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      The 1975-76 Denver Nuggets Almost Beat Dr. J to Win a Championship

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      Eight-year-old L.J. Jones thought his grandfather Ralph Simpson had been keeping a secret from him. So he demanded answers.“Grandpa, can I ask you something?” Simpson, 73, recalled his grandson saying, imitating the young boy’s serious tone.“Grandpa,” the boy said. “Somebody told me you was famous.”Simpson had to laugh. After all, he is not the most famous Ralph; that might be Ralph Lauren, or Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nor is he the most famous member of his family; that would be his daughter, the Grammy Award-winning soul singer India.Arie.“Grandpa’s not famous,” Simpson told his grandson. “I played for the Nuggets and played professional basketball.”Still, L.J. wanted to know, “Why you didn’t tell me?”Simpson started on the 1975-76 Denver Nuggets in the American Basketball Association. They were the only Nuggets group to make it to a championship round until this year’s team reached the N.B.A. finals. The 1975-76 squad lost the A.B.A. championship series in six games to Julius Erving’s New York Nets. The A.B.A. and N.B.A. merged before the 1976-77 season, and the Nuggets spent the next 47 years in basketball purgatory, with a few teams that inspired confidence but none that reached the finals.Ralph Simpson said his 1976 Denver Nuggets finals team was better than the Nets team, led by Erving, that won that year.Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesNow, the Nuggets are one win away from the first championship in franchise history. As they try to close the series at home Monday in Game 5 against the Miami Heat, they’ll be cheered on by some of the men who played for that A.B.A. title.“It has been so cool because the Nuggets currently making it to the finals has brought out a lot of memories for people that didn’t realize that Denver had an A.B.A. team that went to the finals,” said Gus Gerard, 69, a backup player on the 1976 finals team. He added, laughing: “The only frustrating thing for me is they’re showing all these highlights and it’s always the same ones of Julius Erving, the great Dr. J, dunking on us left and right.”Like today’s Nuggets, the 1976 team routinely demoralized opponents with its near unstoppable offense, but often felt like the underdog. The older Denver team also toiled in obscurity for much of the season.A Sports Illustrated article on May 29, 1976, lamented that “Denver games are not on national television,” and that “Denver box scores do not appear on most sports pages.” The article noted that some “large media outlets” still referred to the Nuggets as the “Denver Rockets,” which had been their name until 1974. The franchise changed its name because it planned to move to the N.B.A., where the name Rockets was already taken by Houston.The 1975-76 Nuggets had the best record in the A.B.A. They were led by three future Hall of Famers: Bobby Jones, Dan Issel and David Thompson. Nicknamed Skywalker, Thompson had been the top draft pick in 1975 in both the A.B.A., by the Virginia Squires, and the N.B.A., by the Atlanta Hawks. But he chose to sign with the Nuggets instead.“David Thompson, man, I used to get myself standing and watching him when I’m in the game,” said Byron Beck, 78, who played for Denver in all nine of its A.B.A. seasons and its first in the N.B.A. “You know, you catch yourself, ‘Oh!’ and he’s already gone doing something spectacular.”They were coached by Larry Brown, who won an A.B.A. championship as a player in 1969 with the Oakland Oaks, a men’s N.C.A.A. Division I basketball championship as a coach at Kansas in 1988 and an N.B.A. championship as a coach in 2004 with the Detroit Pistons.In 1975-76, the A.B.A. was contracting, having gone to seven teams from 10, and had only one division. The All-Star Game pitted the Nuggets against All-Stars from other teams.Claude Terry, then a Nuggets reserve guard, said he remembered going to the All-Star Game with his wife and their two children in a station wagon. He said he was “probably wearing old Levi’s and shoes that didn’t get messed up in the snow.”He added: “I don’t remember even being interviewed during the game.”Denver Nuggets Coach Larry Brown leaped off the bench at the buzzer after his team beat the A.B.A. All-Star team in Denver on Jan. 28, 1976.Sc/Associated PressThat season, the Nuggets packed their new McNichols Arena, which opened in 1975, with the pending N.B.A. merger in mind, and was demolished in 2000. Gerard remembered being swarmed for autographs and invited for free meals at restaurants, like the Colorado Mine Company.“They had, like, the best prime rib you ever tasted in your life,” Gerard said.Amid the excitement, there was also uncertainty. Preparation for the merger with the N.B.A. weighed on the players, who knew that only four of the seven A.B.A. teams would survive it. The Nuggets, Nets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs continued in the N.B.A.“Most of us didn’t have no-cut contracts,” Terry said, adding that players were “not nervous, but just trying to figure out what was next.”Terry said coming changes kept the players from appreciating what it to meant to play in the final A.B.A. season. Had there been social media at the time, Terry said they might have paid more attention to the significance.The Nuggets played the Kentucky Colonels in the first round of the playoffs and won in seven games. Then they faced the New York Nets, who had the best player in the series in Erving. Denver lost Game 1 at home. Facing elimination at home in Game 5, they won despite 37 points from Erving. Simpson and Issel led the team with 21 points each, and Gerard had 12 off the bench.If they could force a Game 7 in Denver, they were sure they could win it. But Erving led a furious fourth-quarter comeback in Game 6 to win the game and the championship.“We should have beat them,” Simpson said. “We had a better team. Even Julius Erving thought we did. But they got out on us.”Denver won Game 2 and Game 5 in the 1976 finals, but the Nets claimed the championship with a comeback win in Game 6.Richard Drew/Associated PressAs the years passed, though they stayed in touch with each other, some members of that Nuggets team became increasingly disconnected from the franchise. Most of them moved out of Denver, and went on to have careers outside of basketball.Thompson and Gerard went through well-publicized battles with drug addiction. Gerard later became a substance abuse counselor. He now works for the Fayette County government in Pennsylvania and still helps people recovering from addictions. Thompson participates in Nuggets fan events and attended Game 2 of the finals in Denver. He and Jones, who played for the Nuggets until 1978, started a religious nonprofit in North Carolina.Issel remained the most connected to the franchise. He played for the Nuggets until 1985, then returned as a broadcaster a few years later. Issel coached the Nuggets twice, the second time also serving as the team’s president. He apologized in 2001 after using a racial epithet toward Mexican people in response to a fan’s taunt, then resigned shortly afterward.This year, with his five grandchildren in tow, Issel went to Game 1 of the finals, which Denver won at home, 104-93.Simpson has been watching the games at home, and invites his grandchildren for a pizza party to watch with him. He didn’t get to play for Denver in its debut N.B.A. season because he was traded to Detroit, but the Pistons traded him back the next season. He stays in touch with A.B.A. and N.B.A. alumni by being active with the National Basketball Retired Players Association.Denver’s 47-year drought before returning to the finals is perplexing to him.“We’ve had some really good players,” said Simpson, who coached at a small school briefly and used to be a pastor in Denver. “I’m really surprised we haven’t won a title yet.”To win the franchise’s first, this year’s Nuggets have tried to focus narrowly on the task before them. Much like how the A.B.A. Nuggets weren’t thinking about history, these Nuggets aren’t using the franchise’s long drought as inspiration.“I don’t know much about it,” Denver’s Bruce Brown said. “Who was on that team?”He said he tries not to think about what a championship would mean for the franchise and for the city of Denver.“Then I’ll get too happy, too anxious,” Brown said. “I just try to stay in the moment.”The 1975-76 team’s try at making history has been obscured by the years, but Brown and his teammates are on the verge of completing the journey they began. More

