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    Clippers Beat Suns in Game 3, Continuing a Playoff Trend

    For the third straight playoff series, Los Angeles spotted an opponent two wins and then roared back in Game 3. In each previous series, they kept winning and advanced.The Los Angeles Clippers are the first team in N.B.A. history to erase multiple 2-0 series deficits in the same postseason. Their players, so impressed by the adjustments that their coach, Tyronn Lue, has been making to facilitate those comebacks, have started calling him Bill Belichick.“Yeah, right,” Lue said late Thursday, laughing at the comparisons to Belichick, who has coached the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles.Lue knows the Clippers remain seven wins from the first N.B.A. championship in franchise history, but on Thursday they managed to add another entry to their improbable run of Game 3 recoveries — and this time they did it without their best player. With Kawhi Leonard reduced to spectator status, watching from a Staples Center suite as he nursed a worrisome right knee sprain, Los Angeles ground out a 106-92 victory over the Phoenix Suns to slice the Suns’ lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals to 2-1.While none of the Clippers got too carried away with one win, given the specter of Leonard’s uncertain availability for the rest of the series, the performance provided the feel of an actual trend that began with the Clippers’ momentous Game 3 win in Dallas and continued with a similar escape against the Utah Jazz in the next round.Paul George scored 27 points in Game 3.Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn the first round, Dallas had won the first two games as the road team and opened a 30-11 lead in Game 3 before the Clippers rallied for a win that probably saved their season.This week, after the Clippers dropped the first two games in Phoenix while the Suns’ Chris Paul was isolated from his team in the league’s health and safety protocols, Los Angeles needed a similar turning point. With Paul making his return Thursday night, the Suns, with Paul in and Leonard out, seemed set up perfectly to bring a halt to the Clippers’ Game 3 joy.Then Lue intervened, as he had in the Dallas series (when he made the 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum his starting center) and then the Utah series (when he unleashed the reserve guard Terance Mann, with Leonard out, and Mann responded by scoring a career-high 39 points in a closeout victory in Game 6).On Thursday, Lue again started the 6-foot-5 Mann to send some size at the rusty Paul, but he also handed key roles to Patrick Beverley and Ivica Zubac (15 points and 16 rebounds) after pulling both from the starting lineup in the Dallas series. Assigning Mann to Paul and directing Beverley to hound the Suns’ Devin Booker helped a weary Paul George stay just fresh enough to register 27 points, 15 rebounds and 8 assists. It was an encouraging rebound for George, whose two late missed free throws in Game 2 in Phoenix created the opening for the Suns to steal a 104-103 victory on Deandre Ayton’s dunk in the final second. In Game 3, George’s half-court bank shot at the third-quarter buzzer freshened up his 9-for-26 shooting line considerably and crucially nudged the Clippers’ lead to 80-69, giving them the fourth-quarter edge that led to the Suns’ first loss since May 27.“I thought we did a great job of moving on,” George said. “I moved on. I know I have to be better.”That was a safe assumption with Paul returning from his 10-day isolation from the Suns. Before his sudden exile, Paul, 36, had played the best series of his career in a second-round sweep over the Denver Nuggets — clinching only the second trip to the conference finals in Paul’s 16-season career. He also surely wanted to make a showy return to Los Angeles, where he had spent six fruitless seasons with the Clippers before departing in 2017.Paul and the Suns still have an opportunity to lead their franchise into the N.B.A. finals for the first time since 1993. Leonard’s injury makes this the third straight round in which the Suns have faced a compromised opponent, after the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers (Anthony Davis) and then the Nuggets (Jamal Murray) were weakened by the loss of key players.Yet Paul and Booker combined to shoot 10 for 40 from the field in Game 3, with Booker forced to wear a plastic face shield after a Game 2 clash with Beverley left him with a broken nose. The Suns also lost Cameron Payne, who starred in Game 2 (29 points, 9 assists, 0 turnovers) while filling in for Paul, when he injured his left ankle in the first half. For once in a postseason marked by serious injury issues in both conferences, Phoenix looked a bit banged up heading into Saturday’s Game 4.Booker insisted that his nose was “fine, honestly” after doctors deemed it broken in three places, and he dismissed suggestions that the mask had affected his shooting. I checked in with one of Booker’s former Suns teammates, Jamal Crawford, after Crawford took to Twitter during Booker’s 5-for-21 shooting struggles to describe his own experience with a face shield as “the best defense” he had ever seen.Devin Booker wore a mask to protect his broken nose but refused to blame it for his 5-for-21 shooting performance.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“The mask challenge is real,” Crawford said. “First off, you can only see straight ahead, nothing on the sides. And even shooting, your depth perception is not quite right. A shot you shoot long may be short, and vice versa. It’s tough to get in a rhythm.”Crawford recalled ditching the mask after a quarter and taking his chances with an exposed nose because “the frustration of wearing it was too much.” The Suns coach, Monty Williams, not surprisingly, implored his players to blame the defeat on nothing apart from their failure to match what he termed the Clippers’ “desperation.”To hear Lue’s players tell it, that pluck stemmed as much from him as despair. Whether the Clippers can win Game 4 and give their third successive comeback attempt from a 2-0 deficit a significant jolt most likely depends on how well Paul and Booker can bounce back from their shaky reunion. But the Clippers said they were convinced Lue would have a plan for that.“I think it’s special, just the relationship I have with T-Lue, and the relationship T-Lue has with every individual on this team in general,” George said. He credited a late-night phone call with Lue shortly after the team landed in Los Angeles after the painful Game 2 defeat with helping him bounce back.But does that make him the next Belichick?“I’m nowhere near him,” Lue said.Was he bold enough to believe that the Clippers, after going 0-6 in Game 1s and Game 2s, can make it back to 2-2 again even without Leonard?“I don’t like it, I’ll tell you that,” Lue said of his team’s habit of digging early holes. “But we’ve been a resilient team all season long.” More

