Every NBA conference semifinal series moves to a lower seed’s home floor this weekend with the bracket evenly poised between rescue and rout, two of the four matchups tied 1-1 after road stolen wins and the other two opening with 2-0 deficits the trailing teams will spend the next four days trying to erase before the third round comes into view.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, returning home tied 1-1 after splitting the opening pair against the Milwaukee Bucks, host Game 3 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Friday night, with tip-off scheduled for 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Hours later in Oklahoma City, the Thunder will host the top-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves at Paycom Center, also tied at a game apiece after a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander step-back jumper sent Wednesday’s Game 2 to overtime and another five-point Thunder run won it. That tip-off is set for 9:30 p.m. on TNT.

Cleveland leans heavily on Donovan Mitchell, who has scored at least 30 in five straight playoff games and finished Wednesday’s win in Milwaukee with 41 and nine rebounds. Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said Friday morning that center Jarrett Allen, who was a game-time decision in Game 2 with a hyperextended left elbow, would start Game 3 and that the team had spent its off-day “drilling Plan B and Plan C” against the Bucks’ interior coverage.

“We took one in their building, and that is meaningful, but it is also worth nothing if we are not better on Friday than we were Wednesday,” Atkinson told reporters at the Cavaliers’ practice facility. “Milwaukee is going to look different. They always do after a loss. We have to be ready to be the team that adjusts second.”

Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, who shot 4 of 10 from the free-throw line in Game 2, was a full participant in Thursday’s practice in Cleveland, head coach Doc Rivers said. Damian Lillard, who returned from his Achilles strain in Game 2 and logged 19 minutes off the bench, is expected to play closer to a 24-to-28-minute starter’s load on Friday, Rivers said, depending on how the rotation handles foul trouble.

In the West, the Thunder’s overtime steal in Minneapolis flipped a homecourt advantage that had looked, after the Wolves rolled in Game 1, like the cleanest of the second-round matchups. Gilgeous-Alexander has averaged 36 points and nine assists through the postseason and was on the floor for all 53 minutes Wednesday; head coach Mark Daigneault said Friday morning that his All-NBA guard had “responded normally” to a heavy two-day workload and would play his usual rotation.

The other two series resume from 0-2 holes. The Indiana Pacers, who eliminated the defending-champion Boston Celtics in the opening round, dropped both games in Boston and return to Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Saturday night with point guard Tyrese Haliburton playing through a left wrist sprain. Head coach Rick Carlisle, asked Friday whether his star had been honest about the injury’s effect on his shooting, said only that Haliburton would be “available and useful.” The Los Angeles Clippers, who have not led for a single minute against the Denver Nuggets through two games, host Game 3 at Crypto.com Arena on Friday night at 10 p.m. on ESPN.

“You’d rather be the team going home up 2-0, of course, but Cleveland and Oklahoma City did the hardest thing in basketball, which is to win a playoff game on the road as the lower seed,” said Marcus Yi, a senior NBA analyst at StubHub. “If they hold their floors this weekend, you could have a third round with two No. 4 seeds in it, and the league has not seen that since 1995.”

Television ratings for the second round’s opening night Wednesday averaged 5.6 million viewers across the two ABC games and 4.1 million across the two TNT games, the league said in a release Thursday evening, a 17 percent increase over the comparable Wednesday in the 2025 second round. ESPN said the Lakers’ Game 7 loss in Phoenix on Tuesday drew 8.1 million viewers, the largest non-Finals NBA audience since 2019. The Lakers’ offseason, in what LeBron James confirmed last month would be his final NBA season, formally begins next week.

Major League Baseball, which entered May on Friday morning, completed its first full month with three of the six division leads inside three games. The Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles share the top of the American League at 19-9 apiece, with Detroit opening a three-game weekend series in Toronto on Friday night and Baltimore hosting the Boston Red Sox. The Cincinnati Reds, at 18-10, lead the National League Central by two games over the Milwaukee Brewers; the Los Angeles Dodgers, 19-10, hold a two-game NL West edge over the San Diego Padres.

The New York Yankees, 9-19 and last in the American League East after losing 11 of their last 14, optioned outfielder Spencer Jones to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Friday morning and recalled infielder Caleb Durbin, general manager Brian Cashman said in a statement. Left-hander Carlos Rodon, on the injured list with what the team has described as left forearm fatigue, threw a two-inning rehab appearance for the club’s Florida Complex League affiliate Thursday afternoon and is targeted for a return to the rotation in mid-May.

“It is the worst Yankees start in twenty years, and there is no single thing you can point at,” said Layla Adesina, a baseball analyst writing for the Athletic. “It is rotation injuries, a lineup that has not hit with runners in scoring position, and a bullpen that has blown five leads in the seventh inning or later. Cashman has to decide in the next two weeks whether this is fixable from within.”

League officials said the NBA conference semifinal schedule beyond Sunday would be set by Saturday afternoon, with Game 4s of all four series expected to fall between Sunday and Tuesday. Should the current leads hold, the conference finals could begin as early as May 12. The 152nd Kentucky Derby will run Saturday afternoon at Churchill Downs.