The New York Knicks are encountering difficulties without injured Jalen Brunson, especially when Julius Randle is unable to get anything going.

If Brunson (sore left foot) sits in Los Angeles on Sunday night against the Lakers, the Knicks will need Randle to reverse his sudden slump if they are to halt a three-game losing streak.

The Knicks are on their first three-game skid since dropping four straight Jan. 16-22. This skid follows their nine-game winning streak that was highlighted by last Sunday’s 131-129 double-overtime win at Boston. Brunson sat out with the injury he sustained in a 122-120 win at Miami two nights earlier.

Brunson has played 19 minutes during New York’s past three games. He sat out Tuesday’s seven-point home loss to the Charlotte Hornets and then played through the pain in the first half when the Knicks began their four-game western trip with a 122-117 loss to the Sacramento Kings on Thursday.

On Saturday, the Knicks dropped to 3-4 when Brunson does not play as Randle shot 5 of 24 from the field and scored 19 points in a 106-95 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. The Knicks shot 35.6 percent.

“He’s been there for us; he’s our floor general,” New York’s RJ Barrett said of Brunson. “Definitely miss having him on the floor, but that was that, and we got to figure it out and figure out how to get these wins.”

Randle scored 31 in the first game of Brunson’s absence but has been held under 25 in three straight contests. In those games, he has shot 28.5 percent (18 of 63), including 7 of 31 from 3-point range.

New York is 18-17 when Randle is held under 25 points, and Saturday’s showing might have been his most frustrating this season. Besides the rough shooting performance, he got a technical foul for elbowing Mason Plumlee and then shouted at teammate Evan Fournier and a team security guard as he was being restrained from going after the officials.

“I mean, I wasn’t good today. I was bad,” Randle said.

While the Knicks still remain in the top six of the Eastern Conference and percentage points behind the fifth-place Brooklyn Nets, the Lakers are ninth in the Western Conference and a half-game behind the two teams directly in front of them — Minnesota and Dallas.

Los Angeles is 5-2 since losing LeBron James for multiple weeks due to right-foot soreness and also is seeking its first four-game winning streak since putting together five straight wins Dec. 30 to Jan. 7.

The Lakers won their third straight Friday night when they shot 56.3 percent from the floor in a 122-112 home win over the Toronto Raptors. D’Angelo Russell returned from missing four games with a sprained right ankle and scored 28 points.

Russell’s showing helped offset a quiet performance from Anthony Davis, who was held to eight points after scoring 107 over his previous three contests.

“That we were able to come away with this win against a really good team with only eight from (Davis), that’s a sign of growth,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “That’s a sign of how deep and talented we are.”

–Field Level Media

The Oklahoma City Thunder will look to continue their push toward the postseason when they travel to San Antonio to face the suddenly surging Spurs on Sunday night.

The Thunder will visit the Spurs for the second game of a road back-to-back after a 110-96 win in New Orleans on Saturday. Oklahoma City remains in the hunt for a playoff spot, sitting in 12th place in the Western Conference.

The Thunder are a half-game out of 10th place and a spot in the play-in tournament and just 2 1/2 off the pace for sixth place and a guaranteed spot in the postseason.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led Oklahoma City with 35 points vs. New Orleans, with Josh Giddey adding 19 and Jalen Williams 17.

“This is probably our best defensive-without-fouling-but-being-physical kind of night we’ve had in a long time.,” Williams said. “When our defense is humming like that, I think we’re really good. Credit to what we did the first half and the third quarter — just kind of stuck with it and played at our own pace.”

Oklahoma City has won four of its past five games after enduring a five-game losing streak.

“It’s hard to hold the lead for the whole game on the road the way we did tonight,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I thought the guys just did a great job of stacking possessions, especially in the second half. You know, it seemed like New Orleans was gonna make some noise, and they did at multiple different times, but we held them off with sound execution on both ends of the floor.”

The Spurs, who have been eliminated from postseason consideration, will play the second contest in a six-game homestand after a rousing 128-120 win over West-leading Denver on Friday. San Antonio got 23 points from Keldon Johnson, with Doug McDermott adding 20, Jeremy Sochan 19, and Devin Vassell and Tre Jones 14 apiece.