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    He Created the Sports Theme Song You Didn’t Know You Knew

    It’s a little bit “aggressive” and a little bit “light.” The theme song for TNT’s “Inside the N.B.A.” is as much a character as the show’s popular hosts.Even the most casual N.B.A. fans probably remember the classic theme song for games played on NBC during the golden era of 1990s basketball. They’ll almost assuredly recall that it was written by John Tesh, the former television host and composer. Some might even know that it’s called “Roundball Rock.” It has been memorialized in pop culture on “Saturday Night Live” and further enshrined with a video of Tesh explaining where the song came from: a voice mail message he left for himself.In the 21st century, another theme song has become familiar to N.B.A. fans, although most likely not as much as Tesh’s. It is the one that signals the start of one of the most influential studio shows in sports, “Inside the N.B.A.” on TNT. Here, the composer of the theme song is virtually unknown to the show’s viewers and even to its hosts. But he is a household name in some corners of music fandom and one of the industry’s most prolific composers.The composer is Trevor Rabin, the former guitarist of the progressive rock band Yes. The South African-born musician was the driving force behind the album “90125,” a comeback record for the band, and the song “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” the band’s only No. 1 hit. Rabin was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 with the band.“I wasn’t really even aware of that, to tell you the truth,” Ernie Johnson, one of the hosts of “Inside the N.B.A.” and a Yes fan, said in a phone call after finding out that Rabin was the composer. “But that’s very cool.”Rabin, who lives in Los Angeles, described himself as a rabid basketball fan, particularly of the Lakers. He said that he “religiously” watches games and uses that time to practice the guitar. But when it comes to this theme song, he has gone mostly unnoticed.“I remember Shaq saying once he liked the theme just in passing, but no one’s ever acknowledged me. Charles Barkley needs to acknowledge it and give a shout out. Otherwise I’m never going to support him again,” Rabin joked during a recent interview, referring to Shaquille O’Neal and Barkley, who host “Inside the N.B.A.” with Johnson and Kenny Smith.Rabin, 67, turned to film scoring in the 1990s. He had shown an interest in orchestration dating to his childhood in South Africa, growing up as the son of a classical pianist mother and a violin-playing father. As a member of Yes, Rabin said that he would often try to introduce orchestral components to the music.Rabin is perhaps best known for composing the theme song for the movie “Remember the Titans.”Mike Coppola/Getty Images“A lot of it has become kind of electronic and computerized, but writing for orchestra was always a love of mine,” Rabin said, referring to on-screen scores. “So I just decided I’m going to get into film, and I remember my manager saying: ‘Oh, it’s a big brick wall there. Just because you’ve had a notoriety with other areas, film’s going to be very difficult.’ But I decided, ‘No, I really want to do this.’”He quickly became a sought after composer in Hollywood. In 1998 alone, the films “Armageddon,” “Jack Frost” and “Enemy of the State” were released with Rabin’s scores. His most famous work is most likely the theme song for 2000’s “Remember the Titans.” That composition was played in November 2008 after Barack Obama delivered the acceptance speech for winning the presidency.It was the “Titans” theme that put Rabin on the radar of Craig Barry, now the Turner Sports executive who oversees the “Inside the N.B.A.” studio production. Barry, also a serious Yes fan, was doing some production work for NBC during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City — and used the theme from the “Titans” soundtrack to close out the final broadcast. Barry then recruited Rabin to rework the TNT studio show’s theme song.“I went armed with literally a handful of his work,” Barry said, and added, “I was essentially telling him I want all of this together.”Part of what makes a theme song effective, Barry said, is that “you never get sick of hearing it.”Clearly, TNT has not. Usually, according to Rabin, the network will update graphics and other parts of the broadcast — except the hosts, of course — every three years or so. But the theme song has stayed the same for almost two decades. It has become a character of the show, much in the same way as Johnson, O’Neal, Barkley and Smith. (Like Tesh’s, this theme has appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” but as part of a larger sendup of “Inside the N.B.A.”)“To me, it’s kind of a signature,” Johnson said. “If somebody has their back turned, and they’re in the house doing something and have the television on for background noise and they’re waiting for something, when they hear that song, they go, ‘OK, the ‘N.B.A. on TNT’ is on. It’s like the stamp that says the N.B.A. is coming on.”The listener can hear certain mainstays of what made Yes successful, particularly the soaring lead guitar riffs and the heavy use of a synthesizer. But there is more that may not immediately meet the ear. The song is in the time signature 7/8, whereas most songs written for any medium in the last two centuries are more traditionally 4/4. (A time signature is generally a measure of a song’s rhythm.)The genesis of the theme song was an act of aggression. Rabin said that he was watching the 1984 N.B.A. finals between the rival Boston Celtics and his Lakers, when during Game 4, Kevin McHale, the Celtics power forward, clotheslined the Lakers’ Kurt Rambis. Rabin was scoring while watching the game and the clothesline inspired him to come up with the 7/8 meter, which he would then use for TNT.“I feel like anything I do, when I listened back to it, I always think: ‘Oh, God, why didn’t I do this? I should have done that,’” Rabin said.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesAnother aspect distinguishing this song is its versatility, whether under highlights or as a main theme.“What’s unique about the ‘N.B.A. on TNT’ theme is that it can be used in various situations, and it can be really appropriate,” Barry said. “It has this primary theme and then it has this very aggressive rush section and then it has a light fanfare piece of it. It’s all kind of seamlessly melded together.”Rabin said the only N.B.A. figure he has discussed the theme with is Gary Payton, the Hall of Fame point guard who spent much of his career with the Seattle SuperSonics. Right after the theme made its debut, Payton visited the set of “Bad Boys II,” a film Rabin had scored. Rabin was chatting with the film’s lead, Will Smith, when Payton approached.“I said: ‘Oh, my goodness, you’re the Glove. How you doing? And can I shake the glove?’” Rabin said.He informed Payton that he had composed the “Inside the N.B.A.” theme song.“And then he was like, ‘Man, that’s cool.’ And I guess that’s the story,” Rabin said.Even though TNT has not made a move for a new theme song, the current one does have one prominent critic: Rabin.“It’s kind of a terrible affliction I have,” he said, adding that he’s also uncomfortable watching movies he has scored. “I feel like anything I do, when I listened back to it, I always think: ‘Oh, God, why didn’t I do this? I should have done that.’”But every time the song is played on the broadcast, Rabin collects a check, no matter how much he cringes at hearing it played.“I wish it was $15,000 at a time, but unfortunately I think it’s more like 15 cents,” Rabin said. More