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      NBA Finals 2023: Denver Nuggets Beat Miami Heat for First Championship

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      It took 56 years and 38 playoff appearances for the basketball team nestled in the high plains just east of the Rocky Mountains to finally reach the peak of its sport.It took an unheralded center from Serbia who turned into the most formidable player in the game and a Canadian point guard who found himself again after a long and arduous recovery from a career-threatening knee injury. It took patience, collaboration and a discipline born of trying, failing and learning how to keep climbing just a bit higher.The Denver Nuggets are finally champions.They clinched the first title in franchise history Monday night on their home court at Ball Arena, 5,280 feet above sea level — the highest altitude at which any N.B.A. championship has been won. They beat the Miami Heat, 94-89, in Game 5 to seal the victory. They were led by center Nikola Jokic, who stood quietly at the back of the stage holding his 1-year-old daughter as his team celebrated during the trophy presentation, and by point guard Jamal Murray, who cried as he looked up at the thousands of fans roaring for him. The rest of Denver’s indefatigable eight-man rotation bolstered the team’s two biggest stars until the end.“I got news for everybody out there,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone shouted, as the crowd erupted and confetti swirled in the air around him. “We’re not satisfied with one! We want more! We want more!”Bruce Brown celebrating.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesJokic was named the most valuable player of the finals, a nice complement to his two regular-season M.V.P. Awards. He finished Game 5 with 28 points, 16 rebounds and 4 assists, becoming the first player in N.B.A. history to lead the playoffs in points, rebounds and assists.“If you want to be a success, you need a couple years,” Jokic said. “You need to be bad, then you need to be good. Then when you’re good you need to fail, and then when you fail, you’re going to figure it out.“I think experience is something that is not what happened to you. It’s what you’re going to do with what happened to you.”The clinching game was neither pretty nor easy. Through the first three quarters, the Nuggets struggled to make 3-point shots and convert free throws. They turned the ball over carelessly. Had they lost, they would have had to play Game 6 in Miami on Thursday. The pressure on Monday may have frayed their nerves.“You want to end it on your home court with all the fans there, your family there,” Murray said. “You want to end it on the home court so bad.”The Heat had a 7-point lead at halftime, and led by just 1 point at the end of the third quarter.Jamal Murray heading to the locker room after winning.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesBut in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets found the resolve to take the title. With about 10 minutes 59 seconds remaining, Murray hit a 3-pointer — only the Nuggets’ third of the game — to give the Nuggets a 4-point lead. He pranced down the court as the Heat called a timeout. It was Denver’s largest lead since the first quarter.Later, Murray struck again. This time, Aaron Gordon blocked a jumper by Heat guard Kyle Lowry, leading to a transition basket for Murray to give the Nuggets a 5-point lead.And with less than 30 seconds remaining, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope stole a pass by Jimmy Butler and made both free throws after Lowry fouled him to give Denver a 3-point lead.“I’m grateful, man, that we made it here,” Butler said afterward. “Came up short, but I’m blessed. I’m fortunate.”With the win, the Nuggets departed a dubious club. There are now only 10 teams in the league that have never won an N.B.A. championship. Five have made it to the finals and lost, including the Phoenix Suns, who have come up short three times, most recently in 2021.But the Nuggets had never even gotten that far, at least not in the N.B.A. Not since 1976, when they lost to the New York Nets in the American Basketball Association finals, had they reached a championship series.Fans celebrating in downtown Denver.Max Paro/Getty ImagesThe long drought helps explain why the Nuggets were underestimated all season. Pundits and oddsmakers questioned their ability to win, even after they took hold of first place in the Western Conference in December and never let go.People wondered if Jokic, despite his superlative play, could lead a team this far — after all, he had never taken the Nuggets past the conference finals. Those questions may have cost him a third consecutive M.V.P. Award — an accomplishment that many said should be reserved for champions.Some wondered if Murray would ever return to the elite level he had been playing at in 2021, when a knee injury just before the playoffs set him and Denver on a two-year journey to fully reset.Along the way, some role players found their stride, even if they mostly went unnoticed.Caldwell-Pope, whom the Nuggets traded for last off-season, added defense, shooting and championship experience. For a few playoff games, he brought in the ring he had won in 2020 with the Lakers and let his teammates hold it. None of them have one.“They gave me an opportunity here, because of my championship, to be that leader — be vocal, let them know about my experience and how hard it is to get to this point we’re at now,” Caldwell-Pope said after Game 1. “I’m just trying to keep them motivated.”Jokic had never been past the conference finals until this season. Denver drafted him in the second round, 41st overall, in 2014.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesGordon, whom the Nuggets traded for in March 2021, happily became a defensive stopper after being the offensive star of the Orlando Magic.