Blog

• Download the NBA App

Playing with the confidence of a team that believes it should be ahead in the series instead of trailing, the Houston Rockets have turned a 3-0 series deficit against the Los Angeles Lakers into a 3-2 pressure-cooker.

The Rockets defeated the Lakers 99-93 Wednesday in Game 5 of their first-round Western Conference series and forced Game 6 at home.

Houston controlled much of the game with its defense and balanced offense, and unlike Game 3 when the Rockets squandered a late lead, they responded when the Lakers challenged in the fourth quarter.

The Rockets are trying to become the first team in 161 series to come back from a 3-0 deficit and win a series. Just four teams have forced Game 7 after falling behind 3-0.

Game 6 is Friday in Houston (9:30 p.m. ET, Prime Video).

---

1. Rockets’ starting five does the job

Houston’s starting five – all 24 years old or younger – each reached double figures in points led by Jabari Smith Jr.’s 22 points, seven rebounds and two blocks and Alperen Sengun’s 14 points, nine rebounds, eight assists and two steals.

Reed Sheppard, who had a costly turnover in Game 3, had 12 points, six assists and three steals. On consecutive possessions, he made a 15-foot jump shot, stole the ball from LeBron James and converted a dunk, turning an 88-85 Houston lead into a 92-85 advantage with 2:20 left.

Tari Eason contributed 18 points and five rebounds, and Amen Thompson had 15 points, seven rebounds, four assists and four steals.

“Big-time performances by everybody across the board,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “You’re starting this really young lineup, and they are somewhat battle-tested now.”

Houston won the past two games without Kevin Durant who missed his fourth game of the series. He sat out Game 1 with a bruised right knee and was unavailable for Games 3-5 with a sprained and bruised left ankle.

---

2. Lakers missing 3-point success

The Lakers shot 46.1% on 3-pointers through the first three games of the series and have dropped to 24.5% from that range in the two losses, including 7-for-27 – 1-for-10 in the fourth quarter – in Game 5.

LeBron James, who had 25 points and seven assists, was 0-for-6 on 3s, Austin Reaves was 2-for-8 and Luke Kennard, the NBA’s leader in 3-point shooting percentage during the regular season, was 0-for-2. Kennard scored one point in Game 5 and seven in Game 4 after dropping 64 in the first three games.

The Lakers were held to fewer than 100 points for the second consecutive game, negating Deandre Ayton’s best game of the series. He scored 18 points and collected 17 rebounds – 10 on the offensive end.

“You hope 99 (points allowed) is enough to win, and we just couldn’t make shots,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Missed some layups, certainly had some good looks from 3 that didn’t go down but we’ll take a look at the whole process and take a look at the substitution patterns and figure out where we can be better in Game 6.”

---

3. Reaves has ups and downs in return

Reaves returned to the lineup and made an immediate impact after missing the final five regular-season games and first four games of the Rockets series with a strained left oblique.

He provided scoring and an additional playmaker the Lakers needed with him and Luka Doncic (strained left hamstring) sidelined.

Reaves had an assist to Deandre Ayton less than a minute after checking into the game in the first quarter. He made his first shot, a 3-pointer, that was part of eight consecutive Lakers points by Reaves. He drew a charge, leading to a James basket and then delivered an assist to James giving the Lakers a 28-18 lead. He had eight points and four assists in his first nine minutes.

Reaves started the second half in place of Luke Kennard, finishing with 22 points on 4-for-16 shooting, six assists and four rebounds.

---

4. Udoka wins key challenge late in the fourth quarter

James cut Houston’s lead to 92-87 with 2:00 left in the fourth quarter.

On the next possession, Eason was called for an offensive foul. Udoka challenged the call, and after a review, the call was overturned and a foul assessed to Reaves, who was not in a legal guarding position according to the officials.

Eason made both free throws. Reaves missed a 3 and Sengun made two free throws for a 96-87 Houston lead at the 1:42 mark of the fourth.

* * *

Jeff Zillgitt has covered the NBA since 2008. You can email him at jzillgitt@nba.com, find his archive here and follow him on X.

CLEVELAND (AP) — On the heels of his team blowing a 12-point, second-half lead Wednesday night, Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic has bigger problems as the Raptors look to stave off elimination.

All-Star guard Scottie Barnes was kneed in the quadriceps by Thomas Bryant during the first half of Game 5 of the Raptors’ first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Barnes was also poked in the eye during the first half on a play underneath the basket.

