NBA play-off injury fears for Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ja Morant while Los Angeles Lakers win

MILWAUKEE – Top seeds in the East, the Milwaukee Bucks, and second seeds in the West, the Memphis Grizzlies, both suffered home defeats in their National Basketball Association (NBA) play-off openers on Sunday.

More worryingly, they saw their franchise players Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ja Morant respectively exit with injuries.

Rui Hachimura came off the bench to match an NBA record for reserve scoring with 29 points and lead the Los Angeles Lakers in a 128-112 win over the Grizzlies at the FedExForum.

The Lakers’ closing 30-11 run came mostly with the Grizzlies reeling after Morant fell on the court midway into the fourth quarter on his already injured right hand and ran to the locker room.

Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said after the game that X-rays on Morant’s right hand were negative.

“He’s in some pain,” Jenkins said but, as for Morant’s status for Game 2 on Wednesday in Memphis, he only added: “Taking it one game at a time.”

Morant admitted his availability for Game 2 of the first round, best-of-seven series was “in jeopardy”.

“(It is) tough, man, especially with everything I’ve been through this season,” said the 23-year-old All-Star guard.

In March, he was handed an eight-game suspension after brandishing a gun during a social media livestream at a strip club.

“My main focus was to be out there for my guys. It’s another incident where that’s pretty much in jeopardy.”

Austin Reaves, making his play-off debut, scored 14 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter for the Lakers, while Anthony Davis had 22 points, 12 rebounds and seven blocks. LeBron James contributed 21 points, 11 rebounds and five assists, and D’Angelo Russell added 19 points and a game-high seven assists.

It was the first time since 1988 that the Lakers had four players with 20 or more points in a play-off game.

“(We were) Just playing hard. We’ve got guys who have been in this position, LeBron, AD, big-time players. Rui played hard. It was all about just closing the game. We were right there the whole game. It was a game of runs. We’ve got those guys to close games. It was a great team win,” Reaves said.

Jaren Jackson Jr led the Grizzlies with 31 points, while Desmond Bane added 22 and Morant scored 18 with six rebounds during his 30 minutes.

In Milwaukee, Antetokounmpo fell driving to the hoop and suffered a lower back bruise that forced him out of the Bucks’ opener against the Miami Heat, who won 130-117.

The Greek star went to the locker room, came back to the sidelines but was unable to return to the game, which the Heat led 68-55 at half-time at the Fiserv Forum.

Two-time Most Valuable Player Antetokounmpo averaged 31.1 points and 11.8 rebounds this season, ranking in the NBA’s top five in both categories for a Bucks squad who had an NBA-best 58-24 record.

Morant averaged 26.2 points.

“There was an X-ray that was clear here,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said, “so we’ll monitor him, see how he does (on Monday).”

“He just wasn’t moving, didn’t look comfortable, confident, so it felt like the right thing to remove him... We’ve been blessed with him being incredibly resilient and quick to heal, but you’ve just got to take it day by day.”

Bucks guard Jrue Holiday told ESPN: “We don’t want him to be hurt, but it’s still next-man-up mentality. We have enough talent on this team to cover for him until he comes back.”

Miami guard Tyler Herro also broke his right hand while diving for a loose ball in the second quarter.

Jimmy Butler had 35 points and 11 assists, while Bam Adebayo scored 22 points for the eighth-seeded Heat, who were playing less than 48 hours after beating the Chicago Bulls in a play-in elimination game.

Kevin Love had 18, Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent added 15 apiece and Herro scored 12 before his injury.

Antetokounmpo had six points and three rebounds in his 11 minutes. Khris Middleton led Milwaukee with 33 points, Bobby Portis Jr had 21 points, Holiday added 16 points and 16 assists, Grayson Allen scored 12 and Brook Lopez had 10. AFP, REUTERS