THE NBA playoffs Following Friday with three major first round games on match 3. Two games from the East Conference and a West Conference match launched a weekend in charge of the NBA in the playoff series.
Discover Yahoo Sports' Predictions for each first -round seriesIn addition to Kevin O'Connor ranking of 40 best players in the NBA qualifiers.
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Here are the results and key dishes of Friday matches:
Magic 95, Celtics 93
With the two teams exchanging hot sequences, things are lasting over the course for this east coast match. But Boston's shooting attempt did not take place, and the magic succeeded in the victory to reduce the Celtics series led to 2-1.
Jayson Tatum plays hard, but young Orlando stars are stronger
It was another big game for Jayson Tatum, who lost 36 points for the Celtics. There were times when the attacker looked unstoppable: at one point in the second quarter, Tatum dropped eight consecutive points, calms the crowd of Orlando.
But when it comes to winning, two performance of 30 points are better than one. Magic's victory is once again struck by the young duo of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Banchero finished with 29 points and six rebounds, while Wagner almost hit a triple-double with 32 points, seven rebounds and eight assists.
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Wagner in particular shone in the last quarter, hitting several clutch buckets to avoid the return of the Celtics. In the end, it was enough to prevent Tatum from driving Boston to a victory.
Mark Boston's reversals
Although the Celtics played well on both sides of the ball in the defeat on Friday, there was a blatant problem: reversals.
Throughout the regular season, the Celtics have experienced one of the lowest turnover in the league, with an average turnover per game – just behind the Oklahoma City Thunder.
On Friday, the Celtics had 21 reversals. Worse, Boston conceded 26 magic reversal points compared to Orlando conceding eight.
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A flight from Gary Harris to Payton Pritchard in the last minutes of the game seemed to illustrate the problem: although the 3 -point Wagner pointer ended up, it put Boston in a dangerous situation.
Magic's bad problem spoils almost everything
Like all matches in the playoffs so far, this series has become physical – and Friday, this physique has almost troubled in Orlando.
Three magic players finished the match with four faults, including Banchero and Wagner. Wagner resumed his fourth in the last minutes of the match, after dirtying Kristaps Porziņģis before the ball was even rooted – a potentially catastrophic error with the game so close.
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The other player to finish with four was Cole Anthony, who was also assessed a blatant fault in the first half which interrupted part of the momentum of magic.
This time, Orlando managed to win the victory, even with his star players crawling towards big problems. But faults were a problem for magic throughout the season, the team on average about 20 personal faults per game. In the future, Orlando – in particular its young stars – will have to be careful not to let the faults hinder the victories.
– Kari Anderson
Bucks 117, Pacers 101
Propelled by the greatness of Giannis Antetokounmpo and some timely shots from Gary Trent Jr., the Milwaukee Bucks defended the Fiserv forum to win the match 3 and cut the first round of the Indiana Pacers at 2-1.
Giannis sets the tone
Antetokounmpo struck his first five shots in the first quarter to establish his presence and announce that he would not go quietly in the night. He collected 17 points in first half on 7 shots out of 10 and finished with 37 points (14 on 19 FG, 9-10 FT), 12 rebounds and six assists.
But the question remained to find out if he would receive enough support on Friday evening. Antetokounmpo had been a team of one man in the first two games in the series, with an average of 35 points out of 65.1% for a shot, 15 rebounds and four assists while the Pacers easily won the first two games.
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As it was the theme of the series, the Bucks were still down 57-47 at halftime.
Who would intervene to give Giannis the support he would need?
It's Trent Time
Trent struck five 3 points in the third pivotal period while the Bucks left the locker room with a new level of intensity and transformed a deficit of 10 points into an advance of 86-75 after three quarters. Trent finished the match with 37 points out of 11 shots out of 16, reaching nine 3 points out of 12 attempts.
It was an exceptional performance for the seven -year -old veteran, but if it is the kind of aberrant shot, the bucks need to win, well, it is not exactly the most comforting thought.
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Damian Lillard continued to fight, pulling 2 out of 12 for seven points, and his emergence would greatly contribute to helping bucks developing constant complementary production for antetokounmpo
But overnight, Trent delivered. Now let's see who can intensify match 4 in Milwaukee at 9:30 p.m. HE on Sunday.
– Joe Garza