Meanwhile, All-Star forward Brandon Ingram didn’t play the second half because of right heel inflammation. And reserve center Sandro Mamukelashvili did not play the final 12 minutes after appearing to tweak his knee on a 3-point attempt to end the third quarter.

With Barnes hobbled and Ingram sidelined, the Raptors missed their first 12 shots of the fourth quarter and fell to the Cavaliers 125-120.

“Obviously, it had some effect. I couldn’t play with that same pace that I was trying to play with,” Barnes said about the quad injury, which occurred on a drive to the basket.

Barnes — who had 17 points and 11 assists in Game 5 — is averaging 24 points and eight assists in the series. RJ Barrett is the Raptors’ leading scorer in the playoffs, averaging 24.4 points.

Ingram has been dealing with the heel injury for a couple of weeks. Raptors trainers tried to retape his foot during the second quarter before Ingram was ruled out for the rest of the game.

Ingram was 0-for-2 from the field and had one point, one rebound and two assists in 11 minutes. He is averaging 12 points in the series and was coming off a 23-point effort in the Raptors’ Game 4 victory on Sunday.

Ingram averaged 21.5 points while playing a career-high 77 games during the regular season.

“Obviously, we need him out on the floor. His playmaking ability and his defense and everything he brings,” Barnes said.

Point guard Immanuel Quickley hasn’t been available during the series due to a strained right hamstring.

Barnes said he would play in Game 6 Friday night as the Raptors look to stave off elimination, but Rajakovic took a more cautious view.

“Tomorrow, we’ll know more. It’s 48 hours until the next game. I’m hopeful we’re going to have guys available,” Rajakovic said.

• Download the NBA App

Cade Cunningham and Paolo Banchero did more than just scare the daylights out of each other’s team with their scoring duel Wednesday night at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

With their matching 45-point performances in the Pistons’ 116-109 victory in Game 5, they stirred echoes of some of the most memorable individual shootouts in NBA playoff history.

Two in particular came to mind as Cunningham and Banchero went back and forth, thwarting the defense, putting up numbers. The gold standard was Larry Bird vs. Dominique Wilkins in Game 7 of the 1988 Eastern Conference finals. That one came down to the final quarter, when Bird scored 20 of his 34 points and Wilkins had 16 of his 47. For minutes on end, it was as if there was no one else on the court, Boston prevailing 118-116.

Then there was Game 4 of the Utah-Denver series in August (!) 2020 in the Orlando “bubble” postseason. The Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell (51) and the Nuggets’ Jamal Murray (50) became the first opponents to score 50 in a playoff game. Utah won 129-127.

Mitchell and Murray still are two of the most potent scorers in the league. Cunningham and Banchero figure to be around for a while, too – just not at the same time for much longer this spring.

Banchero and the Magic, up 3-2 in the best-of-seven, can close out the Pistons in Orlando Friday in Game 6. Cunningham and crew need to extend to Game 7 back in Detroit Sunday to advance.

Here are four takeaways from Game 5, in a series that keeps dialing up the intrigue:

---

1. Detroit desperation definitely a difference

The Pistons didn’t work hard all season just to be put down by a No. 8 seed, about as ignominious an exit as a 60-22 team can suffer. They came out fast and strong, had Orlando flailing and fouling and got a double-digit lead in the first four minutes.

Climbing on Cunningham’s back, the Pistons led 48-31 early in the second quarter. They never untied the bungee cord that enabled the Magic to close within two points in the third, 71-69, or three in the fourth, 112-109 with a minute to go.

But neither did they let themselves get tied or fall behind. Center Jalen Duren had his best night of a rough series for him, Tobias Harris scored 23 and defensive ace Ausar Thompson was the X-factor with five steals, two blocked shots and 15 rebounds.

Detroit’s focus narrowed to a simple approach: Play hard.

“Just a never-doubt mentality,” Cunningham called it. “To have controlled aggression all night.”

---

2. Little things loom large for Magic

Might as well stick with the alliteration, right? The Magic turned in a performance that didn’t call for granular analysis. Pick up the stat sheet and the sources of their undoing Wednesday leap off the page.

“Free throws and rebounding,” coach Jamahl Mosley said.

Oh, Mosley stayed at the podium for several more minutes to discuss other elements, but he kept coming back to the fact that his team got outrebounded overall 49-33 and 16-8 in offensive boards.

It happened most wincingly in the game’s clinching moment: Harris missed a 13-foot jumper with 45 seconds left and there was Thompson, grabbing the ball and getting it to Cunningham. Detroit’s point guard got his rhythm and a fadeaway jumper from the right wing, pushing that three-point lead to 114-109 with 31 seconds left.

