Chet Holmgren scored all but one of his 24 points in the second half and the Oklahoma City Thunder overcame a 29-point deficit after Ja Morant left the game with a hip injury to beat the Memphis Grizzlies 114-108 for a 3-0 series lead.
Morant was hurt with just over three minutes left in the first half on Thursday night with Memphis leading 67-40. The Grizzlies led by 26 at half-time.
Morant was later seen on crutches in the tunnel with what was described as a left hip contusion. Grizzlies interim coach Tuomas Iisalo said he was unsure if the two-time All Star would be available for Saturday’s game.
“He’s going through further evaluations tomorrow,” said Iisalo. “Then we’ll know more.”
Asked how much his absence affected the Grizzlies play in the second half, Iisalo replied: “I would say quite drastically from the end result. But not only the energy, but also the execution.”
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 in April 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. Now, they can close out the series on Saturday.
“I just through out of half-time, we kind of reconnected to who we are. We were very out of character in the first half,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 31 points for Oklahoma City and Jalen Williams added 26, splitting a pair of free throws with 1:20 left to give the Thunder their first lead. Scotty Pippen scored 28 points, two short of his career high, to lead Memphis. Jaren Jackson Jr added 22 points as Memphis saw their lead evaporate in the second half.
“They built a 29-point lead in a half, so we felt like all we had to do was build our own 29-point lead,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
In Thursday’s other games, Kawhi Leonard scored 21 points and the Los Angeles Clippers rolled to a 117-83 victory over Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series.
Meanwhile, the New York Knicks left no doubt about their plan for Game 3 in the opening minutes against the Detroit Pistons. Karl-Anthony Towns took his team’s first shot, made his first of four three-pointers and scored five points in the opening minutes to start an 11-point quarter. Towns scored 31 points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked two shots to lead New York in a 118-116 victory over the Detroit Pistons to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round series. Game 4 is on Sunday in Detroit before the series shifts back to New York.
