For the first time in two decades, the Minnesota Timberwolves have won a play-off series. (More Basketball News)
The Timberwolves are the NBA's first team to advance to the conference semi-finals after defeating the Phoenix Suns 1ꦯ22-116 on Sunday to complete a first-round swe𝔍ep.
Minnesota reached the Western Conference s😼econd round for the first time since 2004 ༒by recording the first play-off sweep in franchise history.
Anthony Edwards led the way with 40 points, and had a thunderous dunk with just o🌳ver 2 minutes remaining to help kick start the Timberwolves' celebra༺tion.
Edwards had a quiet f⛦irst half before erupting after half-time, scoring 31 points in the final two quarters. He hit four 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and had 16 points in the final period to help third-seeded Minnesota pull away.
He finished with seven 3-pointers, and also added nine rebounds and six assists, wh💧ile Karl-Anthony Towns had 28 points and 10 boards.
The Timberwolves played the final 1:41 without their coach after Mike Conley collided with Chris Finch&🔯nbsp;on 🔴the sidelines.
Finch went down hard appearing to injurꦛe his right knee and had to be hel꧅ped to the locker room.
Minn🎶esota, which will face the winner of the Denveไr Nuggets-Los Angeles Lakers series, prevailed despite a 49-point performance from Devin Booker.
Booker was 13 of 21 from the field and made 20 of 21 free throws, while Kevin Durant added 33 points on 12-of-17 shooting.
The rest of the Suns combined for💫♕ 34 points on 36.1 per cent shooting, as Phoenix suffered its first play-off sweep since 1999.
Brunson's historic performance leads Knicks over 76ers
Jalen Brunson is in the record books and the New York Knicks are one win aw✅ay from a trip to the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
Brunson sco🅺red a play-off career-high 47 points - the most ever by a Knicks player in a post-season game - in a 97-92 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers.
Brunson made two free throws with 5 seconds remaining to 🌱seal the win and surpass the franchise record of 46 points scored by Bernard King in 1984.
With the victory in Philadelphia, the second🃏-seeded Knicks grabbed a 3-1 lead in the first-round series.
New York has the opportunity to elimina🍸te the 76erღs in Game 5 back home at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.
Brunson, who added a game-high 10 assists, str🥂uggled with his shot in🌊 the first two games of the series in New York, but found his touch in Philadelphia.
After totaling 46 points on 29.1 per cent shooting in Games 1 and 2, Brunson had 39 points on Thursday, followed by the record-setting performance in Game 4 whi🍷le sho🌜oting 50.8 per cent.
OG Anunoby added𝓰 16 points and 14 rebounds for the Knicks, while Josh Hart played a big role despite missing all seven of his field goal attempts by grabbing 17 reboun✃ds.
Joel Embiid led the 76♏ers with 27 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, while Tyrese Maxey scored 23.
Philadelphia was undone by its struggles from long range, shooting 27.3 percent on 3-pointers (9 of 33) after making 48.4 🐓per cent&nbꦯsp;of its shots from beyond the arc in its Game 3 win.
Clippers hang on after blowing lead of 31 to even up series with Mavericks
The Los Angeles Clippersꦕ emerged with ꧒a 116-111 victory over the Mavericks in Dallas to even up their first-round series at 2-2.
The fo♓urth-seeded Clippers looked like they would roll to an easy win, as they led by 31 points midway through the second quarter, but the Mavericks came storming back to set up a thrilling fin🌃al few minutes.
After Kyrie Irving hit an off-balanced layup with 2:15 remaining to put Dallas ahead 105-104 - theಞ Mavs' first lead since it was 8-7 less than 5 minutes into the game - Paul George responded with an incredible fadeaway 3-pointer from the corner and James Harden followed with a driving floating jump shot to put Los Angeles back up by four points.
George and Harden each finished with 33 points, and scored all of the Cli💝ppers' final 18 poinꦿts in the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter.
Irving had 40✅ points on 14-of-25 shooting and Luka Doncic had 29 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in his fourth career play-off triple-double, but was clearly bothered by a sore right knee and misfired on 8 of 9 3-point attempts.
Before the game, the Clippers announced Kawhi Leonard is out ♔indefinitely du🀅e to right knee inflammation.
With the Game 4 win, however, Los Angeles improved to 2-0 in this series in games without the two-time NBA F⛄inals MVP🐬.
In this seriꩲes, each team has won once on its opponent's court. Game 5 is Wednesday in Los Angeles.
