AFP/Oakland, California

Kevin Durant shook off criticism to score 36 points on Thursday as the Oklahoma City Thunder extended their NBA season with an emphatic 104-84 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Thunder, facing elimination in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series, thumped the Grizzlies to level the set at three games apiece.
The decisive game seven will be in Oklahoma City on Saturday, when the Los Angeles Clippers will host the Golden State Warriors in a winner-take-all game seven after the Warriors staved off elimination in their first-round series with a 100-99 triumph in Oakland.
Stephen Curry scored 24 points and handed out nine assists for the Warriors.
Andre Iguodala added 15 points and Draymond Green finished with 14 points, 14 rebounds, five steals and four assists for Golden State, who overcame a lackluster 39.3% shooting from the field.
Jamal Crawford scored 19 points off the bench and Matt Barnes added 18 points and 11 assists for the Clippers, whose playoff campaign has been shadowed by the controversy surrounding owner Donald Sterling.
Sterling was banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5mn dollars on Tuesday for racist remarks that became public at the weekend. On Thursday, NBA owners began the process of trying to force him to sell the team.
In Oklahoma City, where The Oklahoman newspaper Thursday ran a headline dubbing Durant “Mr. Unreliable” in the wake of some sub-par scoring performances in this series.
Readers were so irked that the newspaper apologised, saying the headline “missed the mark”.
It may have hit home with Durant, who said before the game he needed to be more aggressive.
Durant, the NBA regular-season scoring champion and front-runner for Most Valuable Player honours, did just that, scoring 14 points in the first quarter alone as the Thunder seized control of the contest.
Thunder coach Scott Brooks said the headline flap “had no bearing on Kevin”.
“He doesn’t need outside influences to motivate him. You don’t get to this level as an NBA player as he is to have other people motivate you. He’s self-motivated.”
With their season on the brink, all of the Thunder players were.
They led 56-41 at halftime and kept the Grizzlies on their heels throughout the second half. Their decisive win was the first game in the series not to go to overtime.
Durant also pulled down 10 rebounds and made 14 of his 15 free throw attempts.
Russell Westbrook added 25 points for Oklahoma City, whose last first-round playoff exit was in 2010.
Memphis shot just 37.3% from the field.
Marc Gasol’s 17 points led Memphis, who who also got 16 points and eight rebounds from Zach Randolph.
The rest of the Grizzlies starters combined to shoot just 4-of-18 from the field.
Adding to the Grizzlies’ worries, Mike Conley departed in the third quarter with a right hamstring strain.
He returned in the fourth quarter but quickly left again, unable to continue.
Pacers rally to extend series against Hawks

The Indiana Pacers rallied from a five-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat Atlanta 95-88 on Thursday and stay alive in the NBA playoffs.
The Pacers, the top seeds in the Eastern Conference, knotted the best-of-seven first-round series at three games apiece, giving themselves a chance to triumph on their home court in game seven on Saturday.
“We had to get this game to get back to our building,” said Pacers forward David West, who scored half of his 24 points in the fourth quarter.
West finished with 11 rebounds and six assists. His driving jump shot with 46.5 seconds left broke an 85-85 deadlock and ignited an 8-0 scoring run that let the Pacers seize control of the contest.
“I thought we did a great job just closing the show,” West said.
Paul George scored 24 points and pulled down eight rebounds, while Lance Stephenson added 21 points and nine rebounds in the season-saving victory.
Nine of George’s points came in the fourth quarter, in which Indiana out-scored Atlanta 31-21.
Atlanta received 29 points from Jeff Teague and a monster 16-point, 18-rebound effort out of Paul Millsap.
But the Hawks couldn’t find the same success from three-point range that they displayed in Monday’s 107-97 victory.
In game five, the Hawks connected on 15-of-27 attempts from beyond the arc, but went just nine-of-35 on three-point attempts as they failed to close out the series.
“We didn’t play our best on either end,” said Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer. “That’s the challenge going forward.”
The Hawks, the only team to make this year’s playoffs with a losing regular-season record, are trying to become just the sixth bottom seed to topple a top seed in the opening round.
Although the Pacers will have the advantage of home court in Saturday’s winner-take-all showdown, they have never advanced in 10 prior tries when they trailed in a series 3-2.
Teague scored on back-to-back possessions to give Atlanta an 84-79 lead with 3:16 to go.
After West drained two free throws, the Hawks turned the ball over on their next possession and West sank a jumper and George Hill converted a layup that put Indiana up 85-84 with less than two minutes to play.
It was tied again after Pero Antic made one of two free throws for the Hawks, but the Pacers’ Ian Mahinmi pulled down a key rebound to set up West’s go-ahead basket in the final minute.
“Man, we gave this one away,” Millsap said. “We gift-wrapped it and now we’ve got to go in and take our gift back.”