(Basketball news) The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Toronto Raptors 112-97 in the second game of the 1st round NBA playoffs to take a 2-0 series lead. For the Sixers, Embiid took his lumps and powered his way to 31 points and 11 rebounds as Maxey had 23 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, Tobias Harris had 20 points and 10 rebounds and James Harden scored 14. For the Raptors, OG Anunoby led the scoring with 26 points as Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet each had 20. With this result the 76ers won both the games at home as they get ready to travel to Toronto in the third game of the series tomorrow,
''They put me on the floor a few times and to me, this is where it gets interesting,'' Embiid said. ''I'm like, cool. I'm going to come back with more power and make you foul me.''
That's what we need from the Big Fella,'' Maxey said
''I didn't really want them to set that tone,'' Embiid said. ''I wanted myself and us to set that tone. That's why I picked up that early technical foul.''
''They wanted to muck the game up and play physical, Rivers said. ''I just told our guys to just play through it.''
The Golden State Warriors on the back of a magical Steph Curry performance won 126-106 against the Denver Nuggets to take a 2-0 series lead in the first round of the NBA playoffs in the Western Conference. For the Warriors, Curry came off the bench for a second straight game following a month-long absence with a foot injury, scoring 34 points as no player in the shot clock era had scored as many as 30 points in 23 or fewer minutes in a playoff game. Klay Thompson added 21 points, Curry shot 12 for 17 with five 3s while Jordan Poole scored 29 points to complete a rout. For the Nuggets, Nikola Jokic had 26 points and 11 rebounds before being ejected with 7 minutes left as Austin Rivers managed 17 points off the bench. Now the Warriors travel to Denver on Thursday to play the third game.
''The first half a little pep in my step and the body felt good, I was able to kind of get to some spots,'' Curry said. ''When you make certain shots it feels a little different, it feels a little bit more normal and more emotion kind of comes out, especially with that layoff, so it was a nice feeling.''
''It didn't surprise me because we've been watching this for a long time with Steph,'' coach Steve Kerr said. ''You never really are surprised when he has an outburst like that. It's great to see.''
''If you feel like you're getting under their skin you press up a little more,'' Green said. ''If you don't feel like you're getting under their skin, you press up a little more.''
The Dallas Mavericks made a comeback against the Utah Jazz to win 110-104 as they now tied up the playoff series 1-1. The Mavericks were without their star Luka Doncic but the likes of Brunson scored a career-high 41 points, Maxi Kleber had 25 with eight of their playoff-record 22 made 3-pointers.Brunson was the starting point guard in place of Doncic as he became the fifth Dallas player to score 40 points in a playoff game. He is the first Mavericks player to do that without committing a turnover. The other 40-point scorers were Doncic, Dirk Nowitzki, Rolando Blackman and Nick Van Exel. For the Jazz, Donovan Mitchell had 34 points for Utah, while Bojan Bogdanovic had 25 and Jordan Clarkson 21 as Rudy Gobert had eight points and 17 rebounds. The Mavericks go to Utah on Thursday with the series finely poised.
''I started this morning, I was talking to (Dorian Finney-Smith) and I told him, `Doe, I'm going to let 10 3s fly tonight.' And he said, `That's my dog.' And that kind of set the tone for the day,'' Kleber said. ''The mindset is we know they're going to leave certain guys open to shoot. We've just got to let it fly.''
''We did what we had to do, which was win tonight. But we were only focused on tonight,'' Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. ''We understand what's in front of us, what's coming. It's going to be a hostile environment.''
''We tried to go out there and take both (games). Didn't happen. You know we're not going to overreact. We're going to go home, and we've got to take care of business. Simple as that,'' Mitchell said. ''At the end of the day, we're happy we took a game and go back and take care of business.''
''The telltale is we can't have Brunson have the night he had and also be able to kick the ball out for those looks,'' Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. ''And when those passes are kicked out, I thought we weren't as sharp mentally in our ability to rotate. And that's something that we've done before.''
''I'm just playing how the defense is giving me, just seeing how they're defending certain things. Just stepping into certain shots,'' Brunson said. ''Yeah, the 5-of-5 start is great, but I had the same mentality when I was 0 for 5 last game, or whatever. … You can't fluctuate whenever, not even when (Doncic) is in or out. Because you need guys to make plays.'
Also read: NBA: Celtics win the first match as Suns prevail over the Pelicans
