N.B.A. Playoffs: Nets Take Opener; Kevin Durant Is Ejected in Warriors’ Win

D'Angelo Russell flashed some postseason enchantment, playing like the All-Star pioneer the Nets required with 26, and Caris LeVert scored 23, driving the meeting Nets to a 111-102 triumph on Saturday over the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff arrangement.

Jimmy Butler scored 36 points and spared the third-seeded Sixers, supported by numerous individuals to at any rate achieve the East elimination rounds, from losing by 25. Joel Embiid trudged his way through 24 minutes on a vexed left knee that cost him a significant part of the last month of the ordinary season and oversaw 22 and 15 bounce back. Ben Simmons came up little against Russell, his secondary school colleague, who scored 19 second-half focuses.

Russell, LeVert and Spencer Dinwiddie gave the Sixers fits off the spill and covered open looks from 3-point go, and a group that got hot late and simply made the playoffs all of a sudden has the high ground out and about over a 51-win group supplied with stars.

"I think prior in the season, particularly when we were battling, we'd lose amusements like that," Nets Coach Kenny Atkinson said.

With Philadelphia behind by 16 late in the final quarter, Amir Johnson was gotten by TV cameras sitting on the seat and looking through his telephone. Johnson, who was latent for the diversion, demonstrated Embiid whatever message was on the telephone and after that slid the gadget into a pocket of his warm-up jeans.

"I just looked down in light of the fact that he said his little girl was very wiped out and he was keeping an eye on her," Embiid said.

Johnson issued a conciliatory sentiment after the diversion, and the Sixers fined him an unspecified sum. It was a fitting scene in an amusement that the Sixers appeared to have called in.

Russell hit a series of jumpers in the second from last quarter, never letting the Sixers truly wear down the lead. LeVert's third 3-pointer in the fourth made it a 16-point amusement, and there was no thinking back for one of the greatest successes since the 6th seeded Nets moved to Brooklyn.

Dinwiddie and DeMarre Carroll made back to back 3-pointers amid a 12-0 first-half run. LeVert hit two straight 3s for an important lead, and the Sixers were soundly booed off the court.

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