NBA Playoffs: Ja, Giannis watch their teams get big wins

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

Feel better, Ja Morant. You too, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The stars watched their teammates get big series-tying wins on Wednesday night.

Memphis topped the Los Angeles Lakers without Morant, Milwaukee defeated the Miami Heat without Antetokounmpo, and those series are all knotted at a game apiece now. And Denver went up 2-0, wasting a big lead and then rallying to top Minnesota.

Meanwhile, Golden State prepared Wednesday for what it'll take to play without the suspended Draymond Green against Sacramento, with the Kings looking for their first 3-0 lead in any series since 1951 — yes, the 1951 NBA Finals, when they were the Rochester Royals.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The series begin to shift locations now as the run of Game 3's begin Thursday — Philadelphia at Brooklyn, Sacramento at Golden State and Phoenix at the Los Angeles Clippers.

Philadelphia and Sacramento hold 2-0 leads. The Suns-Clippers series is tied 1-1.

There's three more Game 3's on Friday; Boston takes a 2-0 lead to Atlanta, Denver takes a 2-0 lead to Minnesota, and Cleveland and New York play having split their first two meetings.

HOW TO WATCH

— The 76ers-Nets game and the Kings-Warriors game will be shown Thursday by TNT, while the Suns-Clippers game will be on NBA TV. There's also local coverage for most games in Round 1.

— Games return to ESPN and ABC starting Friday (two ESPN games Friday, one on ABC). There are quadrupleheaders on Saturday (two games apiece on ESPN and TNT) and Sunday (two games apiece on TNT and ABC).

— The NBA Finals will be broadcast on ABC beginning June 1.

WHO WINS THE AWARDS?

We started finding out those answers on Monday, the first of four days of award-handing-out from the league office this week.

— Monday: Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr. won defensive player of the year, with Milwaukee's Brook Lopez finishing second and Cleveland's Evan Mobley placing third.

— Tuesday: De'Aaron Fox of Sacramento was revealed as the inaugural winner of the new Clutch Player award. Miami's Jimmy Butler was second and Chicago's DeMar DeRozan was third.

— Wednesday: Sacramento's Mike Brown got all the first-place votes, making him the first unanimous Coach of the Year. Oklahoma City's Mark Daigneault was second and Boston's Joe Mazzulla was third.

— Thursday: Sixth Man of the Year will be revealed, with Boston's Malcolm Brogdon, Milwaukee's Bobby Portis Jr. and New York's Immanuel Quickley the finalists.

INSIDE THE COACH VOTE

Not much to decipher when one coach gets all the first-place votes. Daigneault appeared on 68 of the 100 ballots, Mazzulla on 41 ballots.

In all, 14 coaches got at least one vote.

Here's the odd part: There were nine coaches who got votes last year, and only three of those coaches got votes this year.

Cleveland's J.B. Bickerstaff got 26 votes (52 points) this year and was fourth, Memphis' Taylor Jenkins got three votes (five points) this year and was 10th, and the Clippers' Tyronn Lue got one vote (one point) this year and tied for 12th.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

Philadelphia will try to take a 3-0 lead over Brooklyn on Thursday. If Philadelphia finishes off a sweep of that series, the 76ers will have gone 8-0 against the Nets this season.

The Nets have never gone 0-8 against any franchise, including playoffs obviously, in one season; going 0-7 (vs. Chicago in 1997-98 and Miami in 2004-05) is their worst single-season mark against an opponent.

The last time any team went 8-0 vs. an opponent was 2018-19, when Milwaukee did it to Detroit.

There have been 37 instances of a team going 8-0 or better vs. an opponent in a single season. And the record is probably one of those that will last forever: Boston went 13-0 against Minneapolis in 1958-59 — the last four of those wins coming in the NBA Finals.

QUOTABLE

"You've got to make them miss. Can't hope that they miss." — Miami's Jimmy Butler, after the Heat gave up 25 3-pointers to Milwaukee on Wednesday.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports