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BRADENTON, Fla. — Breanna Stewart scored a career-playoff-high 31 points, tying Seattle’s franchise playoff record, Sue Bird had 16 points and 9 assists, and the Storm beat Minnesota, 92-71, on Sunday to sweep the Lynx and advance to the W.N.B.A. finals.Stewart added six rebounds, seven assists, three steals and two blocks. Mercedes Russell tied her season high with 10 points for the second-seeded Storm.Bird and Stewart combined to score or assist on 13 points during a 17-0 run that gave Seattle a 24-8 lead when Sami Whitcomb made a layup with 54.2 seconds left in the first quarter. Stewart made a short jumper to push the Storm’s lead to 18 points with 1 minute 5 seconds left in the first half, but Minnesota scored 16 of the next 21 points, including 6 by Crystal Dangerfield and two 3-pointers by Odyssey Sims, to make it 48-41 about three minutes into the third quarter.Stewart answered with back-to-back layups and, after Jewell Loyd made another layup, Stewart converted a 3-point play and then hit a 3 in a 12-0 run that made it 60-41 with about four minutes later. Minnesota trailed by double figures the rest of the way.The fourth-seeded Lynx, who came in averaging a playoff-low 11.0 turnovers per game, committed 19 on Sunday. They made 27 of 59 from 3-point range in the first two games of the series, but hit just 7 of 22 (31.8 percent) on Sunday.Napheesa Collier led Minnesota with 22 points, 15 rebounds and 3 blocks. Damiris Dantas and Dangerfield — the 2020 W.N.B.A. rookie of the year — scored 16 points apiece, and Sims added 10 points.The Storm will play either top-seeded Las Vegas or No. 7 seed Connecticut in the finals, which begin on Friday. Seattle lost both regular-season matchups with the Aces — including an 86-84 loss in the regular-season finale — and won its two regular-season games against the Sun by an average of 18 points.Aces Force Game 5Angel McCoughtry scored 16 of her 29 points in the third quarter as Las Vegas took control and the Aces beat the Sun, 84-75, on Sunday in Game 4 of their best-of-five W.N.B.A. semifinal series.McCoughtry finished with six assists, five rebounds and three steals. A’ja Wilson, the 2020 league most valuable player, had 18 points, 13 rebounds and 4 assists for top-seeded Las Vegas, and Danielle Robinson also scored 18 points.Game 5 is Tuesday.McCoughtry scored 14 of the first 18 second-half points for Las Vegas and assisted on the remaining 4 as the Aces turned a 1-point halftime deficit into a 55-46 lead midway through the third quarter. Connecticut trailed by at least 9 points the rest of the way.Las Vegas was without the reigning two-time W.N.B.A. sixth woman of the year, Dearica Hamby, who will most likely miss the remainder of the playoffs with a knee injury.Jasmine Thomas made a career-high six 3-pointers on 11 attempts and finished with 25 points for the Sun. Alyssa Thomas added 15 points and DeWanna Bonner had 10 points and a season-high 15 rebounds. More

Poor LeBron James. There he is again, battling into the deep muck of the N.B.A. playoffs, leading his team oh-so-close to a world title. And there he is: An omnipresent force in purple-striped high-tops, so consistently great on the biggest stage that we have come to expect nothing less.His Los Angeles Lakers are now vying with the Denver Nuggets for a spot in the N.B.A. finals. After Sunday’s 105-103 victory over the Nuggets — sealed by Anthony Davis with a buzzer-beater but fueled by James’s hot start — Los Angeles is now up two games to none in the best-of-seven series.Should the Lakers advance, it would mean that James has pushed teams from three cities — Cleveland, Miami and Los Angeles — to the league’s championship round in nine of the past 10 seasons.Within that time, he has won two title rings with the Miami Heat, and one with the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the cloister of the N.B.A.’s Disney World bubble, he is making a credible run for a championship with the Lakers. The burden of great expectations is not new. As a high school junior, he was cast as a basketball messiah. What athlete has ever delivered so thoroughly on such early hype?And what athlete presents more of a modern-day paradox? He is among the most successful sports stars in history, on his way to billionaire status, influential, admired and connected to at least 120 million followers on social media. Despite all of this, there are far too many who take him and his success for granted.Just last week, the N.B.A. unveiled the winner of its Most Valuable Player Award for this pandemic-laced season. