NBA Playoffs Blog – Page 24 – NBA Blog

Kawhi Leonard out for Game 3

Here’s CSN Bay Area reporting that the Spurs will continue to be without star small forward Kawhi Leonard. The league MVP candidate will miss tonight’s Game 3. The Warriors are up 2-0 and have been absolutely dominant in these Western Conference Finals and the entire 2017 NBA Playoffs so far.

Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard will not face the Warriors in Game 3 of Western Conference Finals on Saturday night at AT&T Center.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich made the announcement prior San Antonio’s Saturday morning shootaround.

“In the end, I guess it’s my decision,” Popovich told reporters.

Isaiah Thomas injured, out for remainder of NBA playoffs

The road to the NBA finals has already looked incredibly easy for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and it just got even easier.

The Boston Celtics today announced that Isaiah Thomas will miss the remainder of this year’s postseason following re-aggravation of a right femoral-acetabular impingement with labral tear during Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Cleveland. Thomas initially injured the hip during the third quarter of the Celtics’ March 15 game against Minnesota, forcing him to miss the next two regular season contests. The injury was further aggravated during Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals at Washington on May 12.

“Isaiah has worked tirelessly to manage this injury since it first occurred,” said Celtics Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brian McKeon. “The swelling increased during the first two games against Cleveland, and in order to avoid more significant long-term damage to his hip, we could no longer allow him to continue.”

Thomas did not travel with the team to Cleveland and is currently evaluating treatment options.

The Cavs are up 2-0 in their Eastern Conference Finals series with the Celtics. Game 3 is tomorrow in Cleveland.

Kawhi Leonard out for Spurs Game 2 vs Warriors

Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle with a very important update on tonight’s NBA Western Conference Finals Game 2 between the Spurs and Warriors:

Jonathon Simmons will start for the Spurs in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals on Tuesday night, replacing injured Kawhi Leonard in the lineup for San Antonio.
Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich made the announcement during his pregame news conference at Oracle Arena.
Popovich also said Leonard’s status for Game 3 on Saturday night probably would not be resolved until Friday at the earliest. He re-injured his sprained left ankle Sunday in Game 1, though an MRI exam showed no structural damage.

Patty Mills to start Game 5 for Spurs

Here’s the Houston Chronicle reporting on the Rockets’ current playoff opponent, the Spurs, who are without starting point guard Tony Parker for the remainder of the postseason:

Guard Patty Mills will move into the Spurs’ starting lineup for Game 5 against the Rockets on Tuesday, replacing Dejounte Murray who had started the two games since Tony Parker’s season-ending injury.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did not say if the move was in any way related to the Rockets’ lineup change, with Eric Gordon starting and power forward Ryan Anderson coming off the bench, but was not because of issue’s with Murray’s play.

Warriors sweep Jazz, advance in NBA Playoffs

As pretty much everybody predicted, the Warriors have eliminated the Jazz. As most predicted, it happened in the form of a 4-0 sweep. The Warriors now advance to the Western Conference Finals, where they’ll play the winner of the Spurs vs Rockets series. Here’s the Bay Area News Group reporting:

Now they await the winner of the Rockets and Spurs series, which sits at 2-2. If it ends in six, the West Finals start in Oracle Arena on Sunday. If it extends to seven, the West Finals start in Oracle on Tuesday.

Either way, a rested, steamrolling Warriors team will be awaiting as monster favorites, having won 23 of their last 24 games dating back to mid-March and all eight of their playoff games by margins of 12, 29, 6, 25, 12, 11, 11 and 26 points.

But there were at least tiny moments of adversity on Monday night.

Early on, it didn’t look like it’d be that way. After hitting only one shot in a slow Game 3, Klay Thompson opened the scoring with a pair of jumpers. Then Steph Curry hit a pair of 3s. Then Kevin Durant found Curry on a creative give-and-go layup on a baseline out of bounds play.

Meanwhile, the Jazz offense slumped against a locked in Warriors defense, missing their first 10 two-point shots and going only 6-of-25 in the first quarter. A 12-3 lead became a 21-7 lead became a 39-17 first quarter cushion — similar to the 45-22 first quarter they popped on the Blazers in Game 4.