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    Nets Assistant Ime Udoka Nears Deal to Coach the Celtics

    Udoka, who has been with the Nets for one season, will be hired by Brad Stevens, his predecessor. Stevens recently was promoted to president of basketball operations.Ime Udoka, who was an assistant for the Nets this season, is nearing an agreement to become the next head coach of the Boston Celtics, a person familiar with the discussions but not authorized to discuss them publicly said on Wednesday.Udoka spent seven years as an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs under Gregg Popovich and one season as an assistant in Philadelphia before coming to the Nets. He also played in the N.B.A. as a reserve for seven years, including spurts with the Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers and three seasons with the Spurs.The news of the impending hiring was first reported by ESPN.This will be the second high-profile move made by the new Celtics team president, Brad Stevens, who was unexpectedly thrust into the role this month. His predecessor, Danny Ainge, stepped down after the Nets knocked the Celtics out of the playoffs in the first round.Stevens had coached the team for the last eight years, but this season had been a particularly tumultuous one for the Celtics, who were besieged by injuries and an ill-fitting roster that lacked depth. Boston’s best player, the All-Star Jayson Tatum, also dealt with lingering effects from Covid-19. After making the Eastern Conference finals in 2019-20, the Celtics had to fight just to get into the playoffs and finished the season at 36-36.Udoka, 43, will inherit a team centered on two All-Star wings, Tatum and Jaylen Brown. In his first major move as team president, Stevens last week traded Kemba Walker, who was the team’s starting point guard, and Boston’s 2021 first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Al Horford and Moses Brown, an up-and-coming center. The move increased the Celtics’ financial flexibility.At the news conference announcing his promotion, Stevens said of the coaching search: “I think that the good news about whoever we hire, they don’t have to fill Doc Rivers’s shoes like I did, and they don’t have to fill Danny Ainge’s shoes now like I do. The good news is they have to figure out a way to be better than the last guy.”Udoka, who is Nigerian American, will become the sixth Black coach in the history of the franchise. The others were Rivers (2004-13), M.L. Carr (1995-97), K.C. Jones (1983-88), Tom Sanders (1978) and Bill Russell (1966-69).In a league that has been criticized for predominantly hiring white coaches, even though more than 70 percent of players are Black, Udoka will be one of nine nonwhite head coaches. (This does not include Nate McMillan, who is Black and the interim head coach of the Atlanta Hawks.) Udoka will be coaching in a city that was once again in the spotlight for its treatment of Black athletes, during this year’s playoffs. Kyrie Irving, who played for the Celtics from 2017 to 2019, suggested that he had heard racist comments from fans during his time in Boston and said that he hoped he wouldn’t hear them as a member of the Nets.There are six other head coaching vacancies across the league, in Portland, Orlando, Indiana, New Orleans, Washington and Dallas. More

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    Vanessa Bryant and Families of Crash Victims Settle With Helicopter Company

