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    Winners Get Their Due. But Losers Are Wonderfully Human.

    There’s glory in defeat. Losses, at least, make athletes more relatable to the rest of us.She couldn’t win a single game.In the third round of the French Open on Saturday, Wang Xinyu of China had to believe there was at least a chance she could defeat Iga Swiatek, the event’s reigning women’s singles champion and top seed. Wang is no slouch, after all. She is a hard-hitting 21-year-old who in April hit a career-high ranking of 59th in the world, and she can put up a viable fight against the very best.But she lost, and it was as ugly as can be: 6-0, 6-0 — in tennis parlance, a dreaded double bagel. The match didn’t last much longer than the warm-up.I say there’s glory in that kind of imperfection.Long live the frail. The weary and worn, the strugglers and the stragglers. The athletes who woefully suffer losses in public.Long live the defeated in sports.We’ve seen many of them over the past week or so, and we’ll soon be seeing more.Of course, this won’t happen only on the slippery clay at the French Open.The N.B.A. and N.H.L. playoffs have finally reached their finals. College softball, growing fast in popularity, is in the mix with the N.C.A.A. Division I championships. The Oklahoma Sooners are aiming for a third straight title — and to add to their Division I record of 51 consecutive victories — after beating Stanford on Monday in a semifinal in extra innings. Let’s have some sympathy for the Sooners’ cavalcade of victims.Most of the narrative will focus on the winners of these championships. That’s only natural. The world’s greatest athletes stretch and bend the limits of human potential. The best of the best even seem capable of controlling time. No wonder we watch them perform with awe that feels existential. They have become godlike in our world.That’s fine and understandable, but give me the tennis player who struggles with all her might to win a single game in a Grand Slam match. Give me the basketball star who shanks crucial free throws and the goaltender in hockey who slips and lets the winning slap shot whir by.Give me nerves that wilt when the pressure comes. I’m here for reflexes that aren’t what they used to be.Why? Well, the victors are always going to get their due. But to err, as we all know, is human — entirely and beautifully so. And those who lose in so many different ways occupy the more relatable corner of big-time sports.There’s comfort in knowing that highly conditioned, supremely coordinated, deeply battle-tested athletes can tire, cramp, succumb to pressure, struggle to get enough air and suffer stinging defeat. In the act of failing, they become, even if only briefly, more like the rest of us schmoes.So we can take solace in the Boston Bruins, who posted a record 65 wins in the regular season, promptly losing in the first round of the N.H.L. playoffs to the Florida Panthers. High expectations for the Stanley Cup became dead weight. Who can relate? I know I can.Speaking of Boston, in the N.B.A. playoffs, the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum battled back from a 3-0 hole to tie the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. Then, in Game 7, with a history-making comeback in play, they collectively laid a stink bomb, putting in performances that stand among the worst and weakest of their careers.The Boston Bruins won a record 65 games during the regular season before losing in the first round of the N.H.L. playoffs.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesEver been on the precipice of something great, only to fail — and fail hard, in public? Yeah, me too, going back to the fifth-grade play in which I forgot my lines, tripped onstage and nearly broke my nose. It wasn’t hard to sympathize with Brown and Tatum as they clunked shot after shot, and Miami won by 19 points, with all those millions tuning in.The red clay at Roland Garros — where no step is sure, no bounce can be counted on and each match can turn into a grueling marathon — offers as clear a window as any into the crushing truth of sports.Players walk onto the courts looking like Parisian runway models, their skin bronzed, their crisp outfits pressed. Then, once the matches get moving, reality sets in.At the other Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the points often finish rapid-fire. On the Roland Garros clay, the points can extend like a John Coltrane solo. They can go on and on, pressure mounting, tempo building in a crescendo.In the most prolonged and competitive matches you can often see agony — mental as much as physical — descend upon the players. Uncertainty creeps in, and with it gauntness. Muscles weaken and tremble. The crisp outfits — shoes, socks, shirts, wristbands, headbands, hats — cake with sweat and clumps of clay.Wang was not on court long enough to suffer like this against Swiatek. But Gaël Monfils of France was. Monfils, a weathered, 36-year-old veteran playing in perhaps his final Grand Slam in front of his home crowd, won his first-round match despite facing a 4-0 fifth-set deficit. Along the way, he struggled past aching lungs and a storm of leg cramps. He eked out the match, but was so tired and sore that he couldn’t make it to the court for his second-round match two days later.Jannik Sinner battled for more than five hours before losing to Daniel Altmaier in the second round of the French Open.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via ShutterstockThe march of time waits on no one.A few days later, a much younger player, Jannik Sinner of Italy — 21, seeded No. 8 and rising fast — took to Suzanne Lenglen Court against Daniel Altmaier, a journeyman ranked No. 79.Sinner should have won without much trouble.He nosed ahead early, but struggled. An hour passed. Altmaier caught up. Another hour went by. The match became a stalemate. Three hours turned to four. Sinner held two match points — and coughed up both. They headed into a fifth set. Sinner fell behind and came back: He faced four match points, but won them all.And then … and then, after 5 hours 26 minutes, Sinner watched a screaming serve fly past his outstretched racket for an ace. Game. Set. Match. Final score: 6-7 (0), 7-6 (7), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5. The upset was the fifth-longest match in French Open history.Sinner walked off the court messy and tussled, his face betraying the self-doubt common to losers. In other words, he was beautifully human. More

