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"We Didn't Want to Fly Back": Wembanyama's Spurs March On, Embiid's 33 Keeps Sixers Alive, Brunson's 39 Puts Hawks on the Brink
Three games. Three cities. Three statements. NBA playoff basketball does not do quiet nights, and Tuesday delivered a triple-header of consequence: the San Antonio Spurs put Portland to the sword and advanced to the second round for the first time in nine years; the Philadelphia 76ers, written off for dead at 3-1 down, went into Boston and silenced a TD Garden crowd that had arrived expecting a coronation; and the New York Knicks completed their reassertion of authority over an Atlanta Hawks team that had briefly dared to dream of an upset. What follows is how each contest unfolded — and what each portends for the games to come.
San Antonio Spurs 114, Portland Trail Blazers 95 (Spurs win series 4-1)
There are worse motivations for closing out a playoff series than the simple, human desire to avoid a four-hour flight. Julian Champagnie, who scored 19 points on a scorching 5-for-7 from three-point range, admitted as much after the Spurs' wire-to-wire demolition of the Trail Blazers at the Frost Bank Center. "That was kind of the emphasis for the guys on the team. We just didn't want to fly back to Portland," he said with a grin. "Being up 3-1 and playing at home, it's a good chance to close it out and not go back. So, that was all of the motivation we needed tonight."
The Spurs opened with a 17-4 blitz — eight of those points belonging to Champagnie — and never looked back. Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 French center who has transformed this franchise, posted 17 points, 14 rebounds, and six blocks — the kind of stat line that is becoming so routine for the MVP finalist that it barely registers as extraordinary. Yet his presence was felt in ways the box score cannot fully capture. In the final minutes, with Portland mounting a desperate rally that had cut a 28-point deficit to nine, Wembanyama swatted Deni Avdija's floater off the top of the backboard and into the crowd — a rejection so emphatic that it effectively ended the Trail Blazers' season.
De'Aaron Fox scored 13 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter — a clinic in game management that ensured Portland's brief 11-0 run would amount to nothing more than a statistical footnote. Dylan Harper added 17 points as San Antonio won its third straight game to advance to the Western Conference semifinals for the first time since 2017 — a season that ended with Kawhi Leonard's ankle injury and a sweep at the hands of Golden State. The Spurs will face the winner of the Denver Nuggets-Minnesota Timberwolves series, which the Timberwolves lead 3-2 heading into Game 6 on Thursday.
"It's extremely difficult," Portland coach Tiago Splitter said of Wembanyama's defense. "You've got to do a lot of tricks and try to set back screens and seals and spin actions. It's not easy, because he can contest the three and the rim at the same time, basically. He's going to create a lot of problems for a lot of teams for a long time." That is, for Portland, a problem for another day. For San Antonio, it is the foundation on which a championship contender is being built.
Philadelphia 76ers 113, Boston Celtics 97 (Celtics lead series 3-2)
Nineteen days ago, Joel Embiid was on an operating table, undergoing an emergency appendectomy that was supposed to end his season — and with it, any remaining hope Philadelphia harboured of escaping the first round. On Tuesday night at TD Garden, with his team facing elimination and his body still visibly recovering, the reigning MVP delivered 33 points and eight assists in a performance that Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey could only describe with one word: "dominant."
The numbers tell only part of the story. Embiid started 1-for-6 from the field and managed just two points in the first quarter. From that point forward, he was almost unstoppable — 13 in the second, 10 in the third, and eight in the fourth, when Philadelphia went on a devastating 12-0 run that transformed a fragile three-point lead into a 15-point blowout. He finished 11-for-16 over the final three quarters, shrugging off the kind of physical defence that Boston's Jaylen Brown later admitted was insufficient. "I feel like he had too many easy baskets," Brown said. "We've got to make him work."
Maxey added 25 points and 10 rebounds, Paul George contributed 16 points and nine boards, and Quentin Grimes was the difference-maker off the bench with 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including four three-pointers. The Celtics, by contrast, disintegrated in the fourth quarter: Joe Mazzulla's team shot 3-for-22 from the field, were outscored 28-11, and watched Jayson Tatum (24 points, 16 rebounds) and Jaylen Brown (22 points) combine for a grand total of two points in the final twelve minutes.
Game 6 is Thursday in Philadelphia. Game 7, if necessary, would be Saturday back in Boston. The Celtics remain in control of the series, but the momentum — that fickle, intangible quality that can define a playoff run — has shifted north. For the Sixers, one more victory would force a winner-take-all contest in a building where they have already won once this series. For Boston, the spectre of a 3-1 collapse — the kind that has haunted this franchise before — is now a living, breathing possibility.
New York Knicks 126, Atlanta Hawks 97 (Knicks lead series 3-2)
And then there is the series that has become, in the space of a week, a study in how quickly playoff fortunes can shift. The Atlanta Hawks, having stolen Game 2 in New York and held off the Knicks in a tense Game 3, were 2-1 up and dreaming of a genuine upset. They have since been beaten by 16 points in Atlanta and by 29 at Madison Square Garden — a 126-97 demolition in which Jalen Brunson scored 39 points and the Knicks never allowed the lead to slip below double digits in the second half.
Brunson, who had not cracked 30 points in any of the first four games, exploded for 17 in the fourth quarter alone. Karl-Anthony Towns posted 16 points, 14 rebounds, and six assists; OG Anunoby added 17 points and 10 boards. The Knicks made eight of their first 12 shots, broke the game open with a 9-0 run late in the first quarter, led 64-48 at halftime after shooting 58.5% from the field, and put the contest beyond doubt with a 12-0 spurt early in the fourth. The Hawks, by contrast, have been held under 100 points in back-to-back games for the first time since December.
"It's the playoffs. Teams are going to throw stuff at you. It's not going to feel good. You've got to be able to get wins when it feels nasty," Hawks guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker said after the loss. "We did in Game 2. We did in Game 3. Now it's our turn to respond." But the Knicks have reestablished order — and physical dominance — since those narrow Atlanta victories. New York can close out the series Thursday night at State Farm Arena. If the pattern of the past two games holds, the Hawks will need something they have not yet shown they possess: an answer to the cumulative weight of a stronger, more experienced opponent. Game 6 is on Thursday in Atlanta, with a potential Game 7 scheduled for Saturday at Madison Square Garden.
A Night That Reshaped the Postseason
The Spurs are through, the first team to book a second-round berth, and Wembanyama has now officially arrived as a playoff force. The Sixers are alive, improbably, because their franchise center delivered a performance that defied medical logic. And the Knicks are one win from the second round because they remembered, when it mattered most, who they are: the bigger, stronger, more playoff-tested team. Three series. Three statements. And the best part — the part that makes the NBA playoffs the most compelling drama in professional sport — is that none of these stories has reached its final chapter.
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