Recently acquired Sandro Mamukelashvili scored all 11 of his points in the fourth quarter, including a dagger 3-pointer with 2:33 to play, and Zach Collins tallied 10 points for the Spurs before being ejected midway through the third quarter.

San Antonio has won three of its past five games but still is next-to-last in the Western Conference and is looking at an early pick in the NBA draft.

For a night, the Spurs — who always battle to the finish — looked like a team that wanted the game more than their opponents.

“The win means a lot. It shows that we are growing,” McDermott said. “We’re doing the right things every day. It’s great to see us get rewarded with a great win against the top seed in the West. I think it’s great being at home in front of our fans. They stuck with us. They know it’s a process this year.”

The Thunder won the first two games of the season series with San Antonio, both of them in Oklahoma City, but they haven’t seen the Spurs since a 130-114 victory two days after Christmas.

–Field Level Media

The Portland Trail Blazers will visit the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night with both teams needing to catch up if they’re going to qualify for the Western Conference play-in round.

The Blazers sit in 13th place, one game behind 11th-place New Orleans and Oklahoma City. Those teams are a half-game back of the Utah Jazz for the final spot in the four-team play-in.

Portland is trying to finish .500 on a six-game trip after letting a victory slip away Friday night. The Blazers led the 76ers by as many as 21 points but lost 120-119 in Philadelphia.

Joel Embiid made a jumper from the foul line with 1.1 seconds left, and Portland couldn’t get off a final shot after falling behind for the first time all night.

“I thought for the most part we played great,” Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said. “We just came unraveled a little bit at the end.

“You’re disappointed in the loss and how we ended the game, but I’m happy with how we competed the entire night. We’ve got no reason to hang our heads. We will learn from it and move on to the next one.”

Anfernee Simons led Portland with 34 points. Jerami Grant had 24 and Damian Lillard 22.

“It’s a tough one to let go, a tough one to swallow because we played so well and we needed this game,” Lillard said. “But it’s kind of been the story of our season. We play well in stretches, and we haven’t been able to close games out great. We had our opportunities. We just let this one slip away.”

The short-handed Pelicans lost their most recent game, but they can’t say it slipped away. Oklahoma City led for nearly the entire game, building a 21-point cushion and winning 110-96 on Saturday night in New Orleans.

The Pelicans, playing without leading scorer Zion Williamson since early January, also played without second-leading scorer Brandon Ingram, who has a sprained right ankle. Ingram’s availability for Sunday’s game is uncertain.

New Orleans had no answer for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, whose 14 first-quarter points helped the Thunder build a 10-point lead after the period. He finished with 35 points and Oklahoma City was more aggressive going to the basket, finishing with an 11-point scoring edge at the foul line.

“We just didn’t bring it tonight, no excuses,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said. “We didn’t come out and match their energy on our home floor. We came out lax and turned the ball over too much.

“(We need to) take care of the ball. We’ll have more opportunities to score when we do that.”

New Orleans had 22 turnovers and Oklahoma City had 12. The Thunder outscored the Pelicans 23-8 on points off turnovers.

“This is an opportunity for guys to come up and play hard,” Green said. “We want to give ourselves an opportunity to win games, but tonight we did not. It’s a quick turnaround, so it does not get any easier. Our margin for error is small when we have guys out.”

The Pelicans and Blazers split their first two meetings this season, with the visiting team winning by 11 points in both games. The season series will conclude on March 27 in Portland.

–Field Level Media

The Charlotte Hornets are a guard-heavy team, even with point guard LaMelo Ball lost for the rest of the season with an ankle injury.

Being a little thin in the middle can be a hindrance, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are bound to try to exploit that when the teams meet Sunday in Charlotte, N.C.

After all, Cleveland makes a living at times by being sturdy in the lane and riding its defense.

“We hang our hat on being a tough-minded defensive team,” Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff said.

The Hornets slipped on their interior defense in Saturday night’s 119-111 loss to the Utah Jazz in a game that marked the beginning of a season-long five-game homestand.

“Our rim protection was nothing at all,” Hornets coach Steve Clifford said. “We’ve been playing better defensively because that has not been happening. We weren’t even close. Not close with our talk. You make mistakes with good players and they’re going to be at the rim, and that’s what happened.”