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    The Heat, a Long Shot in the Playoffs, Pull Even with Long Shots

    Miami, usually outgunned by the Denver offense, made 17 3-pointers to even the N.B.A. Finals series at one game apiece.Michael Malone is generally the kind of coach who would leave a negative Yelp review after vacationing in Shangri-La. But his worry was warranted this time.On Saturday, the day before Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals, Malone lamented his team’s poor defense in the first game of the series against the Miami Heat. The Nuggets had given the Heat looks at a lot of wide-open 3-pointers — a bad sign, Malone said, even though good shooters like Max Strus and Duncan Robinson kept missing and Denver won the game.On Sunday, Strus and Robinson combined for six of Miami’s 17 3-pointers. On a night when the Heat mostly seemed outmatched, their 3-point shooting helped them steal a victory on the road to tie the series at one game apiece. Somewhat appropriately, they won by 3 points: 111-108.“There was miscommunication, game plan breakdowns, personnel breakdowns,” Malone groused afterward. He added: “We got lucky in Game 1. Tonight, they made them.”The Heat have frustrated all of their playoff opponents this year by making jump shots they had missed during the regular season. Most teams over the last decade have focused on generating points from the most efficient shots: 3-pointers, free throws and shots at the basket. Miami has followed that trend to an extent, but it was one of the worst 3-point shooting teams during the regular season and had been more likely to grind out points — led by Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo — by focusing more on midrange baskets.That’s likely a doomed strategy against Denver, an offensive juggernaut. The Heat cannot match the playmaking of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon. For the Heat to win, they have to remain hot from 3-point range, just as they have been during the postseason.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said shooting long balls gave his team its best chance against the Nuggets.Kyle Terada/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConOn Sunday, Miami Coach Erik Spoelstra said that the Heat had been “more intentional” in their offense, suggesting that the plan had been to lean into their 3-point shooting.“That doesn’t guarantee you anything either,” Spoelstra said. “But at least you give yourself the best chance.”The Heat have seized on their chances this postseason, shown by their unlikely run to the N.B.A. finals as a No. 8 seed. Kevin Love, who joined the Heat midseason, said he wasn’t aware of the team’s 3-point struggles until he came to Miami.“I always feel like there’s something to closing the door to the regular season,” Love said, adding: “You just kind of get to reset. And I think guys felt that. They just had another level of confidence and understanding that if we go out there and just be ourselves and play free and play fluid, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win.”During the regular season, Miami ranked third in shots taken between 10 and 14 feet from the basket, and 10th for shots between five and nine feet. That’s not to say the Heat didn’t shoot enough 3s: They were 10th in attempts per game. They just didn’t make them.In the second quarter on Sunday night, the Nuggets led by as many as 15. The game was on the verge of turning into a blowout. But Kevin Love, who hadn’t played in the last three games, hit a deep shot to keep the Nuggets within sight. Miami shot 8 for 17 from 3-point range in the first half — which helped the Heat stay within 6 points of Denver at halftime.Nikola Jokic’s 41 points and 11 rebounds weren’t enough to hold off the Heat.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe Heat continued to bomb 3’s and tied the game relatively early in the third quarter. Denver still led going into the fourth quarter, but the 3s helped the Heat keep the game within reach, allowing for a comeback.In the final frame, it was Robinson’s turn. His two 3s in the opening minutes cut the Nuggets’ lead to 2. Miami’s eventual victory was its seventh of this postseason run after being down by at least 10 points. It has matched the 2022 Golden State Warriors and the 2011 and 2012 Heat for the most double-digit comebacks in one postseason in the last 25 years.While the Heat do have some strong shooters, they do not include the team’s best players, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. In addition, guard Tyler Herro, one of the team’s best shooters, has missed almost the entire playoff run with a right hand injury.Miami’s offense often centers on Adebayo grabbing the ball at the elbow and using his passing skills, or Butler driving the baseline and using shot fakes and strength to create space for himself.In the playoffs, Miami flipped a switch. Suddenly, its 3-pointers have begun to fall at an elite clip. Entering Game 2, the Heat had been the best 3-point shooting team in the playoffs at 38.7 percent. In the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics, the Heat shot 43.4 percent from 3 over seven games.Asked if he had knew why the Heat suddenly improved their shooting, Cody Zeller, Miami’s reserve center, said he thought that the regular season “was inaccurate.”