As well as the Pistons played defensively, they were at their best in (wink) defending the foul line. Orlando missed nine of 19 foul shots in the first half and five of 11 in the second. Banchero shot better when he was being chased and harassed – 17-for-31 overall, 6-for-11 from the arc and just 5-for-12 on the uncontested, clock-stopped 15-foot freebies.

As a group, the Magic missed 14 free throws in a seven-point loss. The math is as easy as it was ugly.

“The margins were what beat us,” Banchero said.

---

3. A glimpse of duels to come?

Neither Cunningham nor Banchero had much wiggle room. The Detroit playmaker and his teammates were cranky, embarrassed even, to be on the brink of elimination four games into the throat-clearing opening round.

Cunningham played almost 44 minutes, cut down on his costly turnovers – “Just pass the ball to our team instead of theirs,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff had deadpanned – and found the ideal blend of hero ball and facilitating his teammates in the final quarter.

“There’s a handful of them in the league, right?” Bickerstaff said of Cunningham’s leadership. “They’re unique. They’re special. To put the work in, have the talent, even then [to] understand his responsibility and what he means to this team, he wasn’t going to let us go down tonight.”

Not bad for a guy who suffered a collapsed lung in a game six weeks ago.

Banchero, meanwhile, knew he was without his Magic frontcourt partner, Franz Wager. Wagner had been the team’s top player in Game 4, scoring 19 points before straining his right calf. Just as essential, Wagner is Orlando’s best defensive option on Cunningham, with the size and mobility to bother the Pistons leader.

With Wagner on the side in street clothes and a walking boot, Mosley threw the toolbox at Cunningham, mostly lesser-used Jamal Cain and Anthony Black but also Banchero. Banchero scored 18 points in the fourth to keep Orlando’s hope alive.

The battle with Cunningham could set up a series of sequels in the coming years. But Banchero didn’t dwell on that Wednesday.

“In the heat of the moment you’re not really thinking about it,” he said. “I’m sure one day you’ll look back and be like, ‘That was a helluva game.’ But me and him have been going at it since AAU days, so no surprise there.”

---

4. Focus shifts to Friday

The Pistons will face the same predicament as they did in Game 5. The Magic might feel more pressure, with Game 6 at the Kia Center in possibly their final home game of the spring. Both teams are trying to end long droughts since their last series victory; Orlando hasn’t won one since 2010, Detroit since 2008.

Showing a little more life and earning 48 hours to breathe, the Pistons might have the emotional edge Friday. But Banchero wants the Magic to stay positive, based on the resiliency they showed in the shorthanded circumstances. They’ll be hoping Wagner’s calf improves while buoyed by how close they came anyway.

“We gave ourselves a chance at the end. And we just didn’t go away,” Banchero said. “I don’t think you can be discouraged from this performance as a team. You’ve just got to realize where you let the game go and be better.”

* * *

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.  

• Download the NBA App

It’s been said that every game in a playoff series is different. And indeed, Game 5 of the first round series between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors was a totally different experience than Game 4.

By the end of the third quarter on Wednesday, the two teams had combined to score 21 more points than they totaled over 48 minutes just two nights earlier. The 3s were falling, transition opportunities were abundant, and neither team could get stops.

But the Raptors went cold in the final period, the Cavs finally took care of the ball, and Cleveland escaped with a 125-120 victory to take a 3-2 series lead.

James Harden and Evan Mobley led the Cavs with 23 points apiece, while Donovan Mitchell and

each finished with 19. The Raptors lost Brandon Ingram to a heel injury, but they still had six guys in double-figures.

Here are some notes, quotes, numbers and film as the home team improved to 5-0 in this series:

---

1. Cavs finally take care of the ball down the stretch

This has been a lopsided series in regard to the transition game. According to Synergy tracking, the Raptors have outscored the Cavs by 79 points (139-60) in transition over the five games.

The Raptors were pushing off rebounds and even getting some early offense after made shots on the other end of the floor on Wednesday.

But what really fueled their transition game were live-ball turnovers, and the Cavs had nine of them through the third quarter. Each of those nine live-ball turnovers led directly to a Toronto layup or 3-pointer in transition, 22 points total …

The Cavs’ final live-ball turnover of the night came with 7:03 left in the third quarter. It led directly to a wide-open corner 3-pointer for Jamal Shead. Cleveland had three more turnovers after that, but they were all dead balls.