    Bryant, the widow of the N.B.A. star Kobe Bryant, had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the company that operated the vehicle that crashed last year, killing nine.Vanessa Bryant, the widow of the basketball star Kobe Bryant, and the family members of the other victims in a deadly helicopter crash in January 2020 reached a settlement with the charter company that operated the helicopter.Terms of the settlement were confidential and it is awaiting court approval.Vanessa Bryant had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Island Express Helicopters and its owner, Island Express Holding Corporation, arguing that the company had not properly trained the helicopter’s pilot, Ara Zobayan, and that he had shown negligence in his flying.In response to the lawsuit, Island Express Helicopters had denied responsibility for the crash, labeling it “an act of God.” The company countersued two Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers, stating their “series of erroneous acts and/or omissions” had caused the crash.Kobe Bryant, a longtime member of the Los Angeles Lakers who was recently posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, his daughter Gianna, and seven other people on board were killed in the crash. They had been traveling to a youth basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, Calif., when the helicopter slammed into a hill near Calabasas, Calif.In February, the National Transportation Safety Board announced that the crash had most likely been caused by Zobayan’s flying into clouds, in a violation of federal rules. The conditions blinded him and caused him to become disoriented, believing the helicopter was climbing when it was actually descending, they found.Zobayan had been a longtime pilot for Kobe Bryant and his family. He was likely eager to make the trip for Bryant, despite the fog-shrouded conditions, but there was no indication that Bryant had pressured Zobayan into flying, the yearlong investigation concluded.Vanessa Bryant and other family members of the crash’s victims also filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, four deputies, the county and its fire department for invasion of privacy and negligence after deputies took and shared unauthorized photos of the victims and the crash site.That lawsuit is ongoing.Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs More

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    Doubters. Haters. Trae Young Has Them. He Doesn’t Care.

    Young, the Atlanta Hawks guard, has embraced the booing, cursing crowds and his opponents’ defensive pressure. What he hasn’t embraced? Low expectations.Nate McMillan, more than most, knows the unpredictable nature of a point guard equipped with unflinching confidence.As a member of the Seattle SuperSonics, McMillan shared a backcourt with Gary Payton. The brash Payton scored on nearly everyone and backed down from absolutely no one, Michael Jordan included.So McMillan, now the interim coach of the fifth-seeded Atlanta Hawks, did not panic when the shot of his star guard, Trae Young, was off throughout much of his team’s deciding Game 7 in the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference semifinals on Sunday night against the top-seeded Philadelphia 76ers.“I can’t believe how calm I was throughout this game, and I think it just came from the fact that I knew these guys were going to give me everything they had,” McMillan said, adding of Young: “He’s fearless, so the opponents, they have to guard for that. He will take a shot if he’s open, regardless of how many shots he has missed. He really stretches the defense.”And Young missed a great many shots on Sunday. But his greatest strength is his confidence, maximized by the unpredictability of his repertoire.Will he spot up from 30 feet or whip a line-drive pass through a small crease into the hands of John Collins? Will he zig and zag into the lane for a floater or lob an alley-oop pass to Clint Capela? Will he pull back for a midrange attempt or lure help defenders into the lane before kicking the ball out to Danilo Gallinari, Bogdan Bogdanovic or Kevin Huerter?The options appear plentiful on every offensive possession, with Young choosing the route dictated by the defense. On Sunday, Young, dealing with a right shoulder injury, missed 17 of his first 19 shots, as Huerter assumed the offensive burden while amassing a playoff career-high 27 points.Young, center, has leaned into the intensity of the playoffs, rewarding home crowds, pictured, with his effort and shrugging off the jeers on the road.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesThe threat of Young pulling up from deep lengthened Philadelphia’s defense, and his many forays into the lane resulted in several finishes for Capela as Atlanta kept the game close.“I know I just had to find a way,” Young said afterward. “My shot was off tonight. My right hand and my shoulder — I was still trying to fight through it and push through it and shots weren’t going tonight, but my teammates showed up and made plays. Me, I just tried to find them.”In the closing moments, Young found his shot and Atlanta claimed the series with a 103-96 victory, earning its first conference finals trip since 2015. The Hawks will face the No. 3-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Atlanta never trailed after Young’s midrange floater put the Hawks up, 86-84, and his long 3-point shot and free throws cemented the outcome.“They were making plays for me throughout the whole game,” Young said. “Just wanted to come through in the end and help them out a little bit. I know I didn’t shoot the ball great today, but they definitely made plays, and it was a total team effort tonight.”This season is coming to a close without the mainstays of recent playoffs, partly because of a rash of high-profile injuries. LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers bowed out in the first round. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden lost in the second with the Nets. Stephen Curry’s only postseason appearances came while watching his brother, Seth, play for Philadelphia.Instead, these playoffs are providing a stage for players like Young and Phoenix’s Devin Booker to come of age. Both have been accused of putting up empty calorie stats for losing teams.Young took what defenses allowed as he learned the league during his first two seasons. He just didn’t have the caliber of teammates that he is now surrounded with in his third.Atlanta did not cross the 30-win threshold in either of the two previous seasons and was not one of the 22 teams invited into the Walt Disney World bubble last season when the N.B.A. resumed the pandemic-paused season.The organization quickly and smartly retooled itself by adding Bogdanovic and Gallinari through free agency and Capela and Lou Williams through trades to go along with the developing core of Young, Collins and Huerter. (De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish, two other young players, have been injured.)The Hawks began the season with the hopes of qualifying for the playoffs, but that goal seemed quickly out of reach. Atlanta started 14-20 before firing Coach Lloyd Pierce and promoting McMillan, who had been an assistant. The Hawks rebounded at the time Bogdanovic returned from an injury that had limited him, finishing the season 27-11 to earn the conference’s fifth seed.“It’s been a tough journey,” Young said. “It took a lot of losses to get here. For us, I think the guys who have been here since the rebuild, this feeling is a lot better than what it’s been. We know it’s our first year in the playoffs together, and it’s only the beginning, too. That’s the best part about this whole thing.”Young was at the forefront of both the rebuild and the rally and is averaging 29.1 points and 10.4 assists per game during the playoffs. He can be a frustrating player to watch. He entices fouls in a Harden-esque way, stopping randomly and purposefully in the lane so a defender can brush into him. He is getting results.So far this postseason, Young has bowed at Madison Square Garden while finishing off the Knicks in five games, and he performed push-ups on the court at Wells Fargo Center while outlasting the 76ers. The Hawks have claimed five road playoff games in New York and Philadelphia with Young relishing his role as a villain, smiling as crowds have booed and cursed at him.The last time the Hawks made it this deep into the playoffs, they were led by Mike Budenholzer, now the coach of the Bucks. Milwaukee flexes Giannis Antetokounmpo, a former defensive player of the year, and Jrue Holiday, who is regarded as one of the league’s premier perimeter on-ball defenders. The Bucks are paying Holiday handsomely — he signed a four-year, $135 million extension in April — to make an impact on a series just like the approaching one.The Bucks pose another serious challenge in a postseason in which Young and the Hawks have continually silenced their skeptics.No one expected Atlanta to qualify for the conference finals. The Hawks play like a team unaware people think it’s supposed to have a ceiling.Perhaps Young’s unflinching confidence is contagious.“The confidence is still there,” Young said. “The confidence is going to remain the same. We’re happy we made it to the Eastern Conference finals, but we’re not satisfied. So it’s great that we’re here, but we’ve still got some games to win.” More