“I’m not here for the credit,” Gordon said. “I’m here for the wins.”Bruce Brown provided offensive sparks; Jeff Green added veteran calm; Christian Braun, a rookie, offered a youthful fearlessness that would pay off in the finals.The Nuggets blasted through the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round and then beat the Suns in six games. They swept the Lakers in the conference finals and then sat around for a week waiting to find out whom they would meet in the finals.Like the Nuggets, the Heat had taken a 3-0 lead in their conference finals series. But they faltered as the Boston Celtics fought back in the East and won the next three games, forcing a decisive Game 7.“When Boston won Game 6, we’d been sitting so long it almost felt like we wasn’t in the playoffs anymore,” Green said. “Because the only thing we was doing was watching them.”Miami, propelled by its relentless star Butler, won Game 7 for the franchise’s seventh trip to the finals, this time as the No. 8 seed. A victory would have given Miami its first championship in a decade, one far more unexpected than the three it had won.If people overlooked Denver this season, they ignored Miami outright. The Heat barely made the playoffs and then gave even ardent believers reason to doubt when they wavered against Boston. They had an us-against-the-world mentality heading into the finals when, for once, Denver seemed to have the world on its side.And who could blame the Nuggets if that surge of confidence flowed to their heads?Caleb Martin of the Miami Heat, center, battling with Jokic.Pool photo by Kyle TeradaDenver took Game 1, and Jokic notched a triple-double. Afterward, the Nuggets began to celebrate as if they could feel their championship parade rumbling already. They lost focus and allowed Miami to steal Game 2, even as Jokic scored 41 points. Malone, Denver’s coach, scolded the Nuggets and questioned their effort. He wouldn’t have to do that again.Jokic and Murray each had triple-doubles in Game 3 in front of a raucous crowd in Miami. In Game 4, Brown scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, stoking Miami’s desperation.The Nuggets had some unusual visitors in their locker room after Game 4. The Nuggets owner E. Stanley Kroenke and his son, Josh Kroenke, the team president, grinned brightly, each holding a can of Coors. The Nuggets had just taken a 3-1 lead in the finals, and they could feel that the franchise was closing in on its first championship. Only one finals team — the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers — had ever been able to dig itself out of that deep a hole.But the Nuggets players and coaches refused to acknowledge how close they were. They remembered what had happened after Game 1.“We need to win one more,” Jokic said after Game 4. “I like that we didn’t relax. We didn’t get comfortable. We were still desperate. We still want it.”Murray offered a bit more confidence. “We’re just ready to win a championship,” he said. “We have the tools to do it. It’s been on our minds for a while.”Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesA fan with face paint or makeup in the style of the comic book character the Joker — Jokic’s nickname — at Game 5 in Denver.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesWhen Murray stood on the stage after Game 5, having finally won, ESPN’s Lisa Salters asked him about his journey, about how he couldn’t even walk two years ago today because of his knee injury. As she spoke, the crowd’s cheers drowned out her voice. Murray paused and looked up at them. Tears filled his reddened eyes.“Everything was hitting at once,” Murray said later. “From the journey, to the celebration with the guys, to enjoying the moment, to looking back on the rehab, to looking back at myself as a kid.”Malone’s mind was already on the next championship.Pat Riley, the president of the Miami Heat, who has won nine N.B.A. championships as either a player, assistant coach, head coach or executive, once shared with Malone a message that Malone used to have displayed in his office.“It talked about the evolution in this game and how you go from a nobody to an upstart, and you go from an upstart to a winner and a winner to a contender and a contender to a champion,” Malone said. “And the last step is after a champion is to be a dynasty.”But his players weren’t ready to think about that yet. As he spoke, they were dousing the locker room and each other with champagne, drops of which sprinkled from the Nuggets logo on the ceiling. The players lit cigars, adding the heavy scent of cigar smoke to their celebration.Denver’s role players, such as Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr., played a key role in their playoff success.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesJokic popped in and out of the locker room, sometimes spraying champagne on his teammates, sometimes pouring it right on their heads. He said many times during the playoffs that he was most proud of the success they’d had together.He had been the first player off the court after the trophy presentation, and had walked to the locker room by himself holding his finals M.V.P. trophy. He had been their best player throughout the season, but he wasn’t swept up in the ecstasy that had engulfed his teammates.“It’s good,” Jokic said, when asked about his emotions after winning the championship. “We did a job.”Another reporter tried again a few minutes later, this time asking if he was excited for the parade the city would have to celebrate the championship.“When is parade?” Jokic said, turning to a Nuggets staff member in the room.He was told it was Thursday.“No,” Jokic lamented. “I need to go home.”Then he finally relented just a little bit, and acknowledged that winning a championship felt “amazing.”“It’s a good feeling when you know that you did something that nobody believes, and it’s just us, it’s just the organization, Denver Nuggets believing in us, every player believing in each other,” Jokic said. “And I think that’s the most important thing.”Daniel Brenner for The New York Times More

