named this season’s defensive player of the year<\/a>, added six blocks for San Antonio.<\/p>\n“[They are] a great basketball team,” added Portland coach Tiago Splitter. “They have a superstar that changed the game. They deserve it.”<\/p>\n
The Spurs will face either the Denver Nuggets or Minnesota Timberwolves next, with the Timberwolves leading the series 3-2.<\/p>\n
In the Eastern Conference, Joel Embiid scored 33 points as the Philadelphia 76ers won 113-97 at the Boston Celtics to keep their series alive.<\/p>\n
Embiid was playing his second game since undergoing an emergency appendectomy on 9 April and helped the Sixers cut their series deficit to 3-2.<\/p>\n
If they can win game six in Philadelphia on Thursday, the series will go to a decider at second seed Boston on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“I found my rhythm in the second half,” Embiid said. “We adjusted some stuff at half-time and got a win. That’s all that matters.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to need everybody to come back to Boston.”<\/p>\n
The winners will face either the New York Knicks or Atlanta Hawks, with third seed New York leading 3-2 after a 126-97 home win.<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson scored 17 of his 39 points in the fourth quarter to keep the Knicks clear while London-born team-mate OG Anunoby claimed 17 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
If Atlanta win at home on Thursday, they will return to New York for a series decider on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama claimed a double-double to help the San Antonio Spurs secure their first series win in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-635933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}