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    ‘It Hurts’: Season Is Over Before Nets See How Good Big Three Can Be

    Injuries kept the Nets from knowing what they could really look like once their stars — Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden — were playing well together.Whether Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving could collaborate, share the basketball and play good enough defense to bring a championship to New York’s less heralded N.B.A. franchise were unknowns that nagged at the entire league.Now, after being eliminated by the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, the Nets cannot hush their skeptics until next year. After a 48-24 season and playoff ride that lasted only two rounds, the biggest questions about their three stars remain unanswered.Injuries overrode potential basketball issues and neutralized the Nets’ status among Las Vegas oddsmakers as title favorites. Durant, Harden and Irving shared the floor for only 43 seconds in the Bucks series. In Game 7, with only Durant as a dependable offensive option and Irving in street clothes, Milwaukee outlasted the Nets, 115-111, in overtime at Barclays Center, which inflicted a searing pain of its own.“It hurts,” Coach Steve Nash said, lauding the efforts of Durant, who scored 48 points in 53 minutes in Game 7, and Harden, who also played all 53 minutes, despite a hamstring strain. “I hurt for them more than anything.”The N.B.A.’s 75th season will be remembered for its Covid-19 protocols, game postponements and empty arenas for months. But the Nets became the league’s biggest on-court story after their acquisition in January of Harden from the Houston Rockets. Five years after General Manager Sean Marks was hired to rescue a franchise devoid of elite talent and draft picks, Marks built a legitimate contender by assembling one of the most impressive offensive threesomes in league history.The trouble for the Nets was not their defensive shortcomings, the depth they sacrificed to make the trade with the Rockets, the lack of available practice time during the coronavirus pandemic or Nash’s inexperience as a first-year coach. It was this: In the regular season, Durant, Harden and Irving were healthy enough to play together for only 202 minutes across eight games. Their 130 minutes together in a five-game dismissal of the Boston Celtics in the first round proved to be their only burst of continuity as a unit. Milwaukee won three of the final four games of the series after Irving’s nasty right ankle sprain in the first half of Game 4.These playoffs were supposed to be the Nets’ chance to shift a slice or two of cultural relevance to Brooklyn from Manhattan in a city teeming with Knicks fans. In the end, neither Marks nor Nash really came away knowing what the Nets could really look like when whole.Some key moments that brought the Nets to this point:Durant and Irving Sign OnEntering the 2019-20 season, there was much speculation about where Durant and Irving would end up. Earlier in the previous season, Irving had committed to staying with Boston long-term, while Durant seemed to be on his way to another title with Golden State. As the world found out after their seasons unraveled — Durant’s through an Achilles’ tear in the 2019 N.B.A. finals — they wanted to play together.The Nets had enough salary cap flexibility to sign them, as well as their friend DeAndre Jordan. The Knicks had the same wherewithal, but Durant and Irving chose the Nets and took Jordan, who finished the 2018-19 season with the Knicks, with them.Nets officials made the moves knowing Durant would probably miss his entire first season as a Net while recovering from the Achilles’ injury. Irving wound up playing only 20 games in his first season in Brooklyn because of shoulder problems. Both are now halfway through four-year deals.Nash’s HiringSteve Nash had a 48-24 record and was the Eastern Conference’s coach of the month in February in his first season as a Nets and N.B.A. coach.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Nets shook the N.B.A. again by hiring Nash as coach in September 2020. He had no coaching experience, even at the assistant level, but he won two Most Valuable Player Awards and was one of the best point guards in league history.He was essentially chosen by Marks, his former Phoenix Suns teammate, who felt he had the gravitas and communication skills to manage the Nets’ two mercurial stars. Harden would not arrive until a few weeks into Nash’s first season on the bench. The Nets also brought in Mike D’Antoni, Nash’s former coach in Phoenix, to lend veteran guidance.“I wasn’t hired to come in and be a tactical wizard,” Nash said on a podcast hosted by the N.B.A. sharpshooter JJ Redick.Hiring Nash, who is white, nonetheless elicited criticism, given the dearth of Black coaches in the N.B.A., whose player pool is estimated to be nearly 80 percent Black. Nash’s hiring came after Jacque Vaughn, who completed the 2019-20 season as the team’s interim coach and had the Nets playing unexpectedly well without Durant and Irving in the N.B.A.’s so-called bubble in Florida. Vaughn, who is Black, stayed on as an assistant alongside D’Antoni and Ime Udoka. On ESPN, Stephen A. Smith called Nash’s hiring “white privilege.”