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee’s kinetic 25-year-old star, was no doubt worthy of the award. But James was, too. He bounced back from a rare, injury-plagued season to help return the Lakers to dominance. We have never seen a 6-foot-8, 240-pound forward lead the N.B.A. in assists. He did it while his team mourned the death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash in January. He did it when the league returned to play amid a world torn by a pandemic and unrest.He did it at age 35.A case can be made that this season is a grander opus than any he has ever conducted. So how is it that he lost the M.V.P. vote in a landslide? James flashed a cutting bitterness when asked about the award after the first playoff game against Denver. “Out of 101 votes, I got 16 first-place votes,” he said, noting his anger at the absurdity of not even coming close.The mantle of greatness is not easy to hold. James knows his worth to the league and the way his presence has long altered the landscape. He has won the M.V.P. a total of four times now. Were it not for the desire to recognize players who for all their greatness operate in his shadow, he should have won eight — at the least.There are many reasons he is taken for granted. Silly arguments over who is better, James or Michael Jordan, distract from the ability to see him for what he really is.Race is part of the mix. There are still too many who cannot see beyond James’s physicality, his uncommon blend of size and strength and speed. Still too many who see him without nuance, first and foremost as a body. A Black body.That allows the easy dismissal of the dedication he has always put into staying in shape — and the disregard of his sheer intelligence. James is said to possess a photographic memory. He can recall plays that occurred years ago with little trouble, and he has forged a remarkable and successful business and entertainment company, not to mention a school in his hometown Akron, Ohio. To watch him is to watch an athlete attuned to the flow, feel and probability of every move and every moment. John Coltrane meets Albert Einstein meets a point guard in a power forward’s body.The genius of James, the beauty of his game and the joy he exudes playing it, has shown itself in vivid Technicolor during this playoff run. The blocks, dunks, spinning pirouettes and sprinting fast breaks. The tips, screens, fall-aways and sudden passes that cut across the court as if rocketing along on a zip-line.He has been doing this for 17 years. Consider the span of that journey. Think of 2010. That’s the year of “The Decision,” James’s nationally televised announcement that he was leaving Cleveland for a Miami team stocked with All-Stars. Remember how he was scorned and vilified? How a single line from that pronouncement — “taking my talents to South Beach” — became a punchline, code for narcissism and disloyalty?But James was actually coming into his own. He was tapping into a longing that is at once universal and felt at a particular, bone-deep level in Black America: the longing to break bonds, the urge for freedom of movement, the need for self-determination and control.The reverberating power of that decision gets lost in the haze of memory. Remember that among the players to whom he is most often compared, no one had made such a move in the prime of his career. Not Magic. Not Kobe. Not Michael Jordan.Even lesser players faced scorn for exercising their right to change teams. Now that kind of movement is part of the N.B.A.’s lifeblood.How easy it is to forget the ways in which James changed the paradigm. His shift to Miami was the dawn of an era during which he became a leading voice for African-American empowerment. “The Decision” heralded a new day coming for the N.B.A. It would take a while longer to fully achieve, but no longer would the athletes play second fiddle to owners, or bend to the forces that want to keep the stars in a league, brimming with Blackness, from speaking out.The backlash to this new power has been predictable, led by the “shut up and dribble” chorus that continues to chide James for demanding dignity.He has always laughed off such inane demands. He has doubled down on the notion that he can be a beacon in the fight. “We are scared as Black people in America,” he said after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., unafraid to show vulnerability. He is combating that pain by helping to lead a multimillion-dollar push to staff underserved election polling sites.Poor LeBron James?He may be fine without the extra adulation. But in a year full of despair, we would be wise to take stock of all that he is — all of his powerful, steady brilliance — and stop taking him for granted. More

The opener of the W.N.B.A. semifinal playoff series between the Seattle Storm and the Minnesota Lynx was postponed nearly 90 minutes before its scheduled tipoff Sunday because of inconclusive coronavirus test results for Storm players.“Players with inconclusive results have undergone additional testing today and are currently in isolation,” the league said in a statement, adding that the postponement was “out of an abundance of caution.”The Lynx already had arrived at the arena and some of the players had been warming up when they were told the game was postponed.The league didn’t immediately announce when Game 1 of the best-of-five series would be played. It was to be the second of two playoff games on Sunday; the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces lost to the Connecticut Sun, the No. 7 seed, in the first game, 87-62.The second games in both series were scheduled for Tuesday night.The W.N.B.A. made it through a shortened 22-game regular season with a few false positive tests for the coronavirus, but no players had tested positive once the season started. The season is being played inside a bubble environment at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.Everyone inside the bubble has been tested for the virus every day.The Storm, the No. 2 seed, are led by Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird. They tied with the Aces for the league’s best record at 18-4 but lost the tiebreaker for the top overall seed in the playoffs. Seattle is up against the No. 4 seed, the Minnesota Lynx, who have this season’s award winners for rookie of the year, Crystal Dangerfield, and coach of the year, Cheryl Reeve. More

Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks star, won his second straight Most Valuable Player Award, after another stellar regular season, the N.B.A. announced Friday. He became the first repeat winner of the N.B.A.’s top individual honor since the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry in 2015 and 2016. At 25 years old, Antetokounmpo is the first back-to-back winner at that age since LeBron James in 2009 and 2010.Antetokounmpo bested his numbers from last year, averaging career highs in points (29.5) and rebounds (13.6) in fewer minutes, while leading the Bucks to the league’s best regular-season record. He also won the N.B.A.’s Defensive Player of The Year Award.Antetokounmpo’s coronation as the most valuable player comes at an awkward time: The Bucks lost their second-round series with the Miami Heat in five games after being favored to go to the finals. They instead fell short of last year’s conference finals appearance, with Antetokounmpo relegated to the bench in the final game after sustaining an ankle injury in Game 4. It is reminiscent of 2007, when Dirk Nowitzki won the honor weeks after the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks were knocked out of the playoffs by the eighth-seeded Golden State Warriors.“Obviously, I would love to be still in the bubble, keep playing games, be in the Eastern Conference finals, you know, fighting to get an opportunity to play in the finals,” Antetokounmpo said in an interview on NBA TV from Athens, adding that he was “grateful” for the award.“But I’ve got to keep getting better,” he said. “I want to be a champion.”Next season, Antetokounmpo will attempt to become the first N.B.A. player to win three straight M.V.P.s since Larry Bird from 1984 to 1986. In March, Antetokounmpo told reporters that winning the award again is “not important at all” to him.Antetokounmpo received 85 of 101 first-place votes, while LeBron James, going for his fifth M.V.P. award, came second with 16 first-place votes. (The New York Times does not participate in awards voting.)Antetokounmpo is affectionately known as the Greek Freak, a reference to his unusually long wingspan and his home country of Greece, where he grew up. The son of Nigerian immigrants, Antetokounmpo was drafted by Milwaukee with the 15th pick in the draft in 2013. He was only 18. Antetokounmpo entered the league as a slender, raw talent with lots of potential, but it did not take long before he turned himself into a force. His first All-Star game came in 2017, the same year he won the Most Improved Player Award. But his rise continued from there, culminating with his first M.V.P. award last season.With the second award, Antetokounmpo joins Curry, James, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Bird, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell as the players who have repeated in back-to-back years.Now, after the Bucks’ loss to the Heat, Antetokounmpo has a big decision to make soon: He is eligible to become a free agent after next season.“As long as everybody’s on the same page and as long as everybody’s fighting for the same thing, fighting for the same thing every single day, which is to be a champion, I don’t see why not to be in Milwaukee for the next 15 years,” Antetokounmpo said Friday. More

Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson won the W.N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award, the league announced Thursday.Wilson, the No. 1 overall pick three years ago, led the Aces to an 18-4 record during the shortened season and the top seed in the W.N.B.A. playoffs. Wilson averaged 20.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2 blocks this year for the Aces. She received 43 of the 47 first-place votes, easily outpacing Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm, who finished second, and Candace Parker of the Los Angeles Sparks, who was third.Wilson was surprised with the award on Thursday by W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. The Aces player thought she was going to a meeting with league referees when Engelbert surprised her.Wilson, 24, is the first player from the franchise to win the award going back to when the team was in San Antonio and before that Utah.The league also announced that Minnesota’s Crystal Dangerfield was the league’s rookie of the year and her coach, Cheryl Reeve, earned coach of the year honors. Dangerfield, who averaged 16.2 points and 3.6 assists this season, became the second consecutive Lynx player to win the award, joining Napheesa Collier.Dangerfield, a second-round draft pick, also became the lowest-drafted player to ever win the award. Before Thursday, the lowest draft pick ever to win the league’s top rookie honor was Tracy Reid, who was drafted seventh in 1998. This year’s early favorites for the award — Sabrina Ionescu of the Liberty and Chennedy Carter of the Atlanta Dream — each missed games with injuries.Dangerfield particularly excelled in the fourth quarter, scoring the second-most total points in the league in the final period (6.5), behind only Arike Ogunbwale of the Dallas Wings.Dangerfield received 44 votes. Carter finished second with two votes and Dallas Wings forward Satou Sabally was third with one vote.Reeve helped the Lynx to the No. 4 seed in the playoffs despite missing their star center Sylvia Fowles to a calf injury for more than half of the season. It’s the third time that Reeve has won the award, as she also earned it in 2011 and 2016. She’s now tied with Van Chancellor and Mike Thibault for the most wins.Reeve received 25 votes from a national panel of 47 sportswriters and broadcasters. Bill Laimbeer of the Las Vegas Aces finished second with 17 votes, Derek Fisher of the Los Angeles Sparks and Thibault of the Washington Mystics tied for third with two votes each. More

A journey for justice turned into a love story when Maya Moore, one of the W.N.B.A.’s brightest stars, married the man she helped free from prison.The man, Jonathan Irons, walked out of a Missouri prison on July 1 — more than 20 years after he was convicted on charges of burglary and assault. Mr. Irons, who pleaded not guilty, has insisted that he was not at the scene of the crime and had been misidentified.Ms. Moore’s family met Mr. Irons through prison ministry in 2007. She visited shortly before her freshman year at the University of Connecticut, where she became one of the most heralded women’s basketball players in collegiate history.“We wanted to announce today that we are super excited to continue the work that we’ve been doing together, but doing it as a married couple,” Ms. Moore, seated beside Mr. Irons, said on Wednesday on “Good Morning America.”The couple said they planned to continue to educate people about voting and to help others who had been wrongfully convicted. “We’re doing our part,” Mr. Irons said.Ms. Moore added that sometime in the spring she would have a “next step moving forward” concerning her basketball career, which she put on hold last year to answer what she said was a call from God.When Mr. Irons first met Ms. Moore in prison, he was skeptical. He said he thought that Ms. Moore, 18 at the time, was at the prison for a token visit. But she wanted to hear his story.She told him, “I’m here because I care,” she recalled in an interview last year with The New York Times.In an interview last year, Mr. Irons called Ms. Moore a lifesaver who gave him hope. “She is light,” he said. “Pure light.”During college, Ms. Moore said, she began to consider Mr. Irons as she would a sibling. It was challenging to go to Missouri for visits, but they kept in touch. She sent him books by her favorite spiritual writers, and sometimes before her big games, they spoke on the phone.It wasn’t until 2016 that Ms. Moore spoke