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      Miami Heat Face 3-1 Deficit in NBA Finals After Game 4 Loss to Nuggets

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      Only one team has come back from a 3-1 series deficit in the N.B.A. finals, but the Miami Heat seem confident they can be the second.The Miami Heat would be the first to assess their path to this late stage of the season as imperfect. Pretty much everything has posed a challenge. The injuries. The losses. Even their experience in the play-in bracket — a loss followed by a come-from-behind win — seems apocryphal, or at least true to form, now that they are facing the Denver Nuggets in the N.B.A. finals.In the process, the Heat have co-opted adversity as a part of their identity. Adversity has hardened them and made them more resilient. Adversity has fueled their postseason run. Adversity has improved them as players and helped them bond as a team. Adversity has them competing for a championship.Bam Adebayo, the team’s All-Star center, cited the “ups, downs, goods, bads” of the season as if they were inseparable qualities, as if none could exist without the others. Coach Erik Spoelstra has taken to occasionally describing his team as “gnarly” in the most complimentary way possible.“That’s a Spo term,” Adebayo said at a news conference earlier this week, adding: “A lot of you in here probably never thought we would be in this position right now.”The Heat were able to get Denver’s Nikola Jokic, center, in foul trouble, but he still scored 23 points.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConThe problem, of course, is that a steady diet of adversity takes a toll, and the Nuggets are a full meal. So much talent. So much size. So much depth. And not even the Heat, who have made a habit of navigating their way out of bleak situations, could match them on Friday night as the Nuggets pulled away for a 108-95 victory in Game 4 that has them on the cusp of their first N.B.A. title.The Nuggets have a 3-1 series lead. Game 5 is Monday in Denver.“It’s going to be a gnarly game in Denver that is built for the competitors that we have in our locker room,” Spoelstra said, adding: “We get an opportunity to play a super competitive game in a great environment.”Spoelstra was notably upbeat, but that was nothing new. Count the Heat out at your peril.“Our whole season hasn’t been easy,” Adebayo said. “It just seems like we won’t quit.”They refused to quit after slipping into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the East. They refused to quit after losing two rotation players, Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, in their first-round series with the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Herro broke his hand, and Oladipo tore a tendon in his knee.The Heat wanted adversity? They flourished, eliminating the Bucks in five games.They wanted more adversity? They nearly blew a 3-0 series lead to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals before returning from the abyss to win Game 7 — in Boston — and advance. Afterward, Mike McDaniel, the coach of the N.F.L.’s Miami Dolphins, sent Spoelstra a text in which he described tough times as an opportunity, not that Spoelstra needed to be reminded.“We share very similar thoughts about finding strength in adversity,” Spoelstra said.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said he did not expect his team to get much sleep after Friday night’s loss.Rich Storry/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConNow, the Nuggets are loading the Heat up with more adversity than they can handle. Ahead of Game 4, Heat forward Kevin Love acknowledged that the team’s “room for error is so small.”Duncan Robinson, Love’s teammate, pledged that their “urgency should be and will be at an all-time high.”In the first quarter of Friday’s game, the Heat channeled that urgency by ditching their zone defense and matching up in man-to-man, which limited the Nuggets’ outside looks while cluttering up the two-man, pick-and-roll game that Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray like to run.Before long, the Nuggets established themselves. Sensing some space between himself and his defender, Jokic stepped back from 27 feet and made a 3-pointer. Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon sliced to the rim.Early in the second half, Jokic dribbled straight at Adebayo, bumping up against him — once, twice, three times — before flipping the ball up and in with his left hand. A nifty bounce pass from Gordon to Murray led to a layup, a 10-point lead and a Spoelstra timeout. Some fans left in the fourth quarter.“Some correctable things we’ve got to do,” said Jimmy Butler, who led Miami with 25 points. “But it’s not impossible. We’ve got to go out there and do it.”The Nuggets got something that approximated a usual effort from Jokic, who collected 23 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists while dealing with foul trouble. But he got ample help from the likes of Gordon, who scored 27 points, and Bruce Brown, who finished with 21 points off the bench.Many of the Heat’s more unsung players have struggled in the series, and that hurt them again on Friday. Gabe Vincent finished with only 2 points, and Max Strus went scoreless. Miami wound up leaning on the veterans Kyle Lowry, who scored all 13 of his points in the first half, and Love, who made three 3-pointers.Butler, left, and Kyle Lowry have faced the pressure of the N.B.A. finals before. Butler’s Heat lost to the Lakers in 2020, and Lowry’s Raptors beat the Warriors in 2019.Lynne Sladky/Associated PressAfterward, the Heat seemed cognizant of their new reality — that nearly everyone would be counting them out. Spoelstra called it “the narrative” that he said he was certain would circulate over the weekend. Butler, indicated that he did not care.“We don’t have no quit,” he said. “We are going to continually fight, starting tomorrow, to get better, and then we are going into Monday to do what we said we were going to do this entire time and win. We have to. We have no other choice. Otherwise, we did all this for no reason.”He added: “We’ve done some hard things all year long, and now it’s like the hardest of the hard.”The challenge before them is great, though not insurmountable. The Cleveland Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 deficit in the 2016 N.B.A. finals, shocking the Golden State Warriors, who had set a record by winning 73 games during the regular season. Still, Cleveland is the only team to recover from that deep a hole in the finals; 35 other teams have tried and failed.Spoelstra said he told his players in the locker room “to feel whatever you want to feel” after the loss. He did not expect them to get much sleep, and that was probably a good thing. He wanted them to stew on what had happened, and then refocus on the hardest-of-the-hard task ahead.“Our guys love this kind of deal,” Spoelstra said.The Heat wanted adversity? They definitely have some now. More

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      South Florida’s Heat and Panthers Chase N.B.A. And N.H.L. Titles

