NBA playoffs Tuesday: Heat blow out Nets in opener

Portland shot just 37.8 percent, going 4-of-16 from beyond the arc. San Antonio did an especially good job stopping the Blazers’ flow offense, limiting Portland to just nine assists in total.

Game 2 is at 9:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 8 in San Antonio and will air on ESPN 2.

Game 2 is at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 8 in Miami and will air on ESPN 2.

Durant was particularly grateful for the support his teammates have showed him this season, and throughout his career.

Durant was especially appreciative of his mother, Wanda. He credited her as the reason he was able to take home the first MVP award of his career.

Portland got here in dramatic fashion. The Spurs? Not so much. But both were late to the party. After Damian Lillard hit a much needed game-winning shot on Friday, it was San Antonio that needed seven games to beat the Dallas Mavericks, 119-96, on Sunday.

The Trail Blazers haven’t been to the second round in 14 years, which stands in stark contrast to their second-round opponents. Against Houston, every game for Portland was decided within the last five minutes of the fourth quarter, with Lillard’s big bucket with 0.9 seconds left lifting them to the semifinals, to the celebration of the city around them.

Thus far, the acquisitions of Pierce and Garnett have proved fruitful against Miami. The Nets won all four regular-season meetings this season, and they’ll look to continue that success when they get together in the Eastern Conference semifinals. History is on Brooklyn’s side: No team that has gone 4-0 in a regular-season series has gone on to lose a postseason series between the same two teams.

Just how did the Nets manage to beat the two-time defending champions four times in a row? All four games were close, with Brooklyn winning three of the contests by one point, and the fourth by nine points in double-overtime. During the first two games in Brooklyn, the Heat made fourth-quarter charges only to come up short. The second game was the double-overtime affair, when Miami erased a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit to create a tie game at the end of regulation.

7:30 p.m. ET (TNT)

9:30 p.m. ET (TNT)