The Cavaliers and Hornets also will meet Tuesday night on the same court. It’s a strange segment of the season for Cleveland, which played back-to-back games at Miami on Wednesday and Friday nights.

“I think it’s great preparation for us for where we are right now,” Bickerstaff said of facing the same teams in consecutive games. … “Obviously, we have a long way to go and have to keep taking care of our business.”

Cleveland split those games in Miami, falling 119-115 in the rematch Friday to end a three-game winning streak.

“We could have been better in some of those (late-game) moments,” Bickerstaff said. “It’s hard to survive that offensive performance they put on in the fourth.”

These will be important games in Charlotte for the Cavaliers, as they want to stay on target for the postseason. They enter play Sunday fourth in the Eastern Conference, while the Hornets are close to being eliminated from playoff conention.

Certainly, part of the challenge from the Charlotte viewpoint will come in shoring up defensively.

“We lacked physicality, didn’t have the same mentality,” Clifford said. “You can’t play like that.”

Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell has reached the 40-point mark in three of the past five games.

“He was carrying us,” Bickerstaff said of Mitchell’s performance in Miami. “I thought he did a great job of doing that. It wasn’t easy against a really good defensive team that was keyed to stopping him.”

Bickerstaff said flexibility in lineups has been crucial for the Cavaliers.

Cleveland’s Darius Garland was out for Friday night’s game with a quad injury, and his status might be uncertain for Sunday. He is listed as questionable on the injury report. Caris LeVert moved into the starting lineup and scored 16 points.

“Everybody has to pick up a little bit,” Bickerstaff said. “There’s not one guy who’s going to fill in and take up Darius’ production.”

Kelly Oubre Jr., who has moved back into the Charlotte starting lineup, has led the Hornets in scoring in six consecutive games. He had 24 points against the Jazz.

The Hornets are 2-4 in March. They lost Saturday night after coming off road victories against the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons.

The Cavs and Hornets will meet again April 9 in the regular-season finale at Cleveland.

–Field Level Media

Stephen Curry scored 20 of his game-high 36 points in the final 1:51 of regulation and overtime, lifting host Golden State to a 125-116 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night in San Francisco.

Curry took over a game that the Warriors trailed 108-100 with 2:05 remaining after a 3-pointer by the Bucks’ Joe Ingles. After he almost single-handedly forced the overtime, he sandwiched a pair of Klay Thompson hoops with two- and 3-pointers of his own, giving Golden State it wouldn’t relinquish. Curry later iced Golden State’s seventh straight home win with an interior hoop and two free throws.

Thompson finished with 22 points, Donte DiVincenzo 20 and JaMychal Green a season-best 18 for the Warriors, who salvaged a split with the Eastern Conference’s top team in their two-game season series.

Brook Lopez and Khris Middleton had 19 points apiece in a balanced attack for Milwaukee, which was seeking its third straight win since Giannis Antetokounmpo left the lineup with a sore right hand.

Kings 128, Suns 119

Harrison Barnes scored 19 points and Sacramento took another step in its conversion into a playoff-caliber team by posting a road victory over Phoenix.

De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk added 18 points apiece as Sacramento won for the eighth time in the past nine games. Domantas Sabonis registered 17 points and eight rebounds, Trey Lyles and Davion Mitchell added 13 points apiece, and Kessler Edwards contributed 12 points and seven boards for the Kings, who reached the 40-win mark for the first time since the 2005-06 season.

Devin Booker recorded 28 points and eight assists, and Deandre Ayton added 22 points and 12 rebounds for the Suns, who had a four-game winning streak halted and lost for just the sixth time in the past 22 games. Terrence Ross scored 18 points and Chris Paul had 16 points and 16 assists for Phoenix.

Clippers 106, Knicks 95

Kawhi Leonard scored 38 points on 14-of-22 shooting from the floor, and Paul George added 22 points, eight rebounds and eight assists as Los Angeles handed visiting New York its third consecutive loss.

The Clippers controlled the fourth quarter with a stifling defense, limiting the Knicks to 5-of-18 shooting from the field. Los Angeles capitalized on its stingy defense with effective offense, converting 11-of-18 field-goal attempts.