“The playoffs are more accurate as far as how good of a shooter our guys are,” Zeller said. “We haven’t been surprised by guys making shots in the playoffs. We’re more surprised by not making shots during the regular season.”The 3-pointer, which teams are more reliant on than ever, is a high variance shot. Offenses can create many open looks, but players are still shooting a ball into a circle that is 10 feet off the ground. You’re more likely to miss than make them. But if a team gets hot over a couple games, it doesn’t matter what the other team does defensively. The Celtics saw that and so did the Nuggets in Game 2.The Nuggets have more offensive weapons than the Heat. For the Heat to keep pace, the answer is to keep shooting more and more 3s.“In terms of the shooters, that’s pretty simple: Let it fly. Ignite. Once they see two go down, it could be three, it could turn into six just like that,” Spoelstra said Saturday, while snapping his fingers.“Let it fly. Ignite,” Spoelstra said after the game. Max Strus took his advice in Game 2, hitting four 3-pointers.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressIn the regular season, the ideal tactic to defend the Heat was to focus on Butler and Adebayo and gum up the middle, forcing the ball to the perimeter. After all, during the regular season, the Heat shot 34.3 percent — a low-ish number — from 3 on shots considered open, according to the N.B.A.’s statistics. No N.B.A. defense can take away everything from an opposing offense.Strategies are generally to push teams toward what they’re not great at. The Celtics did just that, and Miami made them pay at a rate of 42.1 percent on open 3-pointers.The temptation when a team goes cold on its deep shots is to focus more on getting shots near the rim. In Game 2, the Heat rarely went to the rim, only shooting 10 times in the restricted area.Miami heads home with the series tied at one game each. Once again, the Heat won a playoff game they weren’t expected to win on shots they weren’t expected to make.“That’s what this game is,” Butler said. “Make or miss game. Make or miss league. We made some shots. They didn’t.” More

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    Why Denver Loves the Nuggets Star Nikola Jokic

    Jokic, the Nuggets center, may be the best player in the N.B.A., but he avoids the spotlight. Still, in his own way, he has endeared himself to a city hungry for someone to believe in.About two miles from downtown Denver, the yellows, oranges and reds of a spray-painted mural fill the cracked, gray cement wall of a building that houses a temporary employment agency. The mural rises about 20 feet and depicts an expressionless Nikola Jokic next to a much more emotive Jamal Murray, his eyes narrowed and arms extended as though he is wielding a bow and arrow.Thomas Evans, a 38-year-old artist, finished the mural of the two Denver Nuggets stars recently as the team prepared to begin the N.B.A. finals. On Thursday afternoon, hours before Game 1 of the championship series against the Miami Heat, Damien Lucero was blaring his song “It’s Nuthin” while recording a rap music video in front of the mural. Lucero, 21, goes by Dame$, pronounced “Dames” (not to be confused with Dame D.O.L.L.A., the rap name of Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard). He said the mural inspired him and some collaborators to write the song as a tribute to Jokic.He rattled off some of his favorite lines:“Clean sweep, yeah, it’s all me.Had to smoke him out like I puff trees.Four mo’ dubs then we pop rings.Triple dub, ain’t no joke, he the new king.”The old king — at least to those who want to describe him that way — is LeBron James, whose Los Angeles Lakers were swept by the Nuggets in the Western Conference finals. James is the biggest star in the N.B.A., with four championship rings, piles of endorsement deals and a constant presence on social media and television. Jokic has none of that.“I see a lot of myself in him,” said Evans, who also goes by Detour.“I’m in the studio all day working on my artwork, and I’m not really front-facing as much as other artists may be,” he said. “I don’t always want to be in front of the cameras. I don’t always want to be in magazines. I want to actually just do my work and let that speak for itself.”Thomas Evans finished the mural of the Denver Nuggets stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray during the team’s run to the N.B.A. finals.In the N.B.A., stars often take on their city’s identity — or imbue the city with their own. Magic Johnson’s love of luxury and glamour made him a perfect fit for Los Angeles; James’s embrace of celebrity has made him the same. Patrick Ewing’s physicality screamed New York City. Jokic, a 28-year-old Serbian who may be the best player in the N.B.A., is a bit of an enigma, similar to Tim Duncan when he was in San Antonio. And that suits Denver and Colorado just fine, according to those who live here.