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      It is rare for teams from one market to play in the Stanley Cup and N.B.A. Finals in the same year, and a first for southern franchises, but it was bound to happen.Martin Schwartz and Matthew Mandel are having a moment. Actually two. The lifelong friends hit the sports jackpot this month when the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers both ran the playoff gauntlet and made it to the finals, where they are now vying for N.B.A. and N.H.L. titles simultaneously.Schwartz and Mandel, lifelong South Florida residents and friends since college, have shared season tickets to both teams for years. They have had lean years — the Heat won just 15 games in the 2007-08 season — and home games filled with noisy fans rooting for the visiting teams.They celebrated the Heat’s title runs in 2012 and 2013 powered by Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and savored the Panthers’ sporadic playoff runs. But never did they believe both teams would start the postseason as No. 8 seeds, topple top-ranked clubs in upset after upset and battle for championships.“I was very pessimistic when the playoffs began,” said Schwartz, who was a batboy for the Florida Marlins in the 1990s and wore a Panthers jersey to the Heat game on Wednesday when they fell to the Denver Nuggets. “But we’ve come to realize it’s all about the playoffs. You gotta enjoy it. You only get one chance.”This is the 10th time that two teams from one market have played in the Stanley Cup and N.B.A. Finals in the same year. The last time it happened was in 2016, when the Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks (both losers) vied for titles. The Bruins and Celtics have done it three times, stretching back to 1957 and the Knicks and Rangers twice. But never have a region’s hockey and basketball teams won in the same year.Panthers fan Carissa Kania.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesAnthony Rowell opts for a helmet instead of a toque.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesKC Navarro reps the Miami Heat.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesEmma Uzzo has got the Panthers.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThe chase for championships has turned into a nightly affair in South Florida this week as the Heat and Panthers play four consecutive nights at home. Their arenas are about 40 miles apart, and each team has their core fans, though some like Schwartz and Mandel have gone all in on both sports. The teams are both down 1-2 in their series heading into Friday’s Heat game.“It almost never happens, so we wanted to give it a shot,” said Raul Arias, a Miami native who attended the Heat and Panthers’ games on back-to-back nights with his brother, father and friend.This is the first time that two teams in a Southern market have chased titles at the same time, but it was bound to happen. The country’s biggest sports leagues have been pushing into Florida for years, and for good reason: They are businesses in search of new fans, new sponsors and more television viewers, and America’s demographics have been tilting South and West for decades.The Rangers and Bruins have been on the ice since Calvin Coolidge was president. But history is fungible and in sports, fleeting. The Heat arrived in Miami in 1988, back when Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was a hit song. The Panthers entered the N.H.L. in 1993. Since then, six teams — the Columbus Blue Jackets, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Minnesota Wild, Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights — have joined the league.Fans at Quarterdeck Restaurant near the Panthers arena for Game 3.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThese South Florida hockey fans could easily hang with their northern counterparts.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThe Final between the Panthers and Las Vegas Golden Knights is, perhaps to the dismay of more traditional fans in Canada and the northern states, the ultimate distillation of the N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman’s “Southern Strategy.” Bettman has defended this shift despite the financial woes of teams in Arizona and other new markets. But teams in northern markets, including the Devils and Islanders, have had financial problems. And while teams in Southern markets — Atlanta comes to mind — have lost teams, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars are both on solid ground.Speaking to reporters before the first game of the Final, Bettman’s deputy, Bill Daly, noted that Ryan Smith, the owner of the Utah Jazz, has also expressed interest in bringing a hockey team to Salt Lake City.Fans of older teams might groan if another team landed in a “nontraditional” hockey market. They already think little of South Florida fans, who are accused of showing up fashionably late to games and leaving early to beat the traffic. They’re often typecast as transplants who still root for old hometown teams. Or the ultimate burn: They just show up when the going’s good and disappear when their teams are in the tank.Miami Heat fans and siblings Federico, Jose Luis and Luis Benitez before the start of Game 3.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesAll of that’s true to some degree. But fans are like that everywhere, including in New York and Los Angeles. And while Florida has been growing by leaps and bounds, adding millions of new residents in the past decade, some of the transplants here are embracing their newfound sports bounty. The playoff games have been sold out with some tickets on the resale market fetching four figures. Since May 1, sales of Heat and Panthers gear have soared 460 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Fanatics. Sports radio hosts have been yapping hoops and hockey, with some soccer spliced in after Lionel Messi said Thursday he was joining Inter Miami.“The more they win, the busier we get,” said Norma Shelow, who for more than 30 years has co-owned Mike’s at the Venetia, a short walk from the Kaseya Center. She said business is up 40 to 50 percent during the playoffs, when fans start filling the restaurant a couple hours before game time. Since May 1, sales of Heat and Panthers gear have soared 460 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Fanatics.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesShelow said she had plenty of regulars, including N.B.A. referees who stop by after games. But she also welcomes lots of newcomers, who typically call for reservations even though the bar is first-come, first-served.“I’ve lived here all these years and never seen this,” said Abel Sanchez, 50, an amateur sports historian. “If either of them wins a title, it’s a moment. If both win, who has the movie rights? And if you want to hop on the bandwagon, there’s room.”It’s not unusual for transplants to adopt a new home team, or to split their loyalties. My dad rooted for the baseball Giants growing up in New York, then switched his allegiance to the Mets when our family decamped to Long Island in the 1960s. (He still loved Willie Mays and took me to see the San Francisco Giants when they came to town). When he moved to West Palm Beach in the 1990s, he adopted the Marlins, who rewarded his loyalty with two World Series titles.Florida added four million new residents in the past decade or so, and some were bound to become Panthers fans.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesFlorida added four million new residents in the past decade or so, including many flocking to Miami from Latin and South America. Some of these newcomers have adopted the Heat and Panthers as their home teams even if they never played basketball or hockey. And why not? Rooting for a sports team may be the most communal activity in American life.“I’m all in on Jimmy Butler,” said Adam Trowles, a Briton who splits his time between Miami and London, where he watches Heat games in the wee hours. “I’d marry him if I could.”On Wednesday, Trowles looked for tickets to attend game three against the Denver Nuggets. The cost was too steep, so he and his girlfriend, Gessica Jean, watched the game at Duffy’s Tavern in Coral Gables.For all the hoopla, football remains the undisputed king of sports in Florida. The Dolphins and the Miami Hurricanes are still the toast of the town — when they win. Tampa went wild in 2021 when the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl and the Lightning won the Stanley Cup.But basketball and hockey have their place. Transplants from Canada and the Northeast and Upper Midwest have held on to their allegiances. But over time, new fans are born, even for the Panthers, whose home ice at the FLA Live Arena, in Sunrise, Fla., is sandwiched between a shopping mall and the Everglades Wildlife Management Area. For locals, it’s been a parade of riches.At Quarterdeck, a sports bar 10 minutes from the arena, Tyler Craig watched the Panthers beat the Knights in overtime on Thursday.“It’s almost exhausting how many games we’ve been watching,” he said. More

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      The Miami Heat’s Secret Weapon for a Title? Zone Defense.

