TORONTO — John Wall had 26 points and 17 assists, Bradley Beal scored 28 points and Washington beat Toronto 117-106 on Tuesday night to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.
TORONTO — John Wall had 26 points and 17 assists, Bradley Beal scored 28 points and Washington beat Toronto 117-106 on Tuesday night to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.
Marcin Gortat scored 16 points, Otto Porter had 15 and Paul Pierce added 10 for the Wizards, who host Game 3 on Friday night.
Jonas Valanciunas had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Sixth Man Award winner Lou Williams scored 20 points for the Raptors, who have lost four straight playoff games over the past two seasons.
Washington lost 15 of its final 19 regular season road games, but has won seven of eight away from home in the playoffs over the past two years.
DeMar DeRozan scored 20 points, Patrick Patterson had 15 and Amir Johnson added 10 for Toronto, which has won just one playoff series in six previous postseason appearances.
CAVALIERS 99, CELTICS 91
CLEVELAND — LeBron James scored 30 points, Kyrie Irving added 26 and Cleveland finally shook off Boston in the fourth quarter to take a 2-0 lead in their opening-round series.
James scored 15 points in the fourth quarter, moved past Hall of Famer Jerry West on the career playoff scoring list and made sure the Cavs didn’t slip up at home. He and Irving combined for all of Cleveland’s 24 points in the final period.
Timofey Mozgov added 16 points and Tristan Thompson had 11 rebounds for Cleveland.
Isaiah Thomas scored 22 points for the Celtics, whose bench outscored Cleveland’s 51-7.
Game 3 is Thursday night in Boston.
ROCKETS 111, MAVERICKS 99
HOUSTON — Dwight Howard scored 28 points and James Harden added 24 to help Houston coast to a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference playoff series.
Howard and Josh Smith dominated early in the fourth quarter to help the Rockets pull away.
The Mavericks scored the first four points of the fourth quarter to take a three-point lead. But with Harden on the bench, Houston scored the next 11 points, powered by three alley-oop passes from Smith to Howard, to take a 92-84 lead with about 8 minutes left.
Smith finished with 15 points, nine assists and eight rebounds.
Monta Ellis had 24 points for Dallas, which hosts Game 3 on Friday night.