Miami Heat

DENVER (AP) &mdash; Gabe Vincent scored 23 points, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo each had 21 and the Miami Heat evened up the NBA Finals by overcoming a monster effort from Nikola Jokic to beat the Denver Nuggets 111-108 in Game 2 on Sunday night.
Max Strus scored 14 and Duncan Robinson had 10 for the Heat, who had a big early lead, then got down by as many as 15 before reclaiming the lead in the fourth. Miami outscored Denver 36-25 in the final period, erasing an eight-point deficit going into the final frame.
And even then, they had to dig deep to finish it off.
Jokic scored 41 points and was 16 of 28 from the floor, the last of those shots a 4-footer with 36 seconds left to get the Nuggets within three.
Denver elected not to foul on the ensuing Miami possession. Butler missed a 3, and with a chance to tie, Jamal Murray missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Murray had 18 points and 10 assists for Denver, while Aaron Gordon had 12 points and Bruce Brown scored 11.
Game 3 is Wednesday in Miami. Denver had been 11-0 with a double-digit lead in the playoffs.
TIP-INS
Heat: Miami changed its starting lineup, with Kevin Love back in the opening five and Caleb Martin &ndash; who missed practice Saturday with an illness &ndash; coming off the bench. &hellip; The Heat got their 13th win of these playoffs, breaking a tie with the 1999 New York Knicks for the most ever by a No. 8 seed.
Nuggets: Denver hadn&rsquo;t lost a game since May 7 &ndash; four weeks ago. &hellip; Nuggets legends Alex English, LaPhonso Ellis (who actually ended his NBA career with Miami) and David Thompson were among those in attendance.
HERRO UPDATE
Injured Heat guard Tyler Herro played 2-on-2 on Saturday as he continues his efforts to try to return from a broken hand at some point in these finals &mdash; but remained out. Herro got hurt in the first half of Game 1 of Round 1 at Milwaukee. His status for Game 3 is unclear.
EXPANSION TALK
Commissioner Adam Silver told NBA TV before the game that negotiations for the next media rights deal are now a priority since the new Collective Bargaining Agreement has been ratified &mdash; and how expansion talk will come after that.
Silver said he thinks the media deal negotiations will begin &ldquo;in earnest probably this next spring.&rdquo; And after that, plans to add franchises will be the next item on the to-do list.
&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have anything specific in mind right now,&rdquo; Silver said. &ldquo;But I think it makes sense over time if you&rsquo;re a successful organization to continue to grow. There&rsquo;s no doubt there&rsquo;s a lot of great cities we&rsquo;re interested in having in the NBA.&rdquo;

The Heat evened up the NBA Finals by overcoming a monster effort from Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 111-108 in Game 2 on Sunday.

Heat roar back late, beat Nuggets 111-108 to even NBA Finals at 1-1

DENVER (AP) &mdash; Slow-starting Gonzaga finally shook off the first-round jitters, then wore out Grand Canyon 82-70 behind 28 points and 10 rebounds from Julian Strawther in the NCAA Tournament on Friday.
Zags senior Drew Timme brought his sweatband and handlebar moustache back to March Madness and finished with 21 points, six rebounds and three blocks for the third-seeded Bulldogs (29-5), who haven&rsquo;t lost a first-round game in the tournament since 2008.
Next up for Gonzaga is a game Sunday against the winner of a later West Region contest between TCU and Arizona State.
Like almost every Zag outside of Strawther, Timme was bottled up and frustrated in the first half, then came out of halftime and looked like a different player. After trailing by as many as seven, Timme&rsquo;s three-point play gave Gonzaga a 48-40 lead early in the second half.
&ldquo;As I walked into the locker room, Drew was talking to guys about &lsquo;Hey, now the jitters are out of the way and now we&rsquo;ve got to play,&rsquo;&rdquo; coach Mark Few said about halftime. &ldquo;I thought we came out, certainly for that first 15 minutes in the second half, and we got back to the plan.&rdquo;
Grand Canyon&rsquo;s Ray Harrison answered Timme&rsquo;s three-point play with a driving layup. After that, Gonzaga went on a 16-0 run during which the 14th-seeded Lopes (24-12),&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/wac-championship-grand-canyon-southern-utah-451bf2a672a8a18636443ed288baf18e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">champions of the Western Athletic Conference</a>, missed 11 straight shots and fell behind by 22.
With the game a laugher, the rowdy &ldquo;Havocs,&rdquo; as the Grand Canyon fans are known, turned their attention to the end of No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson&rsquo;s shocker over No. 1 Purdue playing on the big screen above the court.
But there was no upset in Denver.
&ldquo;I told our guys &lsquo;Eyes on the court. We don&rsquo;t need another circus show going on, we&rsquo;ve got one going on here right now,&rsquo;&rdquo; Timme said.
Harrison led Grand Canyon with 20 points and Chance McMillian had 16. Noah Baumann (eight points) made a pair of 3s during a 12-4 stretch that helped the Lopes to their seven-point lead in the first half.
Strawther, who decided to come back to Gonzaga for his junior season instead of heading to the pros, kept Gonzaga in it early. He scored 16 of his 28 in the first half.
The second half was more of a team effort for Gonzaga, which also got 14 points, 11 rebounds and a rugged defensive effort from Anton Watson that included two steals.
In the end, the game was a&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/gonzaga-saint-marys-west-coast-conference-ncaa-tournament-8309d967f68424b76b6eb8d40e35babc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lot like Gonzaga&rsquo;s season</a>&nbsp;&mdash; slow start, better as things kept going and a chance to do more. The Bulldogs had their 75-game home winning streak snapped in January and this marked the first time since 2018 they came into the tournament as anything other than a No. 1 seed.
&ldquo;I thought we were in a good place going into halftime,&rdquo; Lopes coach Bryce Drew said. &ldquo;But Gonzaga&rsquo;s one of the best programs in the nation for a reason.&rdquo;
NOT AGAIN
Harrison led Grand Canyon, a fifth seed in the WAC tournament, to four straight wins and the March Madness bid by becoming the first Division I player to collect 80 points, 20 rebounds and 20 assists in a conference tournament since Kemba Walker (Big East) in 2011. On Friday, though, Harrison was bottled up. He needed 19 shots to get his 20 points, and finished with two rebounds and three assists.
NOT AGAIN, PART II
This marks the 25th anniversary of Drew&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1eOGcHXsgU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memorable game-winner</a>, when he was a guard for Valparaiso and shot the Crusaders to a 13-over-4 upset over Ole Miss. Nobody had a chance to replicate that for the Lopes, though. Still, this was Grand Canyon&rsquo;s second trip to the tournament since its move to Division I in 2017.
&ldquo;I wish we could skip a lot of steps and upset a team like Gonzaga and make the Sweet 16,&rdquo; Drew said, &ldquo;but in a normal situation, you have to go step by step.&rdquo;
ELLIS&rsquo; KID
With his dad, LaPhonso Ellis, sitting in the stands, Walter Ellis had nine points before fouling out for Grand Canyon. LaPhonso Ellis, the former Notre Dame star, played in Denver for the Nuggets from 1992-98.

Gonzaga wore out Grand Canyon 82-70 behind 28 points and 10 rebounds from Julian Strawther in the NCAA Tournament on Friday.