“The kind of talent that he is, you know, a modest talent, not somebody who is searching out the spotlight, a team player, somebody who’s down to earth,” said Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado. “I think Denver and Colorado, we view ourselves as down to earth.”On Thursday, Bennet wore a Nuggets warm-up jersey in Washington, D.C., on his way to vote to raise the debt ceiling.Stars like Jokic, who has won two Most Valuable Player Awards, can be close to a one-man stimulus for a city. The mayor of Denver, Michael B. Hancock, estimated that the Nuggets’ playoff run alone this year could bring in a $25 million economic boost.Even so, Jokic has almost no cultural footprint off the court as the Nuggets jockey for attention locally with the N.H.L.’s Avalanche and M.L.B.’s Rockies (all of which are overshadowed by the N.F.L.’s Broncos). But this obscurity is apparently by his own design. Talk of stardom appears to bore him. Asked whether he was the best player on the Nuggets, Jokic told reporters on Wednesday: “Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. I’m cool with that.”Murray, whose nickname is Blue Arrow because of his basketball shooting skills, appears to be more comfortable in the spotlight than Jokic. He’s personable, expressive and active on social media. When Jokic is not Denver’s best player, Murray almost certainly is. He has promoted at least 10 brands over the past year, according to SponsorUnited, compared to just two for Jokic. It’s unusual for a top player like Jokic to be so elusive off the court.“I don’t know how much influence he really has because he doesn’t put himself out there,” said Vic Lombardi, a Denver sports talk radio host.Fans outside Ball Arena in Denver before Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals between the Nuggets and the Miami Heat. Denver won the game, 104-93.Jamie Schwaberow/Getty ImagesJokic rarely does interviews outside of mandatory news conferences, where he gives mostly anodyne answers. He has a deal with Nike but does not have a signature shoe. He doesn’t host a podcast, and his politics are a mystery. He has appeared in a handful of commercials in Serbia. Jokic said recently that basketball was “not the most important thing” in his life and probably never would be.“I would think he would be more connected just because it’s required when you’re a player of that caliber,” said Andre Miller, who played for the Nuggets in the early 2000s and again a decade ago. He added: “I think he approaches it as, I’m just a basketball player. Mild-mannered. He goes and plays ball and he goes home. So it makes his job a little easier and it keeps all the distractions out.”Jokic doesn’t do many interviews or commercials, which is unusual for a top star.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via Reuters ConNuggets forward Jeff Green said, “His job is to play basketball, not to meet everybody’s needs.”Vlatko Cancar, another teammate, chuckled when asked about Jokic as a public figure.“When you’re a star at that level it’s just so hard to please everybody,” he said. “I feel like he would like to sign autographs for everybody and shake their hands and take pictures with everybody. But it’s just too hard because it’s one of him and it’s millions of others.”Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado called Jokic “a rarity in the modern sports age.” He said people in Colorado “admire him all the more for not being an off-court distraction like other so-called stars are, you know, too often in both basketball and other sports.”Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, said that Jokic was like a “large bear that can do ballet.”“And that is a great look for Colorado, because we’re a former cow town — a mining town,” Hickenlooper said. “We come from honest, hardworking roots. Denver now is pretty athletic, and I’m not sure we’re quite up to ballet yet, but we’re getting there.”Jokic had 27 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists in Game 1 of the finals.Pool photo by Kyle TeradaWhite N.B.A. stars are often described in positive terms that are less frequently applied to Black players, such as gritty and unselfish. Still, discussions with those who know and follow Jokic suggest his reputation as a willing passer is deserved. Jokic has said he prefers to pass rather than score.His approach to stardom creates a challenge for the N.B.A., which is constantly looking to expand its reach. But the league doesn’t always help itself: The Nuggets, even with a two-time M.V.P., were not on national television during the regular season as much as some less-talented teams.In addition, a portion of Colorado residents have not been able to watch Nuggets games for the last four years because of a dispute over carriage fees between Altitude, the regional sports network, and Comcast. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that it was a “terrible situation.”Hancock, the mayor, called it “really unfortunate.”“That robs these great young players of the notoriety they deserve and particularly in this season where they have done just phenomenal things,” he said.Stan Kroenke, who owns the Nuggets and the Avalanche, also owns Altitude. Polis, the governor, said he had “called upon both sides to work it out.”In Serbia, Jokic’s home country, the N.B.A. is popular. When he is home for the off-season, he lives as he does in Denver: away from the public, according to Christopher R. Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Serbia. But Jokic is someone “everyone is talking about right now,” he said.“The games tend to be at 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Hill, who lived in Denver for a decade before leaving for his post in 2020. “People stay up for those. It’s incredible. I’ll be talking to somebody in the Serbian government and they’ll start yawning — ‘Sorry, I was watching Jokic last night.’”The Serbian journalists Nenad Kostic and Edin Avdic have reported on Jokic since he was a teenager and now consider him a friend. They traveled to Denver to cover him in the finals, and had dinner with him the night before Game 1. They said celebrity makes him uncomfortable.