Zach attack drives Memphis to win
Behind Zach Randolph’s 28 points and 14 rebounds, the visiting Memphis Grizzlies advanced to the Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history by beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 88-84 on Wednesday night.
Mike Conley added 13 points and 11 assists for Memphis, the fifth seed.
Kevin Durant missed a 16-foot jumper from the left wing to tie it with 6 seconds left, finishing off a miserable shooting night for the three-time NBA scoring champion.
Durant ended up with 21 points on 5-for-21 shooting, the third-worst performance of his playoff career. The Thunder, who made it to the NBA Finals last season, were eliminated in five games. The top seed in the West went 2-6 after All-Star guard Russell Westbrook went out with a knee injury that required surgery.
Serge Ibaka had 17 points and eight rebounds before fouling out with 1:26 to play during a desperation comeback try for the Thunder.
Oklahoma City trailed by 12 with three minutes left before going on a 16-6 rally, with Reggie Jackson’s 3-pointer cutting the deficit to 86-84 with 14.3 seconds remaining.
Randolph missed both free throws with 11.3 seconds on the clock to give the Thunder one last chance to save their season. Durant got the ball beyond the 3-point line on the left wing and navigated around Tony Allen before missing the jumper.
Allen made two free throws to close it out.
• Heat 94, Bulls 91: This was everything Miami could have hoped for … for the first 5 minutes, 25 seconds.
Then it became work, hard work, grueling work, stressful work, the type of effort they knew going into this series would be required against Tom Thibodeau’s shorthanded-but-feisty Chicago Bulls.
So after going up 18 at that early juncture and then down 11 in the third quarter, the host Heat finally found a way to close out the Eastern Conference semifinal 4-1.
Barely … the game ending amid a frenzied Bulls bid for a tying 3-pointer, with Jimmy Butler and Nate Robinson off with their attempts from beyond the arc.
“When you play the Chicago Bulls, you wouldn’t expect any finish to be any different and anything less than that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We knew right from the beginning of the series that we were going to have to earn everything we got.”
In a laugher that became a near disaster, the Heat found a way behind 23 points from LeBron James, 18 from Dwyane Wade in a sharp bounce back from his knee issues, 12 from Chris Bosh and a late bench spark provided by Norris Cole and Shane Battier.