Victor Oladipo scored 28 points and posted the first postseason triple-double of his career on Friday night, leading the Indiana Pacers to a 121-87 blowout over the Cleveland Cavaliers to even their playoff series at 3-3. Game 7 will be played on Sunday in Cleveland.

The three-time defending Eastern Conference champs again were led by LeBron James with 22 points, seven assists and five rebounds despite sitting out the entire fourth quarter. Nobody else scored more than 13 points as the Cavaliers lost their first closeout game in 14 tries dating to 2009. James had won 11 consecutive closeout games and is 12-0 all-time in the first-round series.

With their season at stake, Indiana played hard, aggressive and tough. And it showed with a record-breaking victory margin.

Kevin Love hurt his left wrist on a hard fall midway through the second quarter and wound up scoring just seven points while shooting 3 of 10 from the field. James took a shot, too, cutting the side of his left eye when he ran into Thaddeus Young’s elbow on a drive late in the first half. No foul was called and James returned with a bandage protecting his face. But with a relaxed Oladipo figuring out how to defeat the Cavs’ double teams, he rediscovered his shooting touch. Oladipo finished with 13 rebounds, 10 assists and was 11 of 19 from the field and 6 of 8 on 3s to keep the Pacers in charge most of the game.

In the West, Donovan Mitchell scored 38 points and the Utah Jazz held off the Oklahoma City Thunder 96-91 in Game 6 to advance to the Conference semi-finals. Russell Westbrook had 46 points for the Thunder and Steven Adams added 19 points and 16 rebounds.

The rookie and the MVP went back and forth in the second half, with Mitchell and the Jazz moving on to face the top-seeded Houston Rockets in a series that starts on Sunday.

Elsewhere, the Toronto Raptors overcame a halftime deficit in a road playoff game for the first time in 24 tries, using 24 points from Kyle Lowry and a tremendous effort from their second unit to beat the Washington Wizards 102-92 in Game 6 and clinch their Eastern Conference first-round series.



Toronto trailed by as many as 12 points in the first quarter and was down 53-50 at the end of the second. The Raptors’ first lead did not come until the third quarter, and they were back down by five points entering the final period. But with star guards Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, who had a personal series-low 16 points, resting to begin the fourth, the reserves led by point guard Fred VanVleet turned around the game. Bothered by a bad right shoulder, VanVleet had played a total of three minutes in the series until Friday, but he was just what Toronto needed in this game, with five points, four assists and four rebounds.

The home team had won each of the first five games of the series, but the Raptors were finally able to break that road hex and close things out. The East’s No1 seed will face the Cavaliers or Pacers next.