“Well, I did skip the line, frankly,” Nash said at his introductory news conference. “But at the same time, I think leading an N.B.A. team for almost two decades is pretty unique.”The Harden BlockbusterHarden entered this season as a disgruntled member of the Rockets. He wanted out after D’Antoni and Daryl Morey left the team without an established coach and its top front-office executive, and Harden pushed for a trade to the Nets to reunite with Durant, his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate. It was an audacious move for someone with three years left on his contract — and it cemented the Nets as league villains when it worked.Harden reported late to training camp to apply pressure on the Rockets to trade him. Appearing to be in less than optimal shape made his disinterest palpable during the eight regular-season games he played. The Nets, off to a 6-6 start, ignored Harden’s checkered playoff résumé and the rampant skepticism that one ball would not be enough to satisfy three high-volume scorers, and proceeded with trade talks.In January, the Nets acquired James Harden, pictured shooting over Giannis Antetokounmpo, but he strained a hamstring and missed more time than he had in any previous season.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn a four-team trade, Marks agreed to surrender control of the Nets’ top draft pick through 2027 to the Rockets and deal two young fan favorites, Caris LeVert (to Indiana) and Jarrett Allen (to Cleveland), to land Harden. As a bonus, the trade kept Harden from landing alongside center Joel Embiid in Philadelphia, after the 76ers offered the Rockets a deal involving Ben Simmons.The deal remains a gamble for the Nets. Every year without a championship will increase the scrutiny and pressure. Management must decide whether to pursue contract extensions with Durant, Harden and Irving that would cost hundreds of millions in salary and luxury tax or risk seeing any of the three opt for free agency after next season under their current contracts.“This is just the start of our journey,” Joe Tsai, the Nets’ owner, said on Twitter after the Game 7 loss. Known as one of the league’s wealthiest owners alongside the Los Angeles Clippers’ Steve Ballmer, Tsai certainly has the financial might to keep the core together.Irving’s AbsencesDuring the pursuit of Harden and after his arrival, Irving missed seven games in January for personal reasons. Marks said Irving’s sudden unavailability and the acquisition were “completely separate.” Yet the Nets felt it was urgent to maximize Durant’s championship window and made the trade with that in mind, according to two people familiar with the club’s thinking who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.Kyrie Irving, left, who was out since Game 4 with a right ankle sprain, supported his Nets teammates from the bench in Game 7 against the Bucks on Saturday night.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Nets knew they wouldn’t have a training camp to try to assimilate Harden into the team, but figured that by bringing in a durable player, they would almost always have two elite players on the floor. It also became clear, soon after Harden’s arrival, that he was best suited to be the team’s playmaker, according to one of the people. Clear, even, to Irving.“We established that maybe four days ago now,” Irving said in February. “I just looked at him and I said, ‘You’re the point guard and I’m going to play shooting guard.’ That was as simple as that.”Cries that Harden was a luxury item for the Nets faded fast. The team went 29-8 in the regular season in games that Harden played and 12-11 without him.InjuriesHealth woes began almost immediately; Spencer Dinwiddie was lost to a season-ending knee tear just three games in. Dinwiddie averaged a career-high 20.6 points per game the season before, and he was expected to be yet another scoring threat on a team full of them.Durant overcame his Achilles’ tear in a big way, ending his season with 49 points against Milwaukee in Game 5 and 48 points in Game 7. But he wound up playing in only 35 of the Nets’ 72 regular-season games because of a hamstring injury. Harden, who was dealing with his own hamstring injury, missed more time in the regular season (21 of the final 23 games) and playoffs than he had in any previous season.The Nets were rocked in April when LaMarcus Aldridge, a former All-Star they had signed after he negotiated a buyout with the San Antonio Spurs, retired at age 35 because of a longstanding heart condition. Nash used a franchise-record 38 starting lineups in those 72 games and four separate ones in the Bucks series, leaning upon the well-traveled Jeff Green; Blake Griffin, a former All-Star who joined the team in April; and Griffin’s former Detroit Pistons teammate Bruce Brown.For the playoffs, the Nets finally seemed healthy — for one round. Harden missed all but the opening minute of the first four games of the Milwaukee series and lacked explosion or lift in his legs when he volunteered to return for Game 5 after Irving’s ankle sprain. Green’s plantar fascia strain kept him out of the first three games with the Bucks.“It’s been a really difficult year,” Nash said. “We’ve had a lot thrown at us.”Even with the injuries and Milwaukee’s stars healthy, the Nets came within an inch of advancing to the next round. With one second left in regulation in Game 7 and the Nets down by 2 points, Durant made a contested shot from the right wing that appeared to be a 3-pointer for the win. But his toe was on the 3-point line, and it counted as a long 2, sending the Nets to overtime instead of to the Eastern Conference finals.“My big ass foot stepped on the line,” Durant said. “I was just seeing a little screenshot how close I was to ending their season on that shot. But it wasn’t in God’s plan, and we move on.” More

