- Lakers win 124-114 to take two-games-to-none lead
- Shorthanded Heat were without Adebayo and Dragić
- Tweet Bryan at @BryanAGraham or email him
The Lakers are two wins away from their record-tying 17th NBA championship after LeBron James and Anthony Davis combine for 65 points and 23 rebounds in a 124-114 win.
Miami 110-124 Los Angeles; 53.3 fourth quarter
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s three from the corner extends the lead to 14 points and that should be curtains.
Miami 106-119 Los Angeles; 1.59, fourth quarter
A LeBron jumper pushes the lead to 13 with three minutes to go. The indefatigable Butler answers on the other end to keep pace, but Anthony Davis flushes home a dunk on the ensuing possession. Butler is doing it all – he’s working on a 25/8/12 night – but it’s not going to be enough.
Miami 104-115 Los Angeles; 4.32, fourth quarter
LeBron James and Kelly Olynyk trade a couple of buckets, but the Lakers are still ahead by double digits with four minutes and change remaining.
Miami 101-111 Los Angeles; 9.22, fourth quarter
The Heat are taking one body blow after another from the Lakers, but Jimmy Butler is doing everything in his power to keep them within striking distance. He makes a pair of a free throws followed by a dunk on the next possession to cut the LA advantage to 10 points. Butler’s 23 points and 11 assists are both team highs.
The best you could say about the Heat in that quarter is they did enough to hang around. They trail by 10 entering the final period after scoring 39 points on 22 possessions in the frame (while allowing 35 on 21).
Miami 73-92 Los Angeles; 4.33, third quarter
The Lakers’ Anthony Davis is putting on a clinic. After rolling in another shot from the middle of the lane, he’s scored 30 points on 14-for-15 from the floor. The Heat simply have no answer.
AD is now 14-15 from the field pic.twitter.com/NXf7vYXTKK
Miami 68-84 Los Angeles; 7.00, third quarter
Danny Green’s miss from the corner was the Lakers’ first missed shot of the second half after a blistering 7-for-7 start. The Heat are actually playing quite well on the offensive end, but they have no answer for the Lakers defensively.
Miami 64-82 Los Angeles; 8.24, third quarter
More LeBron, who’s up to 17 points. More Davis, who’s up to 24 on 11-for-12 shooting. Here’s the stat of the night so far: the Lakers have made 22 of their 25 two-point attempts.
Miami 62-77 Los Angeles; 9.16, third quarter
The Heat are fighting tooth and nail to keep pace with the favored Lakers, but they’re simply outmanned. Even as they get early baskets from Butler, Crowder and Robinson to start the second half, the Lakers have an answer every time. First it’s LeBron with a 12ft jumper, but Anthony Davis hits jumpers of 20ft, 18ft and 23ft on the Lakers’ next three possessions. Unbelievable. Davis is 10-for-11 from the floor for 22 points in 21 minutes.
Some half-time reading/viewing in case you missed it: Seattle’s Breanna Stewart went off in Game 1 of the WNBA finals earlier tonight, scoring 37 points and grabbing 15 rebounds in a 93-80 win over Las Vegas. Sue Bird, the Storm’s ageless point guard, set a WNBA playoff record with 16 assists.
Related: Seattle Storm win WNBA finals opener behind unstoppable Breanna Stewart
The Lakers close out the half on a 19-9 scoring run that includes a couple of highlight-reel plays by 34-year-old point guard Rajon Rondo. LA set a playoff record for three-pointers attempted in a half with 27 (making nine of them). They’re not even playing that well and managed to score 68 on 55.3% from the floor and lead by 14.
Miami 45-56 Los Angeles; 3.06, second quarter
Kuzma is fouled while shooting a three and hits all three foul shots to again push LA’s edge to double digits. Jimmy Butler is almost singlehandledly keeping the Heat within touching distance: not simply with his team-high 11 points but seven assists. According to ESPN, Butler’s team-mates are shooting 7-for-10 (and 3-for-5 from three) off his passes.
Miami 43-47 Los Angeles; 4.38, second quarter
The Heat get back within four on Kendrick Nunn’s three from the corner. Rondo rattles in a jumper seconds later, but Crowder comes back with a lay-up on the other end. Good end-to-end action on the last few possessions.
Miami 34-43 Los Angeles; 6.51, second quarter
Caruso hits a second three to make it 43-35. The Lakers are taking the opportunities Miami’s zone gives them with 23 of their 37 shots coming from beyond the arc so far.
