The Phoenix Suns defeated the New Orleans Pelicans 114-111 in Game 3 of the NBA Western Conference first-round playoffs at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on Friday, leading the series again 2-1.

The Suns missed their top scorer Devin Booker in Friday's game because of hamstring strain. According to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, Booker will stay away for two to three weeks. Without an All-Star guard who has averaged 26.8 points and 4.8 assists during the regular season, the Suns had to rely more on 36-year-old Chris Paul for both orchestrating and scoring.

The Pelicans made Paul's job even more difficult by targeting him offensively from the beginning, like they did in Game 2. In many people's memories, Paul, despite his 1.83-meter height, has been a solid defender. However, having played 17 seasons in the league, even Paul doesn't have enough strength to stop the young legs on defense while carrying the team on offense.

Aging has taken away Paul's athleticism, but also enriched his basketball wisdom. Instead of going full power offensively for ego fight with youngsters from the beginning, Paul did his best to feed his big man teammates. Having scored only nine points in the first three quarters, Paul delivered 12 assists during the same period of time, helping Deandre Ayton shoot 13-of-18 from the field to get 28 points. JaVale McGee had 13 points as well.

The above way of running the game by Paul made Ayton and McGee enthusiastic enough to invest their best efforts in defense in the final quarter, even though they didn't get enough chance to score. Moreover, Paul has saved strength to take over the scoring duty when the Suns needed him to.

That's why Paul was able to punish Jonas Valanciunas and even Larry Nance Jr. by making seven middle-range jumpers to get 19 points in the fourth quarter. Having dropped a total of 28 points and 14 assists without any turnover in Friday's game, Paul now has 51 10+assists playoffs games, the four-most in league history. He has delivered at least 10 assists without turnover in seven postseason games, the most in history.

Nonetheless, Friday's win didn't come easily for the Suns in spite of Paul's epic performance. The charging of Herbert Jones and Jose Alvarado against the Suns' paint revealed that the team's defense was not impregnable. C.J. McCollum may not be as explosive as Paul in one quarter, but he could pose an offensive threat during every minute he was on the court. Valanciunas and Nance Jr. are not productive scores, but the two combined eight offensive rebounds, encouraging their perimeter teammates to shoot decisively when they had the chance.

And then there's Brandon Ingram, who scored 21 of his 34 points in the second half. When he was making four fadeaway jumpers in the third quarter, his image reminded you of Kevin Durant in his "reaper" mode. The Pelicans trailed by nine points (106-97) with less than 50 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. Usually that's what an irreversible situation looks like, but Ingram put the suspense back in place by draining two 3-pointers and making three free throws.

If he had shot more than one field goal (FG) in the final quarter before the last minute, the game could have looked very different for the Pelicans.

Game 4 of the series will still happen at Smoothie King Center on Sunday.

'Ice Trae' refuses to surrender at home

The Atlanta Hawks upset the Miami Heat 111-110 in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference first-round playoffs at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Friday, cutting their deficit to 2-1 in the series.

Trae Young dropped court-high 24 points and eight assists for the Hawks. The last shot he made was a signature floater of his over five-time All-Defensive Second Team member Jimmy Butler with 4.4 seconds to go.

Young shot only 3-for-9 on the floor in the first three quarters. The Heat studied his game too well to leave any breach for him to exploit. Half of his 14 points before the fourth quarter came from free throws. The opponents were willing to test his outside shooting, but whenever Young tried to cross the 3-point line, he would find Butler, Kyle Lowry, P.J. Tucker or Bam Adebayo was staring at him with hostility.

The three triples Bogdan Bogdanovic made in the fourth quarter distracted some of the Heat's defensive attention. The exit of Lowry because of hamstring injury also reduced the defensive pressure on Young. In the Hawks' last offensive possession, Young received the ball from Bogdanovic and faced Tucker from the back court. Young didn't call the team's last timeout because the Heat failed to reach agreement on how to defend him in transition. He beat Tucker by speeding up and threw the ball high enough so Butler couldn't block it before the floater fall into the hoop.

The Heat had the chance to extend their lead of the series to a desperate 3-0 because no team in NBA history has ever come back from 3-0 deficit in the playoffs. After a 21-0 run in five minutes in the third quarter, they already led by 16 points (84-68).

However, the Heat missed all of their six FG attempts and committed three turnovers in the rest time of the third quarter. They made five 3-pointers in the fourth quarter but that seemed to be the only thing they did right. The team wasted their size advantage by shooting 4-of-9 in the paint and earning no free throw at all.

Coach Erik Spoelstra said he doesn't know how severe Lowry's injury is. If Lowry misses more than one game, the Heat will miss more than the 8.3 points and 5.3 assists he contributed on average. They will also lose their best perimeter defender.

Game 4 of the series will take place at the same arena on Sunday.

Bucks to Bulls: We are the reigning champions

The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls in 111-81 in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference first-round playoffs at United Center in Chicago, again leading 2-1 in the series.

The Bucks missed Khris Middleton, one of their "Big Three," in Friday's game due to a sprained knee. He hopes to return in two weeks.

Coach Mike Budenholzer made a bold decision by starting with three big men, Brook Lopez, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis. That might seem like a suicidal move in today's NBA, but the Bulls, which were one of the league's least productive teams in 3-pointers, failed to punish their opponents from downtown.

While the Bulls shot as badly as 9-for-34 at the 3-point line, the Bulls felt further safer closing in around the paint defensively and stopping at nothing to trap DeMar DeRozan.

DeRozan, who made 16 FGs to score 41 points in Game 2, took only nine attempts from the floor and got only 11 points on Friday night. Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic and Alex Caruso couldn't change the Bucks defense from outside, neither did they score much inside. The whole team of the Bulls were limited to only 30 points in the paint.

By contrast, the Bucks drained 15 triples and scored 46 points in the paint. They dominated the Bulls completely on both offense and defense.

Game 4 of the series will happen at United Center again on Sunday.