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      The odds are against the Heat in their N.B.A. finals matchup with the Denver Nuggets. But the maligned zone defense may be their secret weapon.One of the catchiest chants in the N.B.A. is an acknowledgment of one of the game’s most thankless tasks: “De-fense!” Clap. Clap. “De-fense!” It rained down this week as the Miami Heat coped with the nearly impossible challenge of slowing two of the league’s most fearsome players — the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray — during the N.B.A. finals in front of their home crowd.The most exalted defensive matchups in the N.B.A. are typically one-on-one clashes, as opposing stars come face to face. But that is hard work. Really hard. Maybe you can stop an explosive scorer like Jokic or Murray for a possession or two. But every time down the floor? For 48 minutes? With an undersized roster that has endured the long grind of the postseason?Good luck. For over 50 years, the N.B.A. refused to let teams do it any other way. It was man-to-man defense or bust. But now, teams can be more creative in how they go about trying to put the clamps on their opponents. And no team is more creative than the Heat, who play more zone defense — a scheme in which defenders guard areas of the court instead of individual players — than any other team in the league.On Wednesday in Game 3, that meant having two players trap Denver’s inbounds pass, two more at midcourt and one protecting the basket at the far end — a 2-2-1 zone press — early in the second quarter.The Nuggets are willing passers, making them harder to defend.Sam Navarro/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConBy the time the Nuggets managed to get the ball upcourt, just 14 seconds remained on the shot clock, and the Heat’s defense had morphed into a halfcourt zone — a 2-3 set, with two players up top at the perimeter and three along the baseline. Murray, the Nuggets’ point guard, missed a 3-point attempt from the left corner, and the Heat raced away for a game-tying bucket.Unfortunately for the Heat, that was about as good as it got for them in their 109-94 loss to the Nuggets, who took a 2-1 series lead ahead of Game 4 on Friday in Miami. Murray and Jokic both finished with triple-doubles for Denver, which, for one game, at least, was largely unfazed by Miami’s shape-shifting defense.“We didn’t offer much resistance,” said Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra, who bemoaned his team’s lack of effort but considered it an anomaly. He added: “I think the thing that we’ve proven over and over and over is we can win and find different ways to win.”And one of those ways is with their zone defense. There is a talent disparity in this series: The Nuggets have more of it thanks to their array of expert shooters and the all-around wizardry of Jokic, a two-time winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award. So, in an effort to slow the pace of play and compensate for their lack of size, the Heat are occasionally abandoning their man-to-man defense by mixing in some zone.This is nothing new for them. Miami played zone on a league-high 19.7 percent of its defensive possessions during the regular season, according to Synergy Sports, a scouting and analytics service. The Portland Trail Blazers, who played zone 14.9 percent of the time, ranked second, and the Toronto Raptors (8.4 percent) were third.Jokic’s size makes him difficult to defend.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConMore important, the Heat — even amid the regular-season struggles that nearly kept them out of the playoffs — used their zone to great effect, limiting opponents to 0.937 points per possession. By comparison, opponents averaged 1.009 points per possession against their man-to-man defense.Miami is playing slightly less zone defense in the playoffs — zone has accounted for 15.7 percent of its defensive possessions ahead of Game 4 — but no other team has come close to using it that often. And the Heat have had some success with it, holding opponents to 0.916 points per possession versus 1.003 points per possession with man-to-man defense.“I think it’s effective,” Heat point guard Gabe Vincent said, “because it’s different.”Jim Boeheim, who recently retired after 47 seasons as the men’s basketball coach at Syracuse University, was so renowned for his 2-3 zone defense that he became synonymous with it. But in his early years at Syracuse, he actually coached more man-to-man defense.“We had a zone and we’d practice it, but not all the time,” Boeheim said. “But then we would be having trouble with somebody, and you’d put the zone out there, and they couldn’t score!”Most teams did not practice it, and they seldom faced it in games.“It can just screw somebody up,” Boeheim said. “And if your opponent is only going to one or two guys on offense, you can kind of cheat toward those one or two guys, and it can cause problems.”The zone remains a bit of a novelty in the N.B.A., which essentially banned it for the first 50-plus years of the league’s existence. Before the advent of the shot clock in 1954, the worry was that too many teams would pack the area around the basket with defenders and slow the game to a crawl at a time when the league was desperately trying to grow its audience.Later, critics considered the zone a gimmicky way for teams to camouflage poor individual defenders, especially as the league continued to glorify one-on-one matchups. The lowly zone was stigmatized. But over time, offenses stalled and scoring decreased as games devolved into a seemingly nonstop series of isolation sets, with players stationed on the weak side of the court to draw defenders away from the ball.Ahead of the 2001-2 season, the N.B.A. had seen enough and eliminated its illegal-defense rule, which meant that teams could play zone — or use any other type of defense that suited them. The twist was that the change was designed to spur spacing and passing on offense.The zone, though, remains fairly uncommon for several reasons. N.B.A. rosters are brimming with long-range shooters, and when passes zip from side to side, zone defenders are often too slow to react, leaving opposing players with open looks from 3-point range. Also, defenders are prohibited from camping out in the lane whenever they aren’t guarding an opposing player — otherwise known as the defensive three-second rule.“And that changes everything,” said Alex Popp, the head boys’ basketball coach for IMG Academy’s postgraduate team in Bradenton, Fla. “N.B.A. coaches are still reluctant to play zone because you can’t just stick a guy in the charge circle and protect the paint.”For the Heat, the zone has value. If it was initially born of necessity — as a way for Spoelstra to match up against bigger teams and hide some of his weaker defenders — it has become an asset. For long stretches of the Eastern Conference finals against the Celtics, Boston seemed flummoxed by Miami’s traps, and often settled for (errant) jump shots rather than attacking the rim.Now, whenever the Nuggets bring the ball upcourt, they must do a mental calculation: What sort of defense are they about to see? The zone adds an element of unpredictability.“I think it’s something that can work,” Boeheim said, “especially in short windows.”Miami’s Kyle Lowry guarded the Nuggets’ Bruce Brown man to man.Megan Briggs/Getty ImagesKyle Lowry, the Heat’s backup point guard, recently recalled a formative period of his childhood when his coaches taught him about the zone press, traps and the basic 2-3 formation. As he was asked about those experiences, he knew where the line of inquiry was headed.“If you’re getting into the question of our zone, it’s pretty cool,” Lowry said.OK, what makes it cool?“It works sometimes,” he said.Miami’s zone is not static. It changes from game to game and even from possession to possession, with dozens of permutations based on which opposing players are on the floor — or even Spoelstra’s whims.Bam Adebayo, the team’s starting center, said they drill the zone “to the point where we’re tired of it.”Spoelstra would rather walk on hot coals than discuss his schematic choices at the N.B.A. finals, but his players have acknowledged the zone’s amorphous nature.“Spo does a great job preparing us all year to be ready for situations like this, to be able to switch in a timeout, switch a scheme, switch a defense,” Heat guard Max Strus said before Game 3.For Game 4, Miami is likely to unveil a new scheme or a slightly different look. It may not matter — “I think Denver is too good,” Boeheim said — but the Heat have been in tough spots before. Their zone has helped. More

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      Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic Lead Nuggets Over Heat in Game 3

