Nets beat Cavs 118-107, move into tie for 7th in East

NEW YORK — Kevin Durant scored 36 points, leading a pair of fourth-quarter surges that carried the Brooklyn Nets into a tie for seventh place in the Eastern Conference with a 118-107 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night.

The Nets caught the Cavaliers at 43-38 with a game remaining and clinched the tiebreaker. They will finish seventh if they beat Indiana on Sunday in their final regular-season game. The No. 7 team hosts No. 8 on Tuesday, moving into the playoffs with a victory.

The loser of the 7-8 game has a second shot at the postseason by beating the winner of the game between the Nos. 9 and 10 teams on Friday.

Kyrie Irving shook off a poor shooting night to finish with 18 points, eight assists and six rebounds. Bruce Brown had 18 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists for the Nets, who won their third straight. Andre Drummond had 15 points and 12 rebounds.

Darius Garland scored 31 points for the Cavaliers, who dropped their third straight. They got rookie Evan Mobley back after a five-game absence with a sprained left ankle but are still missing All-Star center Jarrett Allen because of a broken finger that has sidelined him nearly a month.

HORNETS 133, BULLS 117

CHICAGO — LaMelo Ball scored 24 points and Charlotte ran away from Chicago.

The Hornets — 10th in the Eastern Conference and a game behind Brooklyn and Atlanta coming in — barely broke a sweat in this one. They led 79-51 through the first two quarters, the most points allowed in a half this season by Chicago, and handed the listless Bulls their fourth straight loss.

Charlotte shot 60.5% and made 19 of 40 3-pointers, with Ball setting the tone. The All-Star point guard did all his scoring in the first half. He made 8 of 16 shots in the game, including 5 of 9 3-pointers, and finished with nine assists in 29 minutes.

Miles Bridges scored 20, and the Hornets snapped a five-game losing streak against Chicago. Zach LaVine led the Bulls with 23 points.

BUCKS 131, PISTONS 101

DETROIT — Giannis Antetokounmpo had 30 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists to help Milwaukee rout Detroit.

Averaging 29.9 points, Antetokounmpo needs 35 points or more Sunday in the season finale at Cleveland to join Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only Milwaukee players to average 30 points for a season.

Brook Lopez added 17 points, and Khris Middleton had 15. The defending champion Bucks led by 32 points en route to their third straight victory. They improved to 51-30.

Rodney McGruder had a career-high 26 points for Detroit. Saddiq Bey (20) and Cade Cunningham (14) were the only starters to reach double figures.

The Pistons missed 15 of their first 16 field-goal attempts, falling behind 23-4. Detroit finished with an NBA-season-low eight points in the first quarter, falling behind by 22.

HEAT 113, HAWKS 109

MIAMI — Bam Adebayo made the go-ahead dunk with 27 seconds remaining and scored 27 points in Miami’s comeback victory over Atlanta.

Jimmy Butler added 20 points, Kyle Lowry finished with 16 points and Tyler Herro had 15 for the Heat. They finished on a 10-2 run. Danilo Galinari’s 3-point attempt for Atlanta with nine seconds left bounced off the rim and Herro’s two free throws secured the victory.

It was the first of two meaningless games, standings-wise at least, for Miami to finish the regular season. The Heat were locked into the No. 1 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs on Thursday and know that they’ll play Game 1 of a first-round series at home on April 17 against either Cleveland, Brooklyn, Charlotte or Atlanta, which dropped into a tie for ninth with Charlotte.

Trae Young scored 35 points for Atlanta.

MAVERICKS 128, TRAIL BLAZERS 78

DALLAS — Luka Doncic had 39 points, 11 rebounds and his 16th technical foul of the season for Dallas, which will open the playoffs at home for the first time since 2011 after routing Portland.

The Mavericks will play their regular-season finale Sunday without Doncic, unless the technical foul is rescinded by the NBA office. If upheld, his 16th of the season means an automatic one-game suspension.

Drew Eubanks had 18 points for the Trail Blazers.

RAPTORS 117, ROCKETS 115

TORONTO — Pascal Siakam had 29 points and 10 rebounds, Gary Trent Jr. made the winning layup with 4.8 seconds left and Toronto beat Houston.

Trent added 26 points for the Raptors in their home finale. With one game left in the regular season, they will be no worse than the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference.

Kevin Porter Jr. had 35 points and 10 rebounds for Houston. Rockets lost their sixth in a row and finished with NBA-worst 9-32 road record.

KNICKS 114, WIZARDS 92

WASHINGTON — Obi Toppin scored a career-high 35 points and New York beat Washington,

RJ Barrett scored 14 points for the Knicks before leaving the game with a sprained right knee. Rui Hachimura led Washington with 21 points.

Both teams are eliminated from playoff contention.