Immanuel Quickley led the Knicks with 26 points and Julius Randle added 19, but Randle finished 5 of 24 from the field.

Grizzlies 112, Mavericks 108

Desmond Bane scored 25 points and rookie David Roddy added a season-high 24 to fuel host Memphis to a victory over Dallas in the opener of a home-and-home series.

Bane added eight assists and seven rebounds, and Roddy sank four 3-pointers for the Grizzlies, who have won two in a row following a three-game skid. The teams will reconvene in Dallas on Monday night.

Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 23 points and rookie Jaden Hardy added 22. Josh Green recorded 21 points and 10 rebounds for the Mavericks, who played without stars Luka Doncic (left thigh injury) and Kyrie Irving (right foot soreness).

Celtics 134, Hawks 125

Jayson Tatum’s 34-point, 15-rebound performance helped Boston begin a six-game road trip with a victory in Atlanta.

Tatum had five of Boston’s 20 3-point field goals in the win. The Celtics, who led 101-89 after three quarters, were 20 of 42 from behind the arc.

The Hawks’ Trae Young made 12 of 27 field goals and led all scorers with 35 points. He added 13 assists.

Jazz 119, Hornets 111

Talen Horton-Tucker poured in 37 points in a dominating performance, and Utah cruised past host Charlotte.

Horton-Tucker entered the night averaging 8.5 points per game. He came within range of the first triple-double for a Jazz player since 2008 with 10 assists and eight rebounds while shooting 14-for-24 from the field.

Kelly Oubre Jr.’s 24 points and Terry Rozier’s 22 points led the Hornets, who were coming off consecutive road victories but were not efficient offensively to begin a season-long, five-game homestand.

Magic 126, Heat 114 (OT)

Wendell Carter Jr. recorded a double-double of 27 points and 11 rebounds to lead seven scorers in double figures as Orlando pulled off an overtime victory against visiting Miami.

Orlando dominated the extra period, shooting 7-for-9 from the floor. Miami went 2-for-4. Carter, Jalen Suggs and Cole Anthony each sank 3-pointers in overtime to help seal the win. Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero each added 17 points. Banchero was just shy of a triple-double, grabbing 10 rebounds and adding a game-high nine assists.

Miami’s Jimmy Butler led all scorers with 38 points and was responsible for forcing overtime. Five Heat scorers finished in double figures, with Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro each going for 14 points.

Pacers 121, Pistons 115

Jalen Smith led a balanced attack with 20 points and nine rebounds as Indiana handed host Detroit its 11th consecutive loss.

Isaiah Jackson had 19 points and 11 rebounds while Andrew Nembhard contributed 19 points and eight assists. Buddy Hield had 17 points and eight rebounds, while Jordan Nwora and Oshae Brissett tossed in 11 points apiece.

Isaiah Livers topped the Pistons with 18 points and Killian Hayes had 17 points and 13 assists. James Wiseman and Jalen Duren added 16 points apiece and combined for 20 rebounds.

Thunder 110, Pelicans 96

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 35 points and Oklahoma City defeated host New Orleans.

Josh Giddey scored 19, Jalen Williams added 17 and Gilgeous-Alexander made 13 of 13 free throws as the Thunder shot 27 of 32 from the foul line. The Pelicans made 16 of 19 free throws.

CJ McCollum scored 26, Trey Murphy III and Naji Marshall had 15 each, Jonas Valanciunas had 13 and Jaxson Hayes added 11 for the Pelicans, who played without Brandon Ingram (sprained ankle). New Orleans committed 22 turnovers.

Bulls 119, Rockets 111

Zach LaVine scored a game-high 36 points while DeMar DeRozan chipped in 27 points as Chicago rallied for a road victory over Houston.

Vucevic (18 points, 12 rebounds) and Beverley (16 points, 10 rebounds) produced double-doubles in support of LaVine and DeRozan, who finished with eight and seven boards, respectively. Beverley, DeRozan and LaVine recorded five assists apiece while Vucevic dished out six assists.

Rookie Jabari Smith Jr. led Houston with 20 points and 10 rebounds while Jalen Green added 18 points and seven assists. Five others scored in double figures, but the Rockets had 16 turnovers converted into 23 points.

–Field Level Media