“It’s not about money,” Avdic said. “It’s not about fame. It’s — I think — too much hassle for him. No, it’s too much of a burden for him.”Kostic said that Belgrade, Serbia’s big-city capital with nightlife, often becomes home for famous Serbian athletes, even if, like Jokic, they are from smaller towns.“Nikola is not like that,” Kostic said. “He likes to spend his days in Sombor, in the small city where he was born, where everybody knows him and they leave him alone.”Jokic was named the most valuable player of the Western Conference finals after the Nuggets swept the Lakers in four games.Ashley Landis/Associated PressTwenty years ago, the Nuggets drafted a player who was almost the polar opposite of Jokic: Carmelo Anthony. He was a more traditional franchise star, doing commercials, selling jerseys and putting out signature shoes. Starting when he was at Syracuse University, he made waves in popular culture, with his style and confidence. He spent more than seven seasons in Denver, coincidentally wearing No. 15, which Jokic wears now.Kiki Vandeweghe, the Nuggets executive who drafted Anthony, said both players’ approaches to stardom worked just fine for the franchise from a business perspective because of how well they performed on the court. He said Jokic “makes his team better.”“He comes with it every night,” said Vandeweghe, who played for the Nuggets in the 1980s. “He represents in many ways what the city’s all about and his team wins. And that’s a successful franchise.”Evans, the muralist, said he typically doesn’t paint celebrities, but found Jokic’s growing relevance worth the art. He finished his first mural of Jokic in February in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver. He added Murray in his second, the one finished just before the N.B.A. finals.Caroline Simonson, a 22-year-old Nuggets fan from Boulder, said she paid $810 to attend Thursday’s game and sit in the bleachers. She said Jokic’s public persona “limits his connection to maybe N.B.A. fans across the country, but not to the city of Denver.”“We’re prideful. We know what Colorado is,” she said. “If other people don’t know what it’s worth, we know what we’ve got here. It’s special to us. Sometimes we want to keep it to ourselves. We get to keep Jokic to ourselves.” More

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    Where Do Miami Heat Fans Watch the N.B.A. Finals? For Many, Flanigan’s Seafood Bar and Grill.

    In South Florida, Flanigan’s, a fishing-themed restaurant chain, is the hot spot to watch the Miami Heat play the Denver Nuggets.People are used to waiting in lines behind velvet ropes to squeeze into the hottest bars and clubs in Miami. But when the Miami Heat are playing for an N.B.A. title, the trendiest place to be is a fishing-themed bar and grill.Nearly two hours before Game 1 of the finals began on Thursday night, most of the wood-paneled booths and bar stools at the Flanigan’s in Kendall were filled with Heat fans, many of them wearing the No. 22 jersey of the team’s star forward Jimmy Butler. (The restaurant is one of more than 20 Flanigan’s in South Florida.)Dozens of other unlucky fans lined up outside the entrance, even after the hostesses told them they’d be waiting about three hours to get in, longer than the game itself. A father and son ate takeout in the back of their pickup truck as they watched the game on one of the restaurant’s outdoor TV screens visible from the parking lot.“The energy and enthusiasm is electric,” said Kelly Connor, 59. Her husband had arrived hours earlier to grab a table for her and their teenage daughter. “It’s the next best thing to being at the game.”Erick Morales, 31, enjoying a bit of Stella Artois beer at the Flanigan’s location in Kendall, Fla.Martina Tuaty for The New York TimesSome of the most popular items include the mountain of loaded nachos and the buttery garlic rolls.Martina Tuaty for The New York TimesEvery seat in the restaurant, too, had a view of a flat-screen television, some mounted between life-size Atlantic blue marlins. All were broadcasting the game.But the generous all-day specials are also a draw for this restaurant, which Joe (Big Daddy) Flanigan started in 1959 as Big Daddy’s, a chain of liquor stores and lounges. Though he died in 2005, his face still adorns the green plastic cups and the restaurant signage.In the 1980s, while facing bankruptcy, the company added restaurants to the business, said Abel Sanchez, a local historian. The pivot happened as interest in Miami sports increased.“They’ve been gold ever since,” Mr. Sanchez said.On Monday, when the Heat won the Eastern Conference finals, the chain sold more than 50,000 wings.That’s Erick Morales’s go-to item when he comes here. He recently moved to Atlanta, but since returning to Miami for vacation three weeks ago, he has been at least eight times to the restaurant, where he and his friends can consume about 50 wings. He also chose the restaurant for his high school graduation dinner in 2010.“This is the hidden gem of Miami,” Mr. Morales, 31, yelled as the crowd cheered when the Heat scored. But the fans’ enthusiasm didn’t keep the Heat from losing to the Denver Nuggets 104-93. As soon as the game was done, the TV channels were changed and the soundtrack switched to salsa music.Heat fans know to show up at the restaurant about two hours before tipoff. Those who didn’t get a table on Thursday night before the game had to wait about three hours.Martina Tuaty for The New York TimesFollow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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    The Nuggets or Heat Will Get a Trophy. But Will Either Get Respect?