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    Giannis and Bucks Eliminate Durant and Nets in Game 7 of NBA Playoffs

    Injuries to the Nets’ stars weighed on the team, which had been favored to win the championship this season.The Milwaukee Bucks are headed to the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference finals after defeating the Nets, 115-111, in overtime on Saturday night in a decisive Game 7 for their semifinal series.Giannis Antetokounmpo led the way for the Bucks, scoring 40 points and grabbing 13 rebounds, allowing Milwaukee to withstand another masterful showing from Kevin Durant, who countered with 48 points and 9 rebounds of his own.Durant repeatedly exploited screen-and-rolls, and deftly used his post-up game to befuddle the Bucks defense. The deafening Barclays Center crowd roared when Durant hit a long jumper to tie the game with 1 second left in regulation to send the game to overtime. But the Nets, whose bench players scored no points and attempted no shots all game, were outscored in overtime, 6-2, and lost.It was a disappointing end to the series for the No. 2-seeded Nets, who entered the playoffs primed to make a championship run, with their stars at last seemingly healthy at the same time. Their best three players — James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Durant — played only eight games together during the regular season because of injuries and other absences.The Nets started the series favored against the third-seeded Bucks, but once again, injuries to the stars piled up, increasing the potential of an upset.In Game 1, James Harden left after less than a minute because of a right hamstring strain. Nonetheless, the Nets won the first two games of the series at home in convincing fashion.Then the Bucks squeezed out a win at home in Game 3. And in Game 4, the Nets lost Irving to a sprained ankle in the first half. The Nets also lost the game and appeared to be losing momentum with the best-of-seven series suddenly tied at two.But in Game 5, Durant put together one of the greatest playoff performances ever, finishing with 49 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists and becoming the first player to record those numbers in a playoff game. Harden surprisingly returned for that game, but was largely ineffective. The Bucks led by as many as 17 points, only for Durant to snuff out their lead almost single-handedly in the second half. Jeff Green emerged to fill some of the gap left by Irving, scoring a playoff-career-high 27 points, the most points off the bench by a Net in postseason history.The Bucks struck back with strong performances from their stars in Game 6, with Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday scoring 89 of the Bucks’ 104 points.Throughout the series, the Nets tried to take advantage of Antetokounmpo’s ineffectiveness as a shooter, a weakness that has vexed him throughout several playoff runs. Defenders routinely left him open on the perimeter or sent him to the free-throw line, where he also struggled. That made Antetokounmpo, a two-time Most Valuable Player Award winner, less of a threat late in games.But Antetokounmpo still managed to have one of the best series of his career. Through the first six games, he averaged 30.5 points and 12.8 rebounds per game on 56.5 percent shooting. It was good enough to get the Bucks to a Game 7, and to the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in Antetokounmpo’s career.The Nets had difficulty getting production from their role players, many of whom had career years. Joe Harris, one of the best shooters in the N.B.A., struggled all series — shooting just 35.5 percent from the field and only 32.5 percent from 3 through the first six games.The Bucks’ series win brings them one step closer to winning their first championship since 1971, when the team was led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In the Eastern Conference finals, they’ll will face the winner of the other semifinal matchup, between the Atlanta Hawks and the Philadelphia 76ers. That matchup is headed to a Game 7 on Sunday, after the Sixers tied the series behind a strong performance from Seth Curry on Friday. The Eastern Conference finals are set to begin on Wednesday.The Nets missed a chance to make their first conference finals since 2002 and 2003, when they were in New Jersey led by Jason Kidd. Both of those years, the Nets went to the finals. They haven’t won a championship since the A.B.A. merged with the N.B.A. in 1976. More

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    Sugar Rodgers Is Rewriting Her Life Story Through the W.N.B.A.

