NEW YORK: New York’s Carmelo Anthony and Miami stars LeBron James and Dwyane Wade sparked their teams to NBA play-off triumphs yesterday that gave the Knic
ks and Heat 2-0 Eastern Conference series leads.
Anthony, who shot 3-for-11 in the first half, scored a game-high 34 points to power the host Knicks over Boston 87-71, giving New York a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven opening round play-off series.
“It was just a tale of two halves,” Anthony said. “We just had to find a rhythm, find some shots. In the third quarter we came out very aggressively. We got some stops, and that opened up our offence.”
And at Miami, Wade scored 21 points while James had 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists to spark the defending NBA champion Heat over Milwaukee 98-86 for a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven first-round matchup.
The Bucks stayed within reach until a 12-0 Miami run sparked by reserves to open the fourth quarter brought the Heat an 80-65 lead and ended Milwaukee’s hopes of an upset of the top overall playoff seeds.
“We put ourselves in position to close the game out,” James said. “It’s not surprising. That’s what our bench brings.”
Ersan Ilyasova scored 21 points and grabbed six rebounds for Milwaukee.
“We can expect an absolute crazy energy from their team,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We did what we were supposed to do. Now we need to move on.”
At New York, the Celtics led 48-42 at half-time but the Knicks shot 70.6 percent from the field in the third period and outscored Boston 32-11, holding the visitors to 22.2 percent shooting for the quarter to turn around the game.
“It’s our defence that holds us in there and makes us able to do the things we need to do to win games,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said after his side’s match.
“We got relaxed. They had us on our heels and attacking. We turned that around in the second half, finally hit a good offensive spurt in the third quarter, and that gave us the cushion we needed.”
The Knicks visit Boston for games tomorrow and Sunday with a chance to sweep into the second round or find themselves in a level fight.
Meanwhile, Stephen Curry scored 30 points and added 13 assists to power the hot-shooting Golden State Warriors over the Denver Nuggets 131-117 to even their NBA opening-round play-off series.
Jarrett Jack netted 26 points, Harrison Barnes added 24 points and Klay Thompson contributed 21 points o for the Warriors, now level at 1-1 in the best-of-seven matchup. AGENCIES