    Both the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat believe they have been disrespected and are using that as motivation as they compete for a championship.The Denver Nuggets’ mascot, Rocky, an anthropomorphic mountain lion with a lightning bolt for a tail, dragged a pickax as he stormed around, trying to figure out where all the chatter was coming from. He needed to quiet the voices. They were disrespecting his team.For weeks, the Nuggets had dominated the N.B.A. playoffs. And for weeks, they thought, no one in the news media had given them their due. Not when they beat Minnesota and Phoenix in the first two rounds. Not when they swept the Lakers in the Western Conference finals.Now Rocky was ready to avenge them — metaphorically, at least — in a video the Nuggets played during a break in Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals on Thursday night.In an audio montage of slights from pundits, Nuggets Coach Michael Malone lamented the national sports coverage during the conference finals. “And all everybody talked about was the Lakers!” he said just before Rocky found a television in a room and smashed it with his pickax. He kept smashing items until the video showed a framed picture of an unidentifiable Lakers player lying shattered on the ground.Denver’s finals opponent, the Miami Heat, didn’t fare much better at the start of the championship round on Thursday. The Nuggets led by as many as 24 points and won, 104-93. They entered the series as heavy favorites, an unfamiliar position.Nuggets guard Jamal Murray was averaging a career-best 27.7 points per game in the playoffs entering Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals.Jack Dempsey/Associated Press“Even when we win, they talk about the other team,” Nuggets guard Jamal Murray said. He added, “It fuels us a little more and will be sweeter when we win the chip.”Neither the Nuggets, the West’s top seed, nor the Heat, the East’s eighth seed, feel that their abilities have been fully respected this postseason, and both teams have used that as motivation. Turning perceived disrespect into fuel is a common technique in sports, even when the slights are only imagined, or perhaps even deserved.Michael Jordan made disrespect a theme of his speech when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, bringing up a time when he was cut from the varsity team at his high school. Later in his career, Jordan invented a moment of disrespect from an opponent named LaBradford Smith, who he said taunted him after scoring 37 points in a game for Washington against Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in March 1993. Intent on humiliating Smith, Jordan scored 47 points against Washington the next night.The Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal would often tell a story about the Spurs great David Robinson snubbing him for an autograph when O’Neal was young. He said that snub motivated him in his playing career, but later admitted it never happened.“David, I want to say I apologize for making up that rumor,” O’Neal said during an N.B.A. video conference in May 2020, nine years after O’Neal had retired. Robinson, who was on the call, burst out laughing.While Jordan and O’Neal concocted tales of offense, the Miami Heat saw a disregard that was real.Miami slipped into the postseason, which is why few expected them to make the run that they did. They lost their first game in the play-in tournament before winning the sudden-death second game to get into the playoffs as the eighth seed.Few people expected the Miami Heat to make it to the N.B.A. finals even with Jimmy Butler, right, a six-time All-Star, on the team.Isaiah J. Downing/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConDuring the Eastern Conference finals, when Miami faced the second-seeded Boston Celtics, Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra took issue with the news media coverage his team received during the regular season.“I guess nobody is really paying attention,” Spoelstra said, when asked why the team kept believing in itself even when it struggled. He added: “Whether that turns into confidence or not, sometimes you don’t have the confidence. But at least you have that experience of going through stuff and you understand how tough it is.”The Heat beat the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, and upset the Celtics in the conference finals, taking the decisive Game 7 on the road in Boston.Even during that series, they showed why people had doubts. They raced out to a 3-0 series lead against Boston, which led to the Celtics treating themselves like underdogs. But then the Heat dropped three straight games as they turned the ball over and struggled offensively — what you might expect from an eighth seed against an experienced team like the Celtics, who went to the N.B.A. finals last season.On the other hand, the Nuggets have held steady in their strengths — the all-around play of Nikola Jokic, who has won the Most Valuable Player Award twice; the dynamic scoring and passing of Murray; the fluid offense and hustle from role players like Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. They’ve been the best team in the West since December.But even then, as Malone and Murray said, they felt much of the attention from the news media and basketball fans had been devoted to, well, everyone else. Like the Lakers.Therein lay another example of the pervasiveness of using perceived disrespect as motivation: The Lakers did it, too. Lakers Coach Darvin Ham often reminded his team that few believed they could make the playoffs early in the season. He left out that the lack of belief in their ability was based not on bias, but on performance. The Lakers started the season 2-10 and played consistently better only after overhauling the roster in January and February.The motivational technique worked all the way until they met the Nuggets in the conference finals.Denver’s Nikola Jokic had a triple-double in Game 1, with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists.Jack Dempsey/Associated PressThe Heat have undergone an even sharper turnaround. Their best player, Jimmy Butler, has become known for elevating his play in the postseason, and round by round they have defied expectations to get to the finals.It’s perhaps why the Nuggets aren’t giving the Heat the opportunity to feel disrespected by them.