publicly about the friendship between her and Mr. Irons, when she began championing changes in law enforcement and the legal system after a series of police shootings of unarmed Black men.She became a strong voice for prosecutorial changes. She stunned the sports world when she announced in February 2019 that she would step away from her career in women’s basketball, in part so she could help Mr. Irons in what they thought would be his final appeal.In March, Mr. Irons’s conviction was overturned by a state judge in Jefferson City, Mo. Mr. Irons was 16 when the crime for which he was convicted occurred. He was prosecuted for burglarizing a home in a St. Louis suburb and assaulting the homeowner with a gun.But there were no corroborating witnesses, fingerprints, DNA or blood evidence connecting Mr. Irons to the crime.Prosecutors claimed that Mr. Irons admitted to breaking into the victim’s home, but Mr. Irons and his lawyers denied that. The officer who interrogated Mr. Irons did so alone and failed to record the conversation. Mr. Irons, who is African-American, was tried as an adult and found guilty by an all-white jury.The judge’s decision hinged on fingerprint evidence that had not been divulged by prosecutors in Mr. Irons’s initial trial. Kent Gipson, Mr. Irons’s lawyer, argued that the state withheld that evidence, which could have shown someone else was responsible for the crime.Mr. Irons was released from prison in July, nearly four months after his conviction was overturned. Ms. Moore sunk to her knees when he walked out. Soon after, they married.A few years ago, when Ms. Moore came to visit Mr. Irons in prison, they both admitted they had strong feelings for each other. He said he wanted to marry her, but he said he also felt a need to protect her “because being in a relationship with a man in prison is extremely difficult and painful.”In their hotel room after his release, Mr. Irons said, he knelt down and asked Ms. Moore to marry him.She said yes.“Over time, it was pretty clear what the Lord was doing in our hearts,” Ms. Moore said, “and now we’re sitting here today, starting a whole new chapter together.” More

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Even before his team lost its lead to the Denver Nuggets on Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles Clippers Coach Doc Rivers turned to Tyronn Lue, one of his assistants, and told him that he sensed trouble. His players had slowed their pace on offense. It was obvious. But once that pace was gone, it was gone for good.“Listen, when you decide to be a coach, it’s not going to be roses every day,” Rivers said. “So we clearly have the right formula as far as how we’re playing, and then we keep losing it.”Expectations are different for the Clippers this season. Far removed from their laughingstock years, they have championship aspirations. They might even be favorites — or at least they were. But for a franchise that has never advanced to a conference finals, the Clippers are finding it increasingly difficult to separate themselves from their past.Presented with two opportunities to close out the Nuggets in the conference semifinals, the Clippers have now blown both. On Friday, they wasted a 16-point lead in a Game 5 loss. On Sunday, they disintegrated again as the Nuggets erased a 19-point deficit in a 111-98 win, evening the best-of-seven series at three games apiece. Game 7 is Tuesday night.Taken as a whole, it has been a cringeworthy stretch of basketball for the Clippers, worsened by the fact that the Lakers — who share the Staples Center arena with them in Los Angeles — are awaiting the winner in the conference finals. The Lakers will be well rested by Game 1 on Friday night. The Clippers just hope to still be playing by then.“If you get through this, it will definitely serve you well,” Rivers said. “There’s no doubt about that. Because when you go through things like this and adversity and you come out of it the other end, on the right end of it, it absolutely makes you a better team.”This is not the same Clippers team that, in 2015, blew a 3-1 series lead to the Houston Rockets in the conference semifinals, losing in seven games. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the leaders of that group, are long gone. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, who were brought in at no small cost last off-season to push a playoff-ready team over the top, have nothing to do with any of the franchise’s unfortunate history, of course. But perhaps the psychic wounds linger, and the reminders of past flameouts have been amplified in recent days.