Miami 30-40 Los Angeles; 8.01, second quarter
The Lakers are starting to stretch this one out. An Alex Caruso three off LeBron’s fifth assist pushes their lead to double digits for the first time. Then a LeBron driving lay-up and Danny Green three makes it 40-27. A bit of a dangerous juncture for Miami, but Jae Crowder stems the tide with a three to cut the difference to 10.
The Lakers outscored the Heat 18-6 in the paint in the 1st quarter of Game 2.
Their 4 dunks in the 1st quarter are tied for their 2nd-most in a single Finals quarter in the play-by-play era (since 1996-97). They had 5 in the 3rd quarter of Game 1 in 2001 vs the 76ers. pic.twitter.com/KDx9fAhmOx
The short-handed Heat face an uphill battle in this one. Anthony Davis (eight points) and Dwight Howard (six) are leading the way for Los Angeles, while Jimmy Butler’s five are pacing Miami. Speaking of Butler … he’s played every minute so far, handled on nearly every possession and is matched up with LeBron on defense. Let’s hope he ate his Wheaties.
Miami 19-27 Los Angeles; 2.37 first quarter
The Heat are sticking with the zone but they’re consistently too slow to trap LeBron and he’s been making them pay with three assists already, including one to Davis moments ago that extended the Los Angeles lead to eight points.
Miami 14-20 Los Angeles; 5.13, first quarter
Spoelstra dials up the 2-3 zone defense that worked so well for the Heat earlier in the playoffs. They used it only sparingly in Game 1. Miami cut the deficit to one point with a long Kelly Olynyk three and a Jae Crowder dunk. But LeBron and Kyle Kuzma counter with back-to-back threes to make it 20-14, the first longballs for the Lakers tonight after they missed their first five attempts.
Miami 8-14 Los Angeles; 7.34, first quarter
A very aggressive start for the Lakers’ Dwight Howard, who has three buckets already following his two-point performance in Game 1. LA are testing the Heat inside early as expected with Adebayo sidelined. Anthony Davis adds a pair of mid-range jumpers as the Lakers race out to the early lead.
Dwight runs the floor and LeBron rewards him! #NBAFinals @MiamiHEAT 8@Lakers 14
Game 2 on ABC pic.twitter.com/xmrkZNcJJ1
Miami will be starting rookie Tyler Herro in place of Goran Dragic and Meyers Leonard in place of Bam Adebayo. The national anthem is moments away and we should be under way shortly after.
Anthony Davis and LeBron James combined for 59 points in LA’s Game 1 win. Moments ago, Lakers coach Frank Vogel praised the “unique” relationship between his two superstars during a pre-game media gaggle.
“That’s the relationship those two guys have with one another,” Vogel said. “It really is within both of their personality, which is what makes this pairing so special, so unique, is they are two alphas, but they also have a make-the-right-play mindset, a selflessness to them, that is just a winning attribute.”
“I’ve had to play the role of not just head coach but almost a parent the last 24 hours,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra says of the decision to rule out Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragić during his pre-game availability. “These two guys are really amazing. Like everyone in our locker room, there’s a real special sense of brotherhood and responsibility and they’re both lobbying to play. Ultimately, I had to take the decision out of their hands for tonight.”
He continued: “We have other guys obviously that will get an opportunity tonight and we have learned over the course of really the last three or four
months you expect the unexpected. The world has changed and so many things have been thrown at us in the last three or four months, I think our level of grit and perseverance has been tested and proven and it will be again tonight.”
Miami will be down two starters for tonight’s Game 2 after Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragić were both ruled out with injuries.
More from the AP:
Adebayo is dealing with issues with his left shoulder and the left side of his neck. Dragić tore his left plantar fascia in Game 1.
Both were evaluated and treated multiple times Thursday and Friday, without enough improvement to give either of them a chance to get on the floor for Game 2. The Lakers won Game 1 easily, 116-98.
Good evening and welcome to Game 2 of the NBA finals between the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers. We’re back in the NBA’s Walt Disney World bubble after the Lakers’ resounding opening statement in Wednesday night’s Game 1, where they led by as many as 32 points in a 116-98 laugher. The Heat will be out to offer a firm rebuttal tonight, but they’ll need to do it without starters Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragić, who have both been ruled out with injury. (More on them in a moment.)
Tip-off is about an hour away.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s a recap of Wednesday night’s Game 1, where the Lakers used a 75-30 run to overwhelm Miami and draw first blood in the best-of-seven series.
Related: LA Lakers crush Miami Heat in NBA finals opener behind Anthony Davis’s 34
