Matthew Dellavedova's Cleveland Cavaliers and Patty Mills' San Antonio Spurs are on the verge of entering round two of the NBA Playoffs.
The Cavaliers, with Dellavedova orchestrating big plays in the final minutes, defeated the Detroit Pistons 101-91 on Friday to take a 3-0 lead in their best-of-seven series.
The Spurs, despite Mills being off target with his shot, also went up 3-0 with a 96-87 hard-fought win against the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Cavaliers can eliminate the Pistons from the playoffs and the Spurs can do the same to the Grizzlies with wins in game four contests on Sunday.
"We're happy to get the win, but we still have a job to do on Sunday," Dellavedova, who had 12 points and five assists, told reporters.
Cavaliers' coach Tyronn Lue heaped praise on Dellavedova, particularly for his cool head on the game-winning play with 43 seconds to go and just 0.7 seconds on the shot clock.
In front of a voracious Detroit crowd, Dellavedova fired a perfect inbounds pass to shooting guard Kyrie Irving who sank a three-pointer to extend the Cavaliers' lead to eight points.
"Delly does a great job of reading situations," Lue said.
"Delly had two reads on that play and he made a great read and Kyrie made a great shot."
Dellavedova played down his role.
"It was a simple chest pass so I can't take too much credit for it," the country Victorian said.
Detroit's Queensland forward-centre Aron Baynes had a tough night, scoring three points and taking four rebounds while battling the Cavaliers' Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson.
Detroit were outrebounded 46-32.
Cleveland's big three of LeBron James, Love and Irving also contributed.
James had 20 points and 13 rebounds, Love had 20 points and 12 rebounds while Irving had 26 points and four assists.
The Spurs destroyed the Grizzlies 106-74 and 94-68 in the first two games played in San Antonio, but Memphis, in front of their home crowd, battled with the Spurs until the final minutes.
Mills connected with just one of his five field goals, including missing all three three-point attempts.
The Spurs' All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard led the way with 32 points, seven rebounds, five blocked shots and four steals.
In Friday's other playoff game, the Boston Celtics beat the Atlanta Hawks 111-103.
Atlanta leads the series 2-1.
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