“Who said that we are favorites?” Jokic said on Wednesday. “The media?”He was told that Las Vegas betting odds counted the Nuggets as favorites.“I think we are not the favorite,” Jokic said, having become more comfortable as the underdog. “I think in the finals there is no favorites. This is going to be the hardest game of our life, and we know that.”Mostly, it was not the hardest game of their lives. The Nuggets had a 24-point lead in the third quarter and used their size advantage to disorient the Heat.But as the Nuggets expected, Miami fought back. The Heat cut the Nuggets’ lead to 9 points with 2:34 left in the game. Miami used a mixture of defensive techniques that have helped them to comeback wins at other points in the postseason just when their opponents felt safe to discount them.“We knew they were going to do that,” Murray said. “That’s how they play and that’s how they win games, is just be relentless in that sense.”Often fueled by disrespect themselves, the Nuggets understood the perils of disrespecting an opponent. More

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    NBA Delays Releasing Ja Morant Gun Investigation Results

    Commissioner Adam Silver said he could announce the findings now, but it would be “unfair” to the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat, who are still competing.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver on Thursday said that the league would wait until the conclusion of the finals to announce the findings of its latest investigation into the behavior of Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, as well as any potential discipline of him.On May 13, Morant appeared to brandish a firearm in public for the second time in just over two months, prompting the investigation. Silver declined to say whether Morant would be available to play for the Grizzlies at the start of next season.“I would say we probably could’ve brought it to a head now,” Silver said at a news conference in Denver before Game 1 of the championship series between the Nuggets and the Miami Heat. “But we made the decision, and I believe the players’ association agrees with us, that it would be unfair to these players and these teams in the middle of the series to announce the results of that investigation.”The Grizzlies suspended Ja Morant indefinitely last month after a video on social media appeared to show him holding a gun in a vehicle.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConMorant is a two-time All-Star and already one of the league’s most exciting players at 23 years old. In March, the N.B.A. suspended him for eight games without pay for conduct detrimental to the league after he appeared in an Instagram Live video “holding a firearm in an intoxicated state” while visiting a nightclub near Denver, according to a league statement. Soon after the video’s streaming, Morant left the team and checked into a counseling facility in Florida. Following his return to the Grizzlies, Morant told reporters that he had spent his time at the facility learning how to better deal with stress and improve himself.But last month, a new Instagram Live video appeared to show Morant flashing a gun, this time while riding in a vehicle. The Grizzlies, who had already been eliminated from the playoffs by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, quickly suspended Morant from all team activities pending the league’s review of the video.On Thursday, Silver said the league had “uncovered a fair amount of additional information,” but he did not elaborate.Silver was also asked whether he thought the league’s initial eight-game suspension had sent a strong enough message to Morant. At the time, Silver said, Morant seemed “heartfelt and serious” in his conversations with league officials.“But I think he understood that it wasn’t about his words, that it was going to be about his future conduct,” Silver said. “So, I guess, in hindsight, I don’t know. If it had been a 12-game suspension instead of an eight-game suspension, would that have mattered?”He added: “It seemed appropriate at the time. Maybe, by definition, to the extent — we’ve all seen the video. It appears he’s done it again. So I guess you could say, maybe not. But I don’t think we yet know what it will take to change his behavior.”The N.B.A. has penalized players for similar types of acts. During the 2009-10 season, for example, Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards was suspended 50 games for bringing guns into the team’s locker room, which violates league policy. Arenas, who was a three-time All-Star at the time, also appeared to make light of the situation by making finger gun gestures at a game while the league was still investigating his behavior.Silver described Morant as “a fine young man” who has “clearly made some mistakes.”“But he’s young,” Silver said, “and I’m hoping now that once we conclude at the end of our process what the appropriate discipline is, that it’s not just about the discipline, that it’s about what we, the players’ association, his team, and he and the people around him are going to do to create better circumstances going forward. I think that’s what’s ultimately most important here.”Sopan Deb More

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    In the N.B.A. Playoffs, Flopping Is a Welcome Sideshow