The Raptors got a couple of half-court scores after the Shead 3, and at that point, they had scored 92 points on just 66 possessions (1.39 per). But when the Cavs’ live-ball turnovers stopped, the Toronto offense slowed down. The Raptors missed some open 3s in the fourth quarter, but they had just five transition points in the final period and scored only 28 points over their final 35 possessions (0.80 per).

“It gets their momentum going,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson said about the live-ball turnovers. “We still haven’t figured out a way to clean that up. If we want to win on the road, we gotta find a way.”

---

2. Schröder and Strus make big plays

Harden and Mitchell combined to score only one of the Cavs’ 25 points in the fourth quarter. Instead, other guys made the big plays and big shots on that end of the floor.

One reason the Cavs traded for Schröder at the deadline was his big-game experience, both in the NBA and for the German National Team.

“When we were talking about trading for him, that’s one of the things that came up,” Atkinson said. “This type of game fits him.”

Schröder led the charge in the final period, when he scored 11 of his 19 points.

The first bucket was the most impressive. It was late in the shot clock and Schröder was matchup up one-on-one with Scottie Barnes, one of the best defenders in the league.

But he beat him going right and unfurled a scoop shot just out or Barnes’ reach that put the Cavs up five …

After another drive past Ja’Kobe Walter, Schröder had the Raptors on their heels.

And they then gave him space to hit a pair of pull-up jumpers before finishing his night with a tough floater over Barnes.

Through the first four games, the Cavs had scored an anemic 82 points on 93 possessions (0.88 per) with Schröder on the floor. But he’s always capable of giving them some juice off the dribble, and he was critical to their fourth-quarter offense in Game 5.

Schröder remains a reserve, but Max Strus was in the starting lineup in Game 5, replacing Dean Wade. Atkinson said afterward that it wasn’t about any issues with Wade, but that Strus gave them better spacing and additional playmaking.

Indeed, Strus made a couple of huge plays off the dribble in the fourth quarter. First, he attacked a Walter close-out, drew help, and dropped off a pass to Jarrett Allen …

And on the very next possession, he attacked another Walter close-out and drew a foul in the paint.

Neither Schröder nor Strus had any of the Cavs’ 15 turnovers on Wednesday. And if they can continue to provide secondary playmaking, they can relieve some of the pressure on Harden and Mitchell.

---

3. Mobley hits timely 3s

Last season, Mobley seemed to have found his jumper, shooting 37% from beyond the arc and making more 3-pointers in 2024-25 (85) than he had in his first three seasons combined (67). But this season, he dropped back down below 30%, and his long-distance shot often looked uncomfortable.

Through the first four games of this series, Mobley was 2-for-11 from beyond the arc. And through the first 35 minutes on Wednesday, he hadn’t attempted a 3-pointer.

And then, as the Raptors went cold on the other end of the floor, Mobley shot 3-for-3 from 3-point range over the final 13 minutes. After three scoreless possessions, he gave the Cavs some life with a wide-open 3 from the left wing off a baseline out-of-bounds play in the final minute of the third.

Early in the fourth, Collin Murray-Boyles helped off of Mobley in the strong-side corner, and Mobley made him pay. A few minutes later, Mobley was seemingly just trying to get out of the way of a Schröder-Harden ball-screen. But Schröder passed him the ball as he cleared out to the left wing. Jakob Poeltl closed out slow and Mobley let it fly …

“We needed them,” Atkinson said of Mobley’s three 3s. “I know that’s not his bread and butter, but he hit ’em with confidence. I thought those 3s were really timely.”

It’s more important that Mobley plays big and finds ways to score inside. But it’s very likely that the Raptors will keep daring him to shoot, and sometimes, that will be the best option.

---

4. Raptors lose Ingram, lose the bench minutes

Ingram left midway through the second quarter after re-aggravating a heel issue that’s been bothering him.

A.J. Lawson started the second half in his place but played just two minutes.

Both in the regular season and in this series, the Raptors have been much better with Barnes on the floor without Ingram, who is now shooting just 19-for-58 (33%) in the playoffs. But his absence obviously compromises the Raptors’ ability to creates shots in their half-court offense.

With Toronto also missing Immanuel Quickley, its depth is also being tested. And in a little less than 19 minutes with either Barnes or RJ Barrett on the bench on Wednesday, the Raptors were outscored by 14 points.

The biggest benefit of the Cavs having both Harden and Mitchell is that they can have at least one on the floor for all 48 minutes, and the same goes for Mobley and Jarrett Allen.

They should continue to have the advantage when both teams have reserves on the floor, and they’ll look to close out the series when it moves back to Toronto for Game 6 on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, Prime Video).

* * *

John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Bluesky.