    Rodgers used basketball, and later her writing skills, to forge a brighter path after a painful childhood. The former All-Star is now an assistant coach for the Las Vegas Aces.For much of Sugar Rodgers’ life, her job was survival: staying alive, healthy and out of jail in her Suffolk, Va., neighborhood, where the pop of bullets nearby forced her inside and away from the basketball hoop she loved.When many eighth graders were buckling down on schoolwork and extracurricular activities, or skipping school to hang out with friends, Rodgers was truant for other reasons: to babysit her nephew while his mother was at work, or to feed and bathe her bedridden mother, who was dying of lupus.“‘What goes on in this house stays in this house,’ ” Rodgers said her mother told her. “So, I couldn’t reach out and ask people for help and do certain things because that always stemmed in the back of my mind.”Still, Rodgers said, she finished eighth grade on time by doing extra assignments, and stayed on track academically throughout high school. She was recruited to play basketball at Georgetown, and graduated as the career scoring leader. The Minnesota Lynx selected her in the second round of the 2013 W.N.B.A. draft, and she helped them win a championship that year.She played the next five seasons with the Liberty, where she became an All-Star and won the Sixth Woman of the Year Award in 2017. Now, after two seasons playing with the Las Vegas Aces, Rodgers has matriculated into the coaching ranks as an assistant for the team.Rodgers ended her time at Georgetown as the school’s career scoring leader.Jessica Hill/Associated Press“I’m just going to bring whatever it is that they need me to do,” Rodgers said. “Just like as a player — whatever they needed me to do, I did. Whatever sacrifices they needed me to make, I did those, for the betterment of the team. And I’m willing to do that as a coach as well.”A recent graduate of Georgetown’s masters’ program in sports industry management and the author of “They Better Call Me Sugar,” a young adult memoir about her childhood, Rodgers, 31, spoke to The New York Times about her childhood, the sanctity of writing and the perspective she brings to the sideline.This interview and has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Your parents forced you to stay back in second grade. How did that impact your education journey?My mom said, like, “You’ll be fine. This is where you belong because you’re not learning at the pace that they are pushing at.”As a kid, you don’t look at it that way. You just look at it, like, “All my friends are going to be in the next grade and I’m going to get picked on because I was left behind.” And in my mind, like, it’s a reminder that I have failed, and because of that failure, I just have been, like: “I can’t fail again. I can’t fail again.”I’ve always tried to put myself in a position to be successful, so using basketball as a tool to get out of my situation, that’s what I’ve done.How did you find time while playing in the W.N.B.A. to pursue a master’s degree at Georgetown?When I wasn’t in the gym working on my game, I was at home working on my degree. It was a little bit of a struggle, especially because I started in 2019 during the playoffs. Can you imagine? I’m just starting school, and we’re in the playoffs, and just having to find that balance in between the two. I really wanted to go back to school, so I know it’s something I really wanted to accomplish and I just made time. I just made it work, whether it was some nights I stayed up a little bit later, or I got up a little bit earlier.Do you feel a shift is happening to include more women and women of color in W.N.B.A. head coaching and front office roles? And how did you know you were ready to move from center court to the sidelines?For me, I do see it changing. I do see more African American women are, you know, coming on the sidelines and taking it, especially former players. I also think for me, I just woke up and didn’t want to work out anymore. So, I just knew mentally, spiritually and physically it was time for me to look into something else.I actually kind of wanted to retire like two years ago.“It’s some things that I can say to players because I’ve actually been through it,” Rodgers said of coaching.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesWhat made you postpone your retirement and go to Las Vegas and play for your old coach Bill Laimbeer again?Once the Liberty decided to trade me, I was like, at this point, a little exhausted with basketball and how long I had been playing. Mentally, it was having an impact on me and I wanted to just be able to take a break from basketball.Bill and them, they traded for me. So, I was like, yeah, I’ll come out. They’d be a great organization.It seems that the Liberty’s move in 2017 from Madison Square Garden to the Westchester County Center in White Plains was a low point for the franchise. Would you agree?It was just, like, ‘Oh man, oh man.’ Like, a lot of people is not going to commute that far. You know, the die-hard fans are going to come, but we had a great fan base here in the city. I think that was kind of the devastating part of it, not being able to play in front of our fans and keep them coming back to the games and excited about the seasons.Fast-forward to 2021, and the Liberty is a very different franchise, with a new owner in Joseph Tsai, a new arena in Brooklyn’s Barclays and a hot start to the season. To what do you attribute this massive turnaround?I think they have a great owner. I think it started there when they were like, OK, we’re going to go play in the Barclays, and we’re going to treat you like A-1 class athletes. And that put them in a position to be able to get players to come play in New York.Throughout “They Better Call Me Sugar,” you write about your mother wanting you to put golf first and basketball second, or not at all. As an adult looking back, do you have an understanding of why she held this view?I just know golf was her thing, and maybe because back when she played basketball, there wasn’t opportunities for women. Because my mom was a basketball player, but way back in the day, it wasn’t opportunities like how it was for men. But now, looking at it, the W.N.B.A. is 25 years old. And just to be a part of that, it shows the W.N.B.A., can grow, the salaries can get there. It just takes one step at a time.How did you begin writing about your childhood, and has writing been a source of healing for you?When I was at Georgetown, I had a coach who suggested that I go to therapy and I’m just like, I’m not going to therapy. It’s for white people. But I was just ignorant to the fact because therapy, it’s taboo in the African American community.I really didn’t like talking, and I went to therapy and I wouldn’t talk and I remember [the therapist] was like, “Well, just write it down.” And I would just write these stories and he would read them when I came in, because I didn’t like to talk. And, you know, I was like, man, these stories could become a book. It can help somebody in a situation that’s like mine or worse than mine.Writing is therapeutic for me.What do you feel like you bring that’s unique to coaching?I just bring life experience in itself. There’s some things that you can’t teach that I just bring naturally. It’s some things that I can say to players because I’ve actually been through it.You get a lot of coaches who players cannot relate to, and I think sometimes you need that balance on the coaching staff. But if you have players who cannot relate, those players don’t fit because they feel like nobody understands them. And I just feel like I bring a lot. More