“It’s pressure every game,” Leonard said. “Obviously, nobody wants to go home. But just got to go out there, play your game and live with the results.”The Nuggets are a problem. They seem entirely unfazed by dire circumstances. In the first round, they trailed the Utah Jazz, 3-1, in their best-of-seven series before coming all the way back behind the tag-team brilliance of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Now, against the Clippers, the Nuggets are trying to do it again.No player in the series has been more fearsome than Jokic, who has averaged 25.8 points and 12 rebounds while shooting 53 percent from the field. On Sunday, the Nuggets outscored the Clippers by 62-30 over the game’s final 22 minutes. Jokic finished with 34 points.“Give them credit,” Rivers said of the Nuggets. “They’re playing hard. We’re playing the third-best team in the West, and they’re good, they’re relentless, resilient. But what we’ve done to get the leads has worked continuously, and then we stop doing it.”Specifically, he said, the Clippers stopped moving the ball. And as their lead washed away in the fourth quarter, Rivers searched for solutions. He even summoned Reggie Jackson, a reserve who had played sparingly in the series, off the bench. “We needed someone to make a shot,” Rivers said. (Jackson did not attempt one in 59 seconds of playing time.)In the Clippers’ 50 years of existence, they have made 15 trips to the playoffs and eight appearances in the conference semifinals, dating to their days as the Buffalo Braves. But that is as far as they have ever gone.The Clippers still hope that they can push through that barrier with one more win, but they have endured their share of obstacles. They have seldom seemed whole since the start of the season — so many months ago. George, for example, missed the team’s first 11 games after off-season shoulder surgery, then Leonard was sidelined with a knee contusion after George finally joined the starting lineup.The season restart inside the bubble at Walt Disney World has presented its own challenges. George has spoken about his struggles acclimating to life in the bubble. Montrezl Harrell, the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award winner, was gone for a month as he grieved the death of his grandmother, and he has labored to find his form in the playoffs. Patrick Beverley, who fouled out in less than 18 minutes on Sunday, has been slowed by a calf injury. And Lou Williams has been wildly inconsistent, shooting 23.4 percent from 3-point range through the first two rounds.For much of the season, the Clippers expressed confidence — through all the injuries and absences, through all the growing pains and ups and downs — that they would be able to assemble the pieces when it mattered most. But abundant talent does not always translate into cohesive play, and the dress rehearsals are over.“They know they have an opportunity,” Rivers said. “They want to win worse than everybody.” More

The last time Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart were in a Game 7, they were up-and-coming youngsters on a 2018 Boston Celtics team that was full of potential going up against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tatum even famously dunked on James in the fourth quarter of a losing effort — a small taste of his growth to come.On Friday night against the Toronto Raptors, Tatum, Brown and Smart solidified that they are no longer up-and-coming. The trio combined for 66 points as the Boston Celtics eliminated the reigning champion Raptors, 92-87, to return to the conference finals for the third time in four years.In a neck-and-neck series, all three players made crucial plays down the stretch. Brown had a momentum-shifting dunk. Tatum saved the game with an offensive rebound in the final minute. And Smart’s chase-down block — also in the final minute — surely will be in Celtics highlight reels for years to come.“I’m first team all-defense for a reason,” Smart said after the game.Is it possible to be young in age and old in experience? Tatum is 22. Brown is 23. Smart is 26. But they have now played seven playoff series together, not including the playoff games Smart and Brown had before Tatum entered the league. Sunday was the third Game 7 for the trio and the fourth for Brown and Smart.