    Basketball stars from Nikola Jokic to Kyle Lowry are hamming up their reactions to even the slightest contact, writes our columnist. They could benefit from an acting lesson.In the 2023 N.B.A. playoffs, LeBron James got in on the act. And Stephen Curry, and the league’s most valuable player, Joel Embiid. Kyle Lowry keeps trying, but oh does he need help. Even Nikola Jokic has taken a bow.Yes, this postseason has showcased the beauty of basketball. The upstarts, upsets and dominance. The Miami Heat putting the kibosh on the comeback of comebacks in the Eastern Conference finals. But it has also been marred by players of all stripes — ahem, Malik Monk, the sixth man for the Sacramento Kings — falling and flailing as if stung by a cattle prod.All in desperate attempts to hoodwink referees into calling fouls.Welcome to the National Basketball Floppers Association.Flopping isn’t new, of course. In the 1970s, Red Auerbach, the Boston Celtics’s fabled and curmudgeonly leader, railed on national television against the “Hollywood acting” that was sullying the game.“N.B.A. floppers are almost always overacting,” said Anthony Gilardi, a Hollywood acting coach. “You watch these guys with their pratfalls and their on-court stunts, and it’s so over-the-top cringeworthy as to be hilarious.”I asked Gilardi to watch video clips of sham playoff tumbles and offer an assessment. He had seen most of the plays and knew the subject well. He’s a Celtics fan who has seen all of Marcus Smart’s greatest flops.There’s a vast difference, Gilardi said, between players reacting to contact in a way that creates an illusion that a foul has occurred and being so obvious that every fan in the arena can tell the reaction is fake. It is the difference between what we see from an Oscar nominee and an actor on a run-of-the-mill soap opera.“In soap operas, it’s often the case you can absolutely tell they are acting,” he said, emphasizing the word the way Heat guard Max Strus would a shoulder bump. “There’s not enough subtlety to create the illusion.”LeBron James performed vaudevillian flops in the Lakers’ Western Conference finals loss to the Nuggets.Allen Berezovsky/Getty ImagesGilardi offered a few suggestions for ways hardwood entertainers could refine their technique.Go deeply into the part. Milk it for all it’s worth, even if that means limping after the foul has been called.If you’re going to fake an injury, for God’s sake, get the specific body part right: No more holding your arm as if it were run over by a tank when you’ve been bumped in the chest.Relax and focus. The art is in the subtlety, not in the effort of trying to convince.Do all of these, and the deception won’t be so evident as to embarrass officials or raise howls from fans, cackling criticism from television analysts or a clampdown by the suits in the league office.“If they worked on this the right way,” Gilardi said, “there’s a world where some of these flops would be so good, they might not even be considered flops. Now that is good acting.”After seeing the N.B.A. try, and fail, to stop flopping for over a decade, today’s players can’t seem to help themselves. I don’t have a number to back this up, but the eye test tells you all you need to know. Flopping pervades the playoffs like tumbleweeds on a dusty desert plain.Google “Mat Ishbia Playoffs Ridiculous Flop” and you’ll see even the billionaire owner of the Phoenix Suns take a courtside dive.Bearing witness to the Warriors’ flop-heavy loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals, Golden State Coach Steve Kerr made a personal plea to end the “gamesmanship” and canny ploys “to fool the refs.”His solution: Have N.B.A. referees call technical fouls against floppers, as officials do in the international game. The league is now reportedly considering a test run at enforcement during summer exhibitions.The flop, part acting and part competition, is now baked into the N.B.A. Celtics guard Marcus Smart pleaded his case to a referee.Winslow Townson/USA Today Sports, via ReutersI say, not so fast.N.B.A. referees have a hard enough time deciding whether James Harden’s carrying the ball 10 steps on his way to a layup is worth calling a travel. Now they would have the added burden of deciding, in real time, whether a foul was tried-and-true or hardwood chicanery. Odds of success? Slim.And remember: 11 years ago, the league announced a plan to fine players for flops. Handing down $5,000 fines to obsessively ambitious, multimillionaire athletes who would walk on shards of glass to win a championship didn’t quite do the trick.The flop, part acting and part competition, is now baked into the N.B.A. It shows off athleticism and skill, a deep thirst for winning as well as showmanship — attributes that define the league. It’s all part of the spectacle.So why not have some fun with it? Maybe, instead of resisting and demonizing the flop, we should embrace it — but demand better acting.Take, for instance, the back-to-back theatrics delivered by Jokic and James late in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals. James’s performance was a thing to behold.After Jokic brushed against him — yes, brushed — while attempting a pass, James broke out the vaudeville. His face contorted into a grimace. He twisted his 6-foot-9, 250-pound body, backpedaled, leaped backward and slid halfway across the width of the court until he landed at the feet of courtside spectators, spilling the drink of one who even offered James a towel. He offered a syrupy thank you in response.What a charade!But the flop worked. A foul was called on Jokic and the ball awarded to the Lakers. James leaped up, alert, energetic and showing not an ounce of injury. In a flash, he took an inbounds pass and dribbled upcourt.Jokic and the Denver Nuggets still won that game, and swept that series. With the dominant way Jokic has been playing to get his team to the franchise’s first N.B.A. finals, the concept of stopping him seems like pure theater. More

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    NBA Quiz: Where Is the Pass Going?

    Few aspects of basketball capture the joy of the game like great passes. The most exciting ones require communication, improvisation and a little luck. This year’s N.B.A. finals will feature one of the sport’s best at getting the ball to his teammates: Denver’s Nikola Jokic. Can you see the court like the pros? Try to […] More