Blazers make playoffs, oust Grizzlies with 126-122 victory

Portland’s reward: a matchup with the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers starting Tuesday. Jusuf Nurkic had 22 points and 21 rebounds for the winners, who got 21 points from Carmelo Anthony.

“What we’ve done in these two weeks is really special,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “I couldn’t be more proud of a group of guys because we were up against it every game, nine straight games where our season was basically in the balance. … They found a way.”

Morant scored 35 for Memphis, which got a 22-point, 16-rebound day from Jonas Valanciunas and 20 points apiece from Dillon Brooks and Brandon Clarke.

It was the start, and the end, of the Western Conference play-in series — a wrinkle the NBA added to the restarted season because the coronavirus pandemic meant no team would play its allotted 82 games. Portland finished eighth in the West, Memphis was ninth, and the Grizzlies needed to sweep a possible two-game matchup to advance.

“I’m going to be able to sleep and live well during the summer, despite a tough loss, knowing that we put in so much work and we were that close to getting into the playoffs,“ Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said. “These guys, the first words they said when we got in the locker room was, ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do.’”

Nurkic was playing with a heavy heart because of his grandmother’s death in his native Bosnia because of COVID-19.

Lillard was unanimously selected as the “Bubble MVP,” the top player of the NBA’s seeding games at Walt Disney World, after averaging a league-best 37.6 points in the eight games.

Pelicans fire Gentry: The New Orleans Pelicans fired coach Alvin Gentry after the club missed the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.

New Orleans went 30-42 this season, finishing with just two victories in its final eight games despite the presence of top overall draft choice Zion Williamson and first-time All-Star Brandon Ingram in the lineup until the club was eliminated from playoff contention with two games to play.

Gentry, 65, came to New Orleans from Golden State, where he was the top assistant under Steve Kerr when the Warriors won the 2015 NBA title. He went 175-225, with the Pelicans making the playoffs in Gentry’s third season — sweeping Portland in the first round before falling to the eventual champion Warriors in the second.

The Pelicans were derailed the following season by a combination of injuries and the trade demand from the face of the franchise, Anthony Davis.