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      Murray is often overshadowed by his teammate Nikola Jokic, but he has proved his value in leading the Nuggets to a 2-1 lead over the Heat in the N.B.A. finals.Some N.B.A. players treat their postgame interview sessions like fashion moments. They wear styled couture outfits, bold graphic shirts or lively prints — anything to stand out.But on Wednesday night, Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray walked into the interview room after winning Game 3 of the N.B.A. finals wearing an unassuming white T-shirt and baggy gray sweatpants. A few glints here and there — a glittering bracelet and large stud earrings — added a little sparkle.Murray’s attire represented an ever-present dichotomy in his public persona. There are ways in which he seems unassuming, perhaps because he is often overshadowed by his teammate Nikola Jokic. But when you really pay attention, particularly throughout this year’s playoffs, his play sparkles through those perceptions.“Jamal, he’s a guy that thrives, lives and excels in the moment,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said. “Never afraid of it. You can’t say that for a lot of players.”Murray got off to a hot start in Game 3, with 20 points in the first half. That’s more than he had in all of Game 2, which Denver lost.Sam Navarro/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConWhen people talk about the Nuggets, they often fixate on Jokic more than Murray. It makes sense: Jokic is the engine of the team, and a two-time winner of the Most Valuable Player Award. He was the team’s only All-Star this season, and he has been a matchup nightmare for Denver’s playoff opponents because of his size, strength and unique ability to facilitate the team’s offense as a center.The depth of Jokic’s talent can cause some people to undervalue what Murray contributes as Denver’s dynamic starting point guard and second-leading scorer. But on Wednesday, Murray could not be overlooked as he outscored Jokic and helped Denver take a 2-1 series lead against the Miami Heat. With the 109-94 victory, the Nuggets reclaimed the home-court advantage they lost on Sunday when the Heat won Game 2 in Denver as Murray underperformed. To win the series and a championship, the Nuggets will need Murray to excel just as he did in Game 3.“I mean, we win,” Jokic said when asked what it does for the Nuggets to have Murray playing as well as he has in the playoffs. “I think it’s pretty simple. But he’s playing phenomenal.”Part of what obscures Murray’s dynamism is his difficult journey, in addition to the grand shadow cast by Jokic. Murray doesn’t draw much attention to himself off the court. He is from a small town in Canada and has been open about meditating since high school.He was budding into a star during the 2019-20 season when the coronavirus pandemic threatened to interrupt his path. He was having the best offensive season of his career, averaging 18.8 points per game, when the N.B.A. paused its season in March 2020 for several months because of the pandemic.When the season resumed on a sequestered campus at Disney World in Florida that July, Murray was even better. He averaged 26.5 points and 6.6 assists per game in the playoffs as the Nuggets fought their way to the Western Conference finals.Doc Rivers, who coached the Los Angeles Clippers at the time, sometimes saw Murray and Malone while getting haircuts on the campus in Florida. The Clippers faced the Nuggets in the conference semifinals and lost despite having a 3-1 series lead.“That’s like a nightmare for me,” Rivers said in April. “He was incredible.”Murray is often overshadowed by his teammate Nikola Jokic, but he has proved how important he is to the Nuggets during this playoff run.Justin Edmonds/Getty ImagesA year later, with the Nuggets seeming like they would challenge for a championship, Murray tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and missed the 2021 playoffs, embarking on a recovery process that can take two full years. That was 26 months ago.“I do think he’s headed back to that direction,” Rivers said in April, referring to Murray’s star turn at Disney World. He added: “He’s starting to do it consistently, and that’s probably what people are waiting for, but it’s going to happen. You can see it coming.”Murray missed the entire 2021-22 season, including the Nuggets’ brief trip to the postseason, where they lost to the Golden State Warriors in the first round. This is his first playoff run since his time at Disney World.On Wednesday, Malone said that Murray had been “dying to get back to this setting, and just go out there and put on the performance that he’s putting on.”He has scored more than 30 points in eight of the Nuggets’ 18 games this postseason. He scored 37 points twice in four games against the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals. He has had 10 assists in each game of the finals.“Jamal, he expects a lot of himself,” Nuggets guard Christian Braun said. He continued, “Those are the performances we expect from him.”Murray had 26 points, 6 rebounds and 10 assists in Game 1. In Game 2, the Heat focused on neutralizing him. They put their best player, the indefatigable Jimmy Butler, on him and often hounded him with double teams. Murray scored 18 points in the game.“I’m not going to tell you how to beat it,” Murray said on Tuesday, referring to the Heat’s plan, “but I’ve got my ways.” He smiled as he thought about it.In the moments after Game 2, Murray had feigned self-conviction. But over the next few days, Malone saw the truth. Murray hadn’t brushed off the loss at all. He had internalized it and blamed himself.In Game 1, Murray’s 26 points helped Denver hold off Miami. The Nuggets have never won an N.B.A. championship.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports Via Reuters Con“I felt like I didn’t bring the intensity that the moment called for,” Murray said. “Even though I didn’t play terrible, I felt like I could have done a lot more. Most people that have watched the Nuggets play, when I have a game like that, I’m most likely going to bounce back.”On Wednesday night, Murray responded with 34 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. He and Jokic became the first pair of N.B.A. teammates in any regular-season or playoff game to have triple-doubles with at least 30 points in the same game. Jokic finished with 32 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists, becoming the first player in N.B.A. history to have at least 30 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in a finals game.“It’s greatness,” Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon said. “That’s the dynamic duo right there.”Murray scored 20 points in the first half, making 8 of 13 shots, including 3 of 5 3-pointers. Murray made a habit of making big shots to stymie Heat runs. Miami trailed by as many as 21 points.“Jamal set the tone for their group, and he was aggressive, assertive,” Heat guard Kyle Lowry said, adding, “It made things a little bit easier for Jokic.”Murray scored less in the second half, but made big plays defensively and off the ball.“Forget the stats for a second — I felt Jamal’s presence, his energy, and he was here in the moment,” Malone said. “And for him and Nikola to do what they did tonight in a game that we needed to take, regain home-court advantage of the series, was special to watch.”Murray delivered in a high-pressure situation. He felt burdened by the way he played in Game 2, but he didn’t shy away from the feeling.“People ask: ‘It’s a big stage. Do you get nervous and stuff?’” Murray said. “You’re supposed to be. That’s what makes you care. That’s what makes you alive. That’s what makes you enjoy these moments.” More

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      Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jokic Led Their Teams to the NBA Finals in Very Different Ways