Steve Kerr undergoes spinal procedure

Steve Kerr is on break from coaching the Warriors, because of serious issues with his spine that are hopefully in correction as we speak. Here’s the Bay Area News Group with the latest update:

Joe Lacob revealed in an interview with Bloomberg Radio on Friday that Steve Kerr got a spinal leak procedure at Duke. The news spread late Saturday night.

So Sunday morning, Warriors general manager Bob Myers met with reporters to confirm the procedure and give an update on Kerr’s status. The ailing coach remains without a firm timetable for a return.

“It’s hard to answer some of this because even the doctors aren’t entirely sure of recovery time,” Myers said. “That’s why we’ve been a little indefinite about everything. We don’t know. But the procedure went well, as far as we know. Now it’s a case of how well it takes and when he might or might not be back. The good news is it’s on the path to recovery, but I wish I could be more definitive.”

Raptors swept by Cavs

Most people predicted the Cavs would eliminate the Raptors in the second round of the 2017 NBA Playoffs. The only question is how quickly it was going to happen. With Toronto lacking the services of point guard Kyle Lowry for the last few games, it seemed likely to happen sooner than later. Today, the Cavs completed the four-game sweep. Here’s the Toronto Star reporting:

The defending NBA champions now move on to face either Boston or Washington for the conference title, while the Raptors go off into a summer full of difficult decisions for team president Masai Ujiri.

Free agents Kyle Lowry, Patrick Patterson, Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker have to either be re-signed or let go for nothing, and head coach Dwane Casey and his staff will be up for their annual review. Ujiri has seen his team fall far short of the necessary three-point shooting proficiency in the league today.

Down by as many as 16 points Sunday, Toronto scrapped and clawed its way back to take a one-point lead with about six minutes left.

Kelly Oubre suspended one game for slamming into Kelly Olynyk

Washington Wizards forward Kelly Oubre Jr. has been suspended one game without pay for charging and making forceful and unwarranted contact with Boston Celtics center Kelly Olynyk, it was announced today by Kiki VanDeWeghe, Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations.
The incident, for which Oubre was assessed a Flagrant Foul 2 and ejected, occurred with 9:12 remaining in the second quarter of the Wizards’ 116-89 win over the Celtics on May 4 at Verizon Center.

Oubre will serve his suspension on Sunday, May 7 when Washington hosts Boston in Game 4 of an Eastern Conference Semifinals series.

Tony Parker injured, out for playoffs

Spurs guard Tony Parker, who has been the team’s second leading scorer through eight games so far during the 2017 NBA Playoffs, underwent an MRI examination this morning in San Antonio. The exam revealed bad news: Parker has suffered a ruptured left quadriceps tendon.

The injury occurred at the 8:52 mark of the fourth quarter of last night’s Spurs-Rockets game.

Parker will miss the remainder of the 2017 NBA Playoffs.

Parker had been averaging 15.9 points on 52.56% shooting in these playoffs, though he was only dishing 3.1 assists per outing. Guard Patty Mills now has a lot more pressure on his shoulders, as does forward LaMarcus Aldridge, whose output in the postseason so far has been quite modest.

Raptors face tough battle vs Cavs

Here’s the National Post reporting on the Raptors, down 0-1 in their series, and their quest to contain the Cavs, which mostly means trying to somehow contain LeBron James:

When the Raptors added Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker at the trade deadline, it gave them extra bodies to throw at LeBron. Between the new guys and DeMarre Carroll, Patrick Patterson and the occasional defence of DeMar DeRozan, Toronto had a host of players with the size and speed to, at the least, get in James’ way.

They did precious little of that in last year’s playoff matchup, and coming into this series it seemed likely that Toronto would try to impede, annoy, frustrate and just generally bother James. Instead, LeBron scored what looked like an effortless 35 points in Game 1 and grabbed a beer from a courtside vendor. If you have ever seen a cat wound a mouse and then take an agonizingly long time to get around to finishing it off, that was LeBron on Monday night. (The Raptors were the mouse.) …

So, could the Raptors try to ugly it up in Game 2 on Wednesday? More traps on James, more double teams, more attention and some of it even legal?

“All that’s in play,” Casey said Tuesday. “We gotta get a little closer (to them). I don’t know if they felt us last night whatsoever. We were half a step off, respecting their speed a little too much. We gotta make them feel us a little bit better.”