DETROIT — Karl-Anthony Towns scored 31 points, Jalen Brunson had 30, and the New York Knicks held on for a 118-116 win over the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night (Friday, April 25, 2025, PH time) to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round series.
OG Anunoby added 22 points for New York.
Brunson, who won the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year award on Wednesday, made consecutive layups late in the game to give the Knicks a seven-point lead.
Tim Hardaway Jr. connected on a 3-pointer with 5.8 seconds left to pull the Pistons within three.
Brunson made one of two free throws with 3.5 seconds left for a four-point lead after Detroit’s coaches, players, and fans were screaming for an over-and-back violation to be called. The All-Star guard made another free throw with 0.5 seconds left and missed the second intentionally.
Detroit didn’t get a final shot off because Jalen Duren’s pass from in front of his team’s bench went out of bounds on the other side of the court.
Towns was aggressive offensively from the start, scoring 11 points in the first quarter. The 7-foot center made 4-of-8 3-pointers after combining to shoot 1 of 5 beyond the arc over the first two games.
Detroit’s Cade Cunningham scored 24 points and had 11 assists, but missed 15 of 25 shots and had six turnovers.
Hardaway had 24 points, making a career playoff-high seven 3-pointers. Dennis Schroder scored 18 points and Duren had 16 for the Pistons.
Thunder up 3-0
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Chet Holmgren scored all but one of his 24 points in the second half as the Oklahoma City Thunder rallied from a 29-point deficit after Ja Morant left the game with a hip injury and beat the Memphis Grizzlies 114-108 for a 3-0 lead in the
first-round series.
Morant was hurt with just over three minutes left in the first half and Memphis leading 67-40. They got the next basket after he exited and still led by 26 points at halftime.
The 29-point comeback was the second-largest in an NBA postseason game since play-by-play data began being recorded in the 1996-97 season.
The only one bigger: A comeback from 31 points down by the Los Angeles Clippers against Golden State on April 15, 2019.
The top-seeded Thunder, who won Game 1 131-80 in the fifth-biggest margin of victory in NBA postseason history, didn’t even have a lead in this one until the fourth quarter.
Clippers 117, Nuggets 83
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Kawhi Leonard had 21 points and 11 rebounds in a 117-83 victory that gave the Los Angeles Clippers a 2-1 lead over the Denver Nuggets in the first-round series.
James Harden and Norman Powell added 20 points apiece in the first playoff game at the new Intuit Dome, where Clippers superfans sitting in The Wall section closest to Denver’s bench wore horse hats mocking Jokic’s love of the animal.
After the teams split the first two games in Denver — a pair of nail-biters decided by a combined five points — this one wasn’t close after the first quarter. / AP