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      Experts in leadership say the differing styles of Miami’s Jimmy Butler and Denver’s Nikola Jokic show there’s no one right way to be a leader.A few weeks after Caleb Martin joined the Miami Heat, he didn’t yet have much social capital with his teammates. But he had been a backup player for most of his career who knew that it was important to get along with the stars — and Jimmy Butler, a six-time All-Star and the team’s leading scorer, was unquestionably Miami’s biggest.Martin had heard that Butler had an aggressive personality, that he was known to bark at teammates and coaches. But Martin wasn’t thinking about the potential consequences of upsetting Butler during a pickup game on one of those early days. He made a move just as Butler was passing to him, and the ball sailed out of bounds. Martin could tell Butler was frustrated. He marched up to Butler and said, “Anything you got a problem with, come say it to me.”For a split second, Martin wondered if his boldness would irritate Butler. He wasn’t even on a full-time N.B.A. contract yet. But it didn’t.“He didn’t view it as disrespectful or nothing like that,” Martin said. “As much accountability as he puts on other people and holds other people to, he holds himself to it. It’s a two-way street. He allows feedback.”Butler’s reputation for being brash and aggressive is not without merit, and he has called out Martin’s mistakes plenty of times. Butler doesn’t shy away from airing his grievances, yelling in team huddles, at opponents, or sometimes at nothing at all. He’s just as loud with his encouragement.The Heat’s opponent in the N.B.A. finals, the Denver Nuggets, have a different type of leader in Nikola Jokic, who is quieter. He doesn’t make speeches or chastise his teammates, and he rarely shows much emotion during games.Their contrasting styles illustrate ideas that leadership experts have highlighted for decades. The underlying ethos that both players follow seems to matter more than how their leadership manifests.“It’s such a great example of avoiding this sort of static concept of ‘what does it mean to be the best kind of leader?’” said Peter Bregman, an author and executive coach who works with leaders of major corporations. “Because here you have two completely different people who lead in very, very different ways, equally effectively. And so it sort of betrays this concept that there’s a best practice in how to do this.”“I don’t want him to ever apologize for who he is and how he approaches competition,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said about Butler.David Zalubowski/Associated PressProfessional basketball offers a helpful guide to understanding leadership. The best N.B.A. players make split-second decisions in front of thousands of people live and millions more who watch on television. Their actions off the court are scrutinized, and sometimes they are blamed for their teammates’ mistakes. But no matter the results of their decision-making, they must often return to lead the very same people the next day.When Nuggets players are asked about Jokic’s leadership style, they say he leads by example, more than with words.“He’s professional in every aspect of the game,” Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “Just seeing that, seeing it on the court, makes everybody want to play basketball with him and want to play better.”When Butler’s teammates are asked about his leadership, they allude to the edge in his personality, but that edge comes from a passion they can understand. They say he holds people accountable, but their collective goal — to be the best team in the N.B.A. — is clear in Butler’s critiques.He also embraces the responsibility that comes with being the team’s leader.“He’ll do anything for you,” Miami Heat center Cody Zeller said.Some scholars might explain those differences using leadership language focused on tasks versus relationships. Afsaneh Nahavandi, a professor of management at the University of San Diego, sees Butler as a more task-oriented leader and Jokic as a more relationship-oriented leader.“He’s professional in every aspect of the game,” Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said about Jokic.David Zalubowski/Associated Press“Every leader is getting something done, so everybody has a task in mind,” Nahavandi said. “But do you approach it through pushing the task and pushing people? Or do you approach it through let’s just kind of let people develop their own thing and focus to make sure that people are happy?”That leadership framework was examined in the 1960s by the psychologist Fred Fiedler, who studied leadership among high school basketball players. Basketball offered a well-controlled way to understand how a group of people who needed to achieve one task together responded to different leadership styles.Fiedler also found that leaders’ successes are heavily dependent on their environment.Butler’s style hasn’t worked everywhere. When he played for the Minnesota Timberwolves, his teammates didn’t respond well to his demanding nature, and Butler left the team after insisting on a trade.But in Miami, the so-called Heat culture demands excellence, commitment and a thick skin.“My style of leadership works here,” Butler said, making air quotes around “leadership.” He added: “It really is a match made in heaven. I love it here.”Sometimes Butler’s style leads to explosions, like in March 2022, when Butler and Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra screamed at each other during a game and had to be held back by other players. Today, Spoelstra speaks about Butler with reverence.“I don’t want him to ever apologize for who he is and how he approaches competition,” Spoelstra said. “It’s intense. It’s not for everybody, and we’re not for everybody. That’s why we think it’s like an incredible marriage. We never judge him on that. He doesn’t judge us for how crazy we get.”The Nuggets demand excellence, too, but the language they use about one another is often gentler. They like to talk about their collaborative nature.“We have guys that understand that being selfless is a huge part of being a Denver Nugget,” Coach Michael Malone said. He added: “You have to have guys that get along — on the court, off the court — and come together and share in a common goal.”“You have to have guys that get along,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said.Kyle Terada/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConIt hints at a culture where a less confrontational style, like the one Jokic adopts, could work.Jokic’s teammates seem to respond well to that quieter form of leadership, though some have tried to help him tap into a more commanding demeanor at times.DeAndre Jordan, a 15-year veteran, pulled Jokic aside during training camp to encourage him to be more vocal.“At first he was like: ‘Brother, I don’t do that. You have to do it,’” Jordan said.But Jordan and other veterans kept encouraging him. A few months into the season, they saw him start to assert himself more in huddles and offer feedback to his teammates. He doesn’t take it beyond the bounds of what makes him comfortable, though.“We don’t want him to be somebody who he’s not,” Jordan said. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to be that as well.”Though Jokic and Butler use very different styles, they have earned the trust of their teammates.Chris Adkins saw clues to how they developed that trust when he watched some of their interviews. Adkins, the academic director of leadership development at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, saw a manifestation of research that he said has shown that “ability, benevolence and integrity” are three essential components of fostering trust.“Their players seem to buy in, whether it’s a more vocal or more quiet approach, because they know deep down this person has high ability, they’re consistent with great integrity, they practice what they preach, they walk the walk,” Adkins said. “But they’re also committed to us, not just to their own ego.”Jokic is well known as an unselfish player; he averaged 9.8 assists per game this season. He has often said that his basketball ethos came from a coach in Serbia who told him that when you pass you make two people happy, but when you score only one person is happy. He eschews credit when he speaks to reporters and is quick to praise his teammates.Butler grew up outside of Houston and was kicked out of his home as a teenager. After high school, with little interest from major college programs, he spent a year at a junior college in Texas, before going to Marquette. Though Butler makes fewer assists than Jokic, he also plays in an unselfish style, and he instills confidence in his teammates.“My style of leadership works here,” Butler said of Miami.David Zalubowski/Associated PressButler has balked at other Heat players being called “role players,” saying he prefers to simply think of them as teammates. When asked if he was too passive in the Heat’s Game 1 loss, when he scored just 13 points, Butler said he wasn’t and that he planned to keep looking for his teammates throughout the series.It can take Heat newcomers some time to understand how Butler operates.Kyle Lowry joined the Heat in 2021, two years after Butler did. Lowry was a six-time All-Star guard coming from a leadership role in Toronto, which won a championship in 2019. He made clear he loved Butler’s thirst for winning and his devotion to his teammates, but also said his personality is “very different.”“He may say some things or he may do some things that you might be like: ‘Oh. Whoa.’ But it’s coming from the best part of his heart,” Lowry said.How does he know?“We’re around him every single day,” Lowry said, before throwing in a good-natured dig. “Unfortunately. But fortunately.” More

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      Winners Get Their Due. But Losers Are Wonderfully Human.

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      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