Revitalized Roy Hibbert returned to his All-Star form and the Indiana Pacers pulled even. Hibbert had 28 points on 10-of-13 shooting with nine rebounds and the top-seeded the Pacers beat the visiting sixth-seeded Washington Wizards, 86-82 on Wednesday night to knot their Eastern Conference semi-final series at one-apiece. Mired in a late-season flunk, Hibbert had averaged an anaemic 4.6 points and 3.3 rebounds in Indiana’s first eight play-off games, including a pair of scoreless contests. Heavily criticized for failing to score a point or grab a rebound in Monday’s 102-96 game one loss, the 7-foot-2 centre bounced back on Wednesday.
“I just haven’t been aggressive as I should have in the past,” Hibbert said. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to get going and I was making a lot of excuses. So I decided to take it into my hands and turn it around.
“Tonight I had one thing on my mind and that was to win. My team-mates got the ball to me in the sweet spot and they believed in me.”
George Hill scored 14 points, Lance Stephenson added 12 and Paul George added 11 for the Pacers. Marcin Gortat had 21 points with 11 rebounds and Bradley Beal scored 17 for the Wizards, who dropped their first play-off road game after opening 4-0.
Washington led 77-74 lead with five minutes and one second left to play but was outscored 8-2 as layups by Hibbert and Hill ignited the burst.
George capped it with an emphatic two-handed dunk and layup around a basket by Gortat at the other end to put the Pacers on top for good 82-79 with 2:58 left.
Hill then stripped John Wall on a drive to the basket, and Stevenson later splashed down a straight away jumper with 21.4 seconds left to make it a five-point advantage.
Beal buried a three-pointer to pull the Wizards within 84-82 with 11 seconds to play, but the Pacers’ David West sealed the win with two free throws.
Thunder beat Clippers
Freshly-minted league MVP Kevin Durant collected 32 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists, while Russell Westbrook had 31 points, 10 boards and 10 assists for his third playoff triple-double in five games, as the Thunder rolled the visiting Clippers (112-101) to square their Western Conference semi-final series 1-1.
Serge Ibaka and Thabo Sefolosha scored 14 points apiece for the second-seeded Thunder.
J.R. Redick scored 18 points, Chris Paul had 17 with 11 assists for the Clippers, who got 15 points from Blake Griffin.
