{"id":629481,"date":"2023-04-15T02:47:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-15T07:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/15\/nba-play-in-tournament-timberwolves-and-heat-complete-playoff-field-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2023-04-15T02:47:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T07:47:00","slug":"nba-play-in-tournament-timberwolves-and-heat-complete-playoff-field-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/15\/nba-play-in-tournament-timberwolves-and-heat-complete-playoff-field-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA play-in tournament: Timberwolves and Heat complete playoff field – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> went big this season, getting Rudy Gobert for an against-the-grain pairing with Karl-Anthony Towns in a league increasingly revolving around outside shooting and small ball.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how they got in the playoffs, in the last possible game.<\/p>\n

Towns had 28 points and 11 rebounds, and the Timberwolves muscled and hustled their way past the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> 120-95 to finish the play-in tournament on Friday night.<\/p>\n

<\/gu-island><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe utilized our size. We did a great job of putting pressure on the paint and just doing what we do best,\u201d Towns said. \u201cRudy was fantastic. He did a lot for us and really imposed his presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gobert had 21 points and 10 rebounds in his return from exile for swinging at teammate Kyle Anderson, and the Wolves filled out the NBA<\/a> playoff bracket by seizing the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference with a near-perfect performance at the end of another harder-than-it-had-to-be season.<\/p>\n

Anthony Edwards added 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Wolves, who had a 58-30 advantage in points in the paint. They will face No 1 seed Denver in a best-of-seven series starting on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the standings, but I don\u2019t consider us as an \u20188\u2019 seed,\u201d Gobert said, adding: \u201cWe know if we play the right way, there\u2019s not a team in the league that we can\u2019t beat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really fun this year. We kind of turned the corner a little bit,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said.<\/p>\n

With their best defender Jaden McDaniels out with a broken hand \u2013 thanks to a wall he punched out of frustration in the final regular-season game shortly before Gobert took a swing at Anderson in an argument during a timeout \u2013 the Timberwolves put Nickiel Alexander-Walker in the starting lineup. He guarded his cousin, the dynamic Gilgeous-Alexander, at the suggestion of president of basketball operations Tim Connelly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the reason we won,\u201d Towns said. \u201cThere\u2019s no other way to put it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander was slow to get going in the Thunder\u2019s play-in tournament opener, too, before scoring 25 of his 32 points after halftime in the 113-108 win over New Orleans. This time, the NBA\u2019s fourth-leading scorer picked up his fourth foul early in the third quarter and then had to leave for treatment a few minutes later after Gobert accidentally elbowed him in the eye as he rebounded and dunked his own miss.<\/p>\n

Towns had 24 points on 8-for-12 shooting in Minnesota\u2019s 108-102 overtime loss in Los Angeles in the first play-in game on Tuesday, when the Wolves offense grinded to a woeful finish. This time, they took a much better blend of outside and inside shots with a constantly moving ball. Towns and Gobert going to work against the much-smaller Thunder, who played all season without No 2 overall pick Chet Holmgren, the 7ft 1in Minneapolis native who broke his foot in summer pro-am game.<\/p>\n

Gobert was listed as questionable with a back injury that might have kept him out against the Lakers anyway to make his team-imposed suspension moot. He wore a wrap around his midsection when he was on the bench, but he found his groove in the second half.<\/p>\n

After Mike Conley tracked down a loose ball in the corner midway through the fourth quarter, he threw a three-quarters-of-the-court baseball pass to Towns, whose cross-court feed set Gobert up for yet another dunk and a 109-80 lead that matched Minnesota\u2019s biggest of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was nice not to give back a lead, which we\u2019ve done quite a bit,\u201d Wolves coach Chris Finch said. \u201cThe guys were super locked-in. They knew what it was going to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chicago Bulls 91-102 Miami Heat<\/h2>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Max Strus had another three-pointer taken away in an elimination game. He and Jimmy Butler made sure it didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

The playoffs await.<\/p>\n

Strus and Butler \u2013 who was doubled over at times in the final moments, heaving for every breath \u2013 scored 31 points apiece, and the Miami Heat closed the game on a 15-1 run to beat the Chicago Bulls<\/a> 102-91 in an Eastern Conference play-in game Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team has obviously not been perfect this year,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. \u201cBut I do know one thing about the men in that locker room: The last 48 hours, I know how categorically, unequivocally, how badly and desperately our group wanted to get into this damn thing \u2014 and get into the playoffs to have an opportunity to compete for a title.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their reward: the No 8 seed in the East and a first-round matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA\u2019s top overall seed, starting Sunday.<\/p>\n

DeMar DeRozan led the Bulls with 26 points and nine assists. Alex Caruso added 16 points, Zach Lavine had 15 but shot just 6 for 20, and Coby White scored 14. Chicago got a road win at Toronto on Wednesday to extend its season, but couldn\u2019t get the second road victory it needed to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re disappointed,\u201d Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. \u201cWhen you make that investment from September to the middle of April, that\u2019s a lot of time. You reflect back a little bit. I think they\u2019re all disappointed. We were getting better as a group, I think, since the All-Star break. It would have been nice if we found a way to win tonight and continue on to the playoffs, but it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyler Herro added 12 points and Bam Adebayo grabbed 17 rebounds for Miami, which trailed by six midway through the final quarter.<\/p>\n

But Butler scored while getting fouled with 2:17 left to put Miami ahead for good, found Strus for a three-pointer \u2013 his seventh of the night \u2013 a minute later to push the lead to five, and Strus sealed it with three free throws after getting fouled on a try from beyond the arc with 40 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think any of us felt any type of pressure,\u201d Butler said. \u201cWe went out, we competed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Heat led by 14 in the first quarter, held as much as a 10-point lead in the third quarter, then found themselves down by six with 7:12 remaining.<\/p>\n

A 9-3 spurt over the next two minutes \u2013 Butler had seven, Strus had the other two \u2013 pulled the Heat into a tie, and into all-too-familiar territory. The NBA defines clutch games as those that are within five points or less in the final five minutes, and the Heat played a league-high 54 of them during the regular season.<\/p>\n

Maybe it prepared them for this moment. White made a three-pointer with 3:47 left to put the Bulls up 90-87. The score the rest of the way: Heat 15, Bulls one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWin or go home,\u201d said Strus, an Illinois native who started his career with the Bulls. \u201cWe\u2019re not done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Lloyd Mcnaught<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Timberwolves went big this season, getting Rudy Gobert for an against-the-grain pairing with Karl-Anthony Towns in a league increasingly revolving around outside shooting and small ball. That\u2019s how they got in the playoffs, in the last possible game. Towns had 28 points and 11 rebounds, and the Timberwolves muscled and hustled their way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":629482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,61678,23486],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-financial","category-play-in","category-tournament"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}