 with 1:52 left.

Boston scored from a variety of different spots on the court during the run — attacking both at the rim and inside the paint. It also included 12 points from the three-point line, where the Celtics struggled for most of Game 1.

Antetokounmpo missed his first six shots of the night before finally getting on the scoreboard via a dunk with less than a minute left in the opening period.

It didn’t stop Boston from banking a 32-21 lead heading into the second quarter, boosted by 17 points from Brown — a career playoff-high for a quarter.

The Celtics continued to share and kept Milwaukee’s defence in chase mode, eventually taking a 65-40 edge into the half.