“We have three 30-year-olds,” Coach Brad Stevens said, referring to Kemba Walker, Brad Wanamaker and Gordon Hayward. “We’re like basically a college team with a couple of guys.”The young core looked poised down the stretch. They made just enough shots, grabbed just enough rebounds and stretched their arms just high enough to keep the Raptors from scoring when they needed to. For Toronto, Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam looked out of sorts — especially when Lowry threw the ball into the backcourt for a turnover with about five minutes left. Siakam, who played poorly most of the series, finished with 13 points on 12 shots, while Lowry scored 16 points on 15 shots.Even so, it took every bit of the Celtics talent to hold off the resilient Raptors. This was not a team keen on giving up its crown easily.With 0.5 seconds left in Game 3 and Toronto down 2 points, the Raptors hit a 3-pointer to get back into the series. In Game 6, the Celtics led late in the fourth quarter, overtime and double overtime, yet Toronto still won. And in Game 7, even when the Celtics were up 10 points with less than five minutes left, the Raptors came back to within 2 in the final minute. It wasn’t even that surprising. That’s the kind of team Toronto was: You just assume they will come back.“Both teams were really tired,” Stevens said. “Both teams laid it all out there. This has been a grueling series.”And therein lies the cruelty of professional basketball: You live by the bounce and die by the bounce. Last year in a conference semifinal Game 7, the Raptors won by virtue of a fortuitous shot that rimmed in at the last second, beating the Philadelphia 76ers and effectively pushing the Sixers to drastically change their team. On Sunday, when the Raptors needed one more bounce, the plays went the other way.“We had more to give,” Lowry told reporters. “But, you know, unfortunately, we’re not getting any more now.”Toronto’s win last year followed by Friday’s elimination laid bare how rare championship runs are — and why it is imperative for the Celtics to take advantage of this opportunity. The league’s dynamics can shift on a dime, a result of player empowerment in free agency and unexpected trade requests.If you are a glass-half-full type, then you are probably feeling bullish about the Celtics’ chances against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, which begin on Tuesday. After all, the Raptors were significantly better than Miami during the regular season. And Hayward is expected to return against Miami.“We should definitely be hardened,” Stevens said. “We should definitely have a lot more in our toolbox to go back to, but we also have to get ready for a different, more unique team in Miami.”And Walker — barring an injury — is a better player than he showed against Toronto, against whom he averaged 17 points and six assists on 42 percent shooting.“These guys saved me all night,” Walker said, referring to his teammates.But Boston fans are never the glass-half-full types (rather, they often ask, is there anything in the glass?). In that respect, the Celtics are still a work in progress.For the first time since the late-2000s era of Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, the Celtics will be favored in the Eastern Conference finals.Boston finished ahead of Miami in the regular season, beat opponents by more points and had a better offense and defense. Boston won two of the three games they played against one another, and probably has the best player on the floor in Tatum.The Celtics have been here before. But now fans expect them to win, unlike in 2018, when Kyrie Irving and Hayward were injured, and James was the opponent. Or in 2017, when the Celtics made an unexpected run to the conference finals and lost Isaiah Thomas to injuries and to James once again in the series. Brown and Smart were on that 2017 team.If the Celtics do not reach the finals, there might not be another opportunity as more teams drastically retool and the league shifts again.That they put themselves in position to be the favored team in the conference finals was an unexpected 2020 twist to begin with — the Celtics were not expected to be here before the season started. Remember that last year — and yes, we realize last year feels like decades ago — Boston was unceremoniously dumped from the postseason in the second round by the Milwaukee Bucks. Then Irving, Al Horford and other key rotation players left the team.The Celtics had to hit the reset button — just as Philadelphia did — with Walker as an Irving replacement, and a motley crew of various rookies. The Celtics quickly went from expected championship contenders to predicted mediocrity.One of those rookies, the 21-year-old forward Grant Williams, drafted near the end of the first round, played essential minutes at the end of Game 7 on Sunday — and made a number of key plays to seal the win.The youth movement has paid real dividends for the Celtics. The shoulders of Tatum, Brown and Smart collectively carried the franchise to one of the most momentous series wins for the Celtics in the last decade.